This article is dated 11/24/29 from the LA Times. The Bank of Italy later became Bank of America.
Warners to Build Theater
Huntington Park – Probability that Warner Brothers will erect a theater here was indicated in the purchase this week of two lots on Pacific Boulevard at a price approximating $100,000. The lots which have a combined frontage of 114 feet and depth of 150 feet were owned by James O. Clutter of Los Angeles and George A. Law of San Clemente. It was reported that the purchase was made for the purpose of acquiring a theater site.
The two lots are centrally located on the east side of Pacific Boulevard south of the Chamber of Commerce offices and opposite the Montgomery Ward building. The are also near the site of the proposed Bank of Italy building.
KEYSTONE THEATER
1522 E. 1st Street, near Gless Street
Mutual Program and Pacific Features
Daily Change of Program with a Feature Every Night
Amateurs Monday and Keystone Comedy Thursdays and Saturdays
Admission 5 Cents
Dr. C.H. White, rectal specialist (“I cure piles”) was located at 423 S. Spring in 1913, presumably not in the theater proper, at least one would hope. An earlier ad for a Dr. Melvin Sykes at 423 ½ S. Spring promised cures for “strictures, piles, varicocele and ruptures”. Maybe it was something in their diet. No ads for the theater yet, but I will keep looking.
The Mitchell Brothers, Artie & Jim, will give the San Francisco Larkin Theater six months to fare well as a straight movie house, with foreign classics and short experimental films slated on the bill of fare. Otherwise, the former porno house will “go gay hardcore”.
Here is an excerpt from an LA Times article dated 9/21/75:
The La Mirada Drive-In, which is actually located in the city of Santa Fe Springs, has become what municipal planners proudly call “a multiple land use”. On weekdays it is a Park and Ride facility for the Southern California Rapid Transit District. On weekends, the drive-in is transformed into one of the most successful swap meets in Southern California, the legendary Swap-O-Rama. The La Mirada Drive-In also shows movies.
Here is an excerpt from an LA Times article of 9/21/75. I assume Walnut Park and Huntington Park are interchangeable, unless it was a typo:
Scandalous, said the Walnut Park neighbors of the once palatial Lyric Theater. The old movie house was a public scandal. The source of the outrage was film content. The Lyric had switched from a steady diet of Spencer Tracy films to what homeowners in 1955 sneeringly called ‘girlie films".
The flesh flashed on the Lyric’s screens was accompanied by whispered rumors of raunchy stag films slipped in from Mexico and shown at midnight. Stories of a bookie joint in the same block heightened the area’s unsavory reputation. But that was 20 years ago, before X-rated films had taken on an aura of fashionability.
In those older days, homeowners were incensed about the showing of the so-called skin flicks. Public meetings condemning the theater were held. Outrage was expressed. Protests planned. Lawsuits mulled.
But nothing really happened. And nothing really changed. Today the old Lyric Theater grinds out the likes of “Love, Lust and Violence” and “Tower of Love”, both rated “Super-X”.
In 1919 the Roxy Theater in Whittier was called “the latest word in motion picture circles” and “one of the finest motion picture houses in the Southland”. Vaudeville acts shared the Roxy’s spotlight and stage with flimed silent screen classics.
The price for a night out at the raucous Roxy was high, fifty cents a person. By 1971, the cost of one of the wooden seats had inflated to 65 cents, but even at that price there were no takers. The old theater was deteriorating. The mortar used to hold its brick facade together was crumbling. The neon-lighted marquee blinked if it worked at all. The quality of clientele dropped. Parents didn’t want their children going inside.
On September 29, 1971, the old Roxy burned to the ground. Firemen said the blaze was set deliberately. An arson investigation launched. The old theater became a dirt parking lot.
Excerpt from an article in the LA Times dated 9/21/75:
It was billed as a marriage of culture and cinema a half-century ago when the staid Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Art moved into the same building as the elegant Maywood Fox Egyptian Theater. On the surface, it appeared an unlikely match, but somehow the bizarre blend of Beethoven sonatas and Ben Turpin two-reelers inspired one pompous city official to brand the new theater “a center of culture for all time”.
He was wrong. Today the Fox Maywood, that all-time cultural center, is the Tri-City Gun Shop, Rifle and Pistol Shooting Range. The L.A. Conservatory has vanished.
A story in the LA Times dated 8/2/59 describes a play being put on at this theater by the LaShell Players. The address is given as 5384 Long Beach Blvd, which would correspond with my observation above. So the theater is closed but not demolished.
