Marina Theatre

bruceanthony on January 12, 2005 at 1:00 am

Maybe Frank Lee could also take over the Metro since we all know Regal doesn’t want it.brucec

bruceanthony on August 21, 2004 at 9:45 pm

The Cinema 21 had the exclusive run of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf”,“Rosemary’s Baby” and the reserved seat roadshow attraction of “Hello Dolly” in the 1960’s. The Orpheum was supposed to run “Hello Dolly” but Market Street was torn up due to the construction of the BART subway so this is why the Cinema 21 ended up with its first and last roadshow attraction. The Cinema 21 also had the six month moveover run of “Star Wars” from the Coronet after a legal dispute between United Artists and 20th Century-Fox.United Artist’s Coronet had one of the most successful “Star Wars” run in the country when UA decided to bump it for “Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. The Coronet was still grossing $80,000 a week after 6 months and 20th Century Fox didn’t open another film in a UA house in San Francisco for a number of years.brucec

Tillmany on December 1, 2003 at 5:43 am

The Cinema 21 opened on September 6, 1928 as the Marina Theatre,
with Bebe Daniels in Hot News, a second-run attraction;
it was built by Baron & Nathan;
O'Brien & Peugh were the architects.
In 1952 it was extensively modernized, with little of the
original design or architecture remaining, either inside or out.
For well over thirty five years, it was a popular, well attended
second run neighborhood house, the flagship of the small but
respected Gerald Hardy chain, serving its Marina District patrons,
most of whom lived within walking distance of the theatre.
(Hardy also built and operated El Presidio down the street.)

Unfortunately, In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s a trend began which turned the traditional exhibition picture around, and,
though no doubt often providing a quick profit for many theatre owners, eventually resulted in a severe loss of patronage for the theatres in question, and the Marina was one of these.
Gerald Hardy who was getting along in years, began selling off his
theatres, and Marina fell into the hands of the Syufy chain,
who changed the name to Cinema 21, raised the admission prices,
and instituted a policy of exclusive first run attractions.
This meant that anyone in San Francisco who wished to see a film
playing at Cinema 21 had to travel there to do so;
it would be shown nowhere else in the city.
But there was no parking provided, and so visitors to
the neighborhood circled blocks in search of parking places,
much to the chagrin of the locals, who, in turn, deserted the theatre almost entirely because it now showed the same film for weeks, even months at a time, at uncomfortably higher prices, rather than change weekly as it once did.

The new owners argued that Cinema 21 now served all of SF, not just the Marina District, true enough when a popular film landed there,
but at what ultimate cost? Quite simple. One neighborhood theatre.

Eventually, in order to get key films, which, as years went by,
the film distributors wanted to get shown in as many theatres as
possible, as quickly as possible, the Cinema 21’s days of running
films “exclusively” ended, and it had to share first run titles
with other similarly situated theatres all over San Francisco,
thus diluting its returns, often below the profit line.
Under these circumstances, it is surprising it held on as
long as it did; it finally closed on September 20, 2001,
but as a “neighborhood” theatre, it would be more realistic
to say that its life was over back in 1965 when it ceased being
the Marina and reopened as Cinema 21.