Valley Circle Theater

MRY886 on October 7, 2007 at 9:16 pm

I am doing research on the National Theater in Westwood (which is closing this month and faces possible demolition) and found that the architect of that one, Harold W. Levitt, also designed the Fox Valley Circle Theater. I also found of picture of this really interesting theater on a website devoted to Levitt’s work. When are we going to have the photo load feature back? It’s been at least two years.

moviebluedog on January 4, 2007 at 1:27 pm

I’ve only been to this theatre once and went to it by accident. My girlfriend and I decided to see “Dave” in 1993 and it was playing by our hotel. To my surprise, the theatre was very nice. The lobby was clean and the auditorium was huge. I’m estimating there were over 900 seats. I think there might have been a “maximum capacity” sign over the door as we went inside the auditorium and my jaw dropped when I saw the amount of seats. I had no idea how big this theatre was. We came at night and immediately went inside. I figured it was a small theatre.

Projection was clean and the sound wasn’t too bad. If I recall, there were curtains for presentation, but I don’t recall if they were closed before the movie started. The screen itself was pretty big, but I’m not sure how big.

I drove past it the next day on our way back home in Orange County. The Valley Circle was good sized. I think the outer wall was made of some type of flagstone, but I’m not sure off-hand. I have a print out from Motion Picture Herald somewhere in my files with pictures of it and seating numbers. It was equipped for 70mm projection.

Once again another ‘60s movie theatre has met with the wrecking ball. Sad. This was a good one.