The article goes on to say that one of the actors put on a one man show at the Oriental Theater, which was torn down to build the LaShell. The article further states that the movie theater closed as a victim of television. The chronology would be movie theater, play house and then retail.
This blurb was in the LA Times, 12/15/44. I couldn’t figure out if the jailbird was Ginger Rogers or Shirley Temple:
Unusual Film Announced for Three Theaters
“I’ll Be Seeing You” will begin extended engagements at Carthay Circle, United Artists and Fox Wilshire Theaters. Starring Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten and Shirley Temple, the picture is a romantic drama of a soldier who is given a Christmas furlough after being released from a long hospitalization. He meets a girl who has been given a similar holiday leave from a woman’s penitentiary for good behavior. Assisting the stars are Spring Byington, Chill Wills and others.
Featured on 9/15/72 – “Teenage Slaves” (world premiere). “Young girls beware – you may become a teenage slave!” Rated X. Free refreshments – Coke, candy & popcorn.
On 9/15/72, the Mayan was advertising “The Vice Girls” plus “Secret Infidelity”, both rated X. The ad also promises free popcorn, which I thought was a nice touch. Other theaters showing the same program (but without the free popcorn, I guess) were the Fine Arts in San Bernardino, the Ritz in Ontario, Savoy in San Diego, Roxy in Long Beach and Wilshire in Fullerton.
Here is a 24 page preview of a dissertation on the Uptown and other KC theaters;
http://tinyurl.com/2kokmq
This article is dated 11/24/29 from the LA Times. The Bank of Italy later became Bank of America.
Warners to Build Theater
Huntington Park – Probability that Warner Brothers will erect a theater here was indicated in the purchase this week of two lots on Pacific Boulevard at a price approximating $100,000. The lots which have a combined frontage of 114 feet and depth of 150 feet were owned by James O. Clutter of Los Angeles and George A. Law of San Clemente. It was reported that the purchase was made for the purpose of acquiring a theater site.
The two lots are centrally located on the east side of Pacific Boulevard south of the Chamber of Commerce offices and opposite the Montgomery Ward building. The are also near the site of the proposed Bank of Italy building.
Advertisement in the LA Times, 3/27/14:
KEYSTONE THEATER
1522 E. 1st Street, near Gless Street
Mutual Program and Pacific Features
Daily Change of Program with a Feature Every Night
Amateurs Monday and Keystone Comedy Thursdays and Saturdays
Admission 5 Cents
A Royal Theater at 18th & Main was advertised in the LA Times on 3/27/14. Unknown if this is the Victor or an adjacent theater.
Dr. C.H. White, rectal specialist (“I cure piles”) was located at 423 S. Spring in 1913, presumably not in the theater proper, at least one would hope. An earlier ad for a Dr. Melvin Sykes at 423 ½ S. Spring promised cures for “strictures, piles, varicocele and ruptures”. Maybe it was something in their diet. No ads for the theater yet, but I will keep looking.
Blurb in the LA Times, dated 3/3/78:
The Mitchell Brothers, Artie & Jim, will give the San Francisco Larkin Theater six months to fare well as a straight movie house, with foreign classics and short experimental films slated on the bill of fare. Otherwise, the former porno house will “go gay hardcore”.
Here is an excerpt from an LA Times article dated 9/21/75:
The La Mirada Drive-In, which is actually located in the city of Santa Fe Springs, has become what municipal planners proudly call “a multiple land use”. On weekdays it is a Park and Ride facility for the Southern California Rapid Transit District. On weekends, the drive-in is transformed into one of the most successful swap meets in Southern California, the legendary Swap-O-Rama. The La Mirada Drive-In also shows movies.
Here is a photo of the entrance and marquee from the “Our La Mirada” website:
http://tinyurl.com/2ynfqf
Here is an excerpt from an LA Times article of 9/21/75. I assume Walnut Park and Huntington Park are interchangeable, unless it was a typo:
Scandalous, said the Walnut Park neighbors of the once palatial Lyric Theater. The old movie house was a public scandal. The source of the outrage was film content. The Lyric had switched from a steady diet of Spencer Tracy films to what homeowners in 1955 sneeringly called ‘girlie films".
The flesh flashed on the Lyric’s screens was accompanied by whispered rumors of raunchy stag films slipped in from Mexico and shown at midnight. Stories of a bookie joint in the same block heightened the area’s unsavory reputation. But that was 20 years ago, before X-rated films had taken on an aura of fashionability.
In those older days, homeowners were incensed about the showing of the so-called skin flicks. Public meetings condemning the theater were held. Outrage was expressed. Protests planned. Lawsuits mulled.
