Banner Theatre
458 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
458 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
4 people
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Showing 26 - 37 of 37 comments
It took a while, but now we have a picture of the Banner, circa 1965:
http://tinyurl.com/2gvqa7
There’s also a drive-in in the film – sadly, the shot is never wide enough to get signage or to see the street, but I think it might just be the Olympic. If anyone recognizes it, I’d love to know.
There is a DVD released this week of a film called Too Soon To Love – there is a scene of the two young leads walking past the Banner Theater – I’d never heard of it, but it has to be the one on Main St. since that’s the only Banner Theater listed anywhere in LA and environs. So, if you’d like a glimpse of its marquee fully lit and the rest of the street, check it out.
This is a 1973 photo. The Banner would have been the building immediately to the right of the small white hotel sign, heading south on Main:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics09/00014126.jpg
Here is the location today:
http://tinyurl.com/vlpbs
I think the Banner Theater played leap frog. It sounds as though 456 South Main was the final address.
(Jul 18, 1918)
Launching a vigorous campaign to eliminate indecent motion pictures from Los Angeles theaters, representatives of the City Prosecutor’s office last night stopped the exhibition of ‘Purity’ a seven-reel film at the Banner Theater, No. 446 South Main street, seized the film, locked it up as evidence at Central Police Station and cited the manager of the theater to appear in court this morning on a charge of showing a lewd and indecent picture.
(Dec. 6, 1922)
Investigation into the mysterious fire at the Banner Theater, 452 South Main street, yesterday afternoon, where a panic among the men, women and children in the show was narrowly averted, was started last night by the police arson squad.
(Dec. 19, 1922)
When Mrs. Julia A. Campbell sued Robert M. Campbell, owner of the Banner Theater, for divorce she named Agnes Rolfus as correspondent. Moreover, she asked for and accounting of the profits of the Banner Theater, 456 South Main street, and the appointment of a receiver.
(Sep. 2, 1923)
Banner Theater, 456 S. Main Street
Sept. 2-5—Douglas Fairbanks In “He Comes Up Smiling.”
(Oct 10, 1925)
Following what police term to be a most novel method of picketing, William Dermondy, 27 years of age, living at the Davis Hotel, was arrested last night by Officer hynes of the police intelligence division in front of the Banner Theater, 456 South Main street, and lodged in City Jail.
(Jan 1, 1937)
Harry E. Ransome, who opertated the Banner Theater at Fifth and Main streets up to 1913, asserted that Los Angeles had grown so that if he had been dropped somewhere without anybody to show him around that he would have become lost.
(March 27, 1955)
Workmen uncovered the relic when a new front was constructed on the Banner Building in 1952. The machine (1 ½ ton music box organ) was in sad condition. Rats had made a home in it, hundreds of feet of rubber tubing had disintegrated, moths had eaten the felt, and the electric motor, colored lights and other parts had vanished.
does anyone know what happeneed to the Pussy Cat theaters iNn Souther California??? They seem to have all disappeared
Tony
The current status of the Banner Theater needs to changed to Closed/Demolished. The land is currently used as a parking lot.
I first saw the Admiral sometime soon after 1960, but I can’t recall if it was north of the Regent. It seems, in my hazy memory, to have been farther south. It was a grind house, and I don’t think it was included in the newspaper theater listings. I don’t remember ever seeing a theater called the Main.
I still can’t picture the Banner, at all, so I’m thinking that it might have been one of those theaters like the Optic and the Art, which had no marquee to speak of. I do remember the Admiral having a marquee of about the same size as that of the Regent. If I saw a photograph of the Banner, it would probably jog my memory.
Joe;
There is a listing for a Main Theater, 438 S. Main St on CinemaTour.com which could have been the Admiral, aka Rector’s Admiral you mention. I have no record of an Admiral in my listings 1941, 1950, 1952, apart from the Admiral (later Vine) on Hollywood Blvd.
If the Main was at #438, the Regent at # 448 and the Banner at #458, that is 3 theaters on the 400 block (E side of S. Main St).
The Banner Theater has that name through the 1940’s, ‘50’s and as a porn cinema in the 1970’s.
I was on S. Main taking photo’s of the Regent Theater a few years ago when it was operating as a Spanish language ‘straight’ porn cinema. A black street guy saw me and hollered across the street ‘Hey! You mother fu…. white honky, wot u taking pictures of me for’! I made a swift exit as he started to cross the street towards me, but got the photos of the Regent ok.
Was this theater still called by this name in the 1960s? It would have been right down the block form the Regent, the only Main Street theatre I ever attended, but I have no memory of the Banner. I do remember that there was a theatre called the Admiral, AKA Rector’s Admiral, on the east side of Main somewhere between the Regent and the Burbank. Could the Banner and the Admiral have been the same theatre? I was less familiar with Main Street than with the streets farther west, as Main Street was already pretty gritty, even in those days. There might have been a second theatre on that stretch of the street, but I can’t bring the image of it to mind.
Initially a silent theatre, it was in business at least since 1935. The Los Angeles Times listed it in 1973 as showing gay male porn as well.