But nothing really happened. And nothing really changed. Today the old Lyric Theater grinds out the likes of “Love, Lust and Violence” and “Tower of Love”, both rated “Super-X”.
And there hasn’t been a protest in years.
Excerpt from an LA Times article on 9/21/75:
In 1919 the Roxy Theater in Whittier was called “the latest word in motion picture circles” and “one of the finest motion picture houses in the Southland”. Vaudeville acts shared the Roxy’s spotlight and stage with flimed silent screen classics.
The price for a night out at the raucous Roxy was high, fifty cents a person. By 1971, the cost of one of the wooden seats had inflated to 65 cents, but even at that price there were no takers. The old theater was deteriorating. The mortar used to hold its brick facade together was crumbling. The neon-lighted marquee blinked if it worked at all. The quality of clientele dropped. Parents didn’t want their children going inside.
On September 29, 1971, the old Roxy burned to the ground. Firemen said the blaze was set deliberately. An arson investigation launched. The old theater became a dirt parking lot.
Excerpt from an article in the LA Times dated 9/21/75:
It was billed as a marriage of culture and cinema a half-century ago when the staid Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Art moved into the same building as the elegant Maywood Fox Egyptian Theater. On the surface, it appeared an unlikely match, but somehow the bizarre blend of Beethoven sonatas and Ben Turpin two-reelers inspired one pompous city official to brand the new theater “a center of culture for all time”.
He was wrong. Today the Fox Maywood, that all-time cultural center, is the Tri-City Gun Shop, Rifle and Pistol Shooting Range. The L.A. Conservatory has vanished.
A story in the LA Times dated 8/2/59 describes a play being put on at this theater by the LaShell Players. The address is given as 5384 Long Beach Blvd, which would correspond with my observation above. So the theater is closed but not demolished.
The article goes on to say that one of the actors put on a one man show at the Oriental Theater, which was torn down to build the LaShell. The article further states that the movie theater closed as a victim of television. The chronology would be movie theater, play house and then retail.
This blurb was in the LA Times, 12/15/44. I couldn’t figure out if the jailbird was Ginger Rogers or Shirley Temple:
Unusual Film Announced for Three Theaters
“I’ll Be Seeing You” will begin extended engagements at Carthay Circle, United Artists and Fox Wilshire Theaters. Starring Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten and Shirley Temple, the picture is a romantic drama of a soldier who is given a Christmas furlough after being released from a long hospitalization. He meets a girl who has been given a similar holiday leave from a woman’s penitentiary for good behavior. Assisting the stars are Spring Byington, Chill Wills and others.
Except for the enormous parking lot across the street (see Hippodrome).
Advertised as the Left Bank Theater at 7734 Santa Monica in July 1969, per the LA Times. Featured were “Split-Level Lovers” and “Male Call”.
Advertised in the LA Times on 7/16/69 – “Twilight Girls” and “Hot Skin”.
An ad in the LA Times in July 1969 puts the theater at 8816 ½ Sunset – “Skin-Beautiful and Graphic”.
It was open in July 1969, according to the LA Times.
Open only on weekends in the late sixties, per the LA Times.
Featured on 7/16/69 – “Peter Pan” and “Alaskan Eskimo”. Phone number was 943-8312. Address was 10125 Whitwood.
Advertised at 4762 Whittier Boulevard in the LA Times on 7/16/69. Featured films were “All Male-All Gay-All Color, continuous from 10 a.m.”
There was an adult film theater down the street in the late sixties – Cluny’s, 604 S. Alvarado, “torrid girlie films-for men only”.
Featured on 9/15/72 – “Teenage Slaves” (world premiere). “Young girls beware – you may become a teenage slave!” Rated X. Free refreshments – Coke, candy & popcorn.
Here is an ad in the LA Times dated 9/15/72:
Cinematheque 16 – Adult Movie Theater
8816 Sunset – 1 Block east of Larrabee on the Strip
Intimate Erotic Action – Double Features
Show in our large, comfortable theater
Continuous 10 am to 2 am, Friday & Saturday till 4 am
Complete new show every Friday
On 9/15/72, the Mayan was advertising “The Vice Girls” plus “Secret Infidelity”, both rated X. The ad also promises free popcorn, which I thought was a nice touch. Other theaters showing the same program (but without the free popcorn, I guess) were the Fine Arts in San Bernardino, the Ritz in Ontario, Savoy in San Diego, Roxy in Long Beach and Wilshire in Fullerton.