This location is in Rancho Cordova. The address Lost Memory posted is correct.
The theater was scheduled for a fall, 1965, opening, according to an item in the May 31, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The name had not yet been chosen. The drive-in was being built by National General Corporation, and was slated to accommodate 1,182 cars. The architect was Gale Santocono, of San Francisco.
A later article in Boxoffice, December 25, 1961, revealed that the Fine Arts Theatre Corporation was operated by Herb Rosener. Rosener was for many years one of the leading exhibitors and distributors of foreign films in the U.S. He operated at least a dozen art houses in major west coast cities, as well as in Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Cleveland.
“New Indoor Theatre for San Francisco” was the headline of a brief item about this theater in the September 18, 1961, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was to be built for the San Francisco Fine Arts Theatre Corporation, and was intended as a moveover house. The architect was San Francisco theater designer Gale Santocono.
The April 25, 1960, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item saying that the Concord Auto Movies was expected to open sometime around July 1. The theater was designed by San Francisco architect Gale Santocono.
An architect’s rendering of the proposed Andorra Theatre was published with a brief article about the house in the April 6, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was slated for a summer opening that year. Architects were the firm of Supowitz & Demchick (David Supowitz, Israel Demchick.) In its original, single-screen configuration, there were 1000 seats.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine credits the design of this drive-in to both William Glenn Balch and Clifford Balch, as does the June 13, 1947, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor. The same issue of SwB&C also credits them as partners in the design of a proposed drive-in at South El Monte, but their plans were not carried out, and that theater, the Starlite, was eventually designed by J. Arthur Drielsma.
The Boxoffice item also credits the brothers with the design of the Lakewood Drive-In. See my comment of today on the Lakewood Drive-In page for a bit more information about the Balch brothers.
Google Maps thinks W. Carson Street is E. Carson St., and thus the map link for this theater shows a location west of the river. The site was actually at the corner of Carson and Cherry, way east of the river. However, if you change the city to Lakewood, Google Maps finds the right intersection. You can get the same correction by changing the zip code to 90712.
According to an item in the November 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, this drive-in was designed by Clifford and William Glenn Balch, for Pacific Theatres. The item also said that the brothers designed another drive-in for Pacific at the same time, to be built at Roscoe and Sepulveda in the San Fernando Valley.
Clifford Balch (born 1880) would have been about 77 years old at the time these theaters were designed, while his far younger brother William (born 1901) was, at the time, in a business partnership with architect Louis L. Bryan (Balch & Bryan), formed in 1946. I don’t know exactly what the professional relationship between the brothers was at the time, but a few items from about 1947 also appeared in Southwest Builder & Contractor linking them as designers of various drive-ins, and at least one hardtop.
OK, Boxoffice does it again. Their November 12, 1949, issue carries another article about this theater, on the occasion of its opening. Jim Banducci is still the owner, but the architect is now William Glenn Balch rather than his brother, Clifford. Seating capacity is given as 874,and the name of the house is simply Rancho Theatre. The article also says that Banducci was the owner of the Arvin Theatre in Arvin.
Here it gets odder. I checked the California Index and found that Clifford Balch designed the Arvin Theatre, according to Southwest Builder & Contractor of April 23, 1937. Then, the July 21, 1939 issue of SwB&C says that the Arvin Theatre had been destroyed by fire. Then, on August 11 that year, SwB&C published what the California Index card refers to as “plans for the Arvin Theatre, Arvin.” Apparently they re-hired the guy who had designed the place that went up in flames.
So, the architect of the Rancho (or El Rancho) Theatre was either William Glenn or Clifford Balch, and it opened in 1949. And the Arvin Theatre, apparently desgned twice by Clifford Balch, is missing from the CT database.
I think the name of this house must have been called the El Rancho. Here’s a blog post by a guy who grew up in the area and used to go to the theater in the 1950s. He calls it the El Rancho.
It’s possible that Clifford Balch designed this theater. Boxoffice Magazine of November 27, 1948, has an item saying that Clifford Balch was preparing plans for a theater in Arvin, for James Banducci. The item mentions a theater called the Arvin already existing. (One comment on the blog post above is from a user who says he has a photo of the Arvin Theatre in 1937.) Without more information, I can’t be sure the El Rancho was a new house built about 1949, or just the Arvin Theatre renamed.
The July 24, 1954, issue of Boxoffice Magazine carried an article about Hugh Bruen’s Sundown Drive-In, then under construction. It identified the designers as Balch, Bryan, Perkins, and Hutchason. William Glenn Balch was the lead architect of this firm. This was one of the first Southern California drive-ins equipped to show wide-screen movies from the day it opened.
The sometimes infuriating Boxoffice Magazine published two articles with conflicting stories about this theater. On June 12, 1961, an article said that the new Fox would occupy the former Rialto Theatre building, which had not been used as a theater “…for more than thirty years.” If that’s true, then the Rialto didn’t last very long. The article also says that “The previous Fox Theatre was a downtown showplace destroyed by fire last April.”
Then the August 14, 1961, issue of Boxoffice said that the Fox Theatre, opened the previous month, had been built on the site of the Rialto, which had been destroyed by fire. I don’t know which article is accurate- assuming that either of them is accurate.
The August article goes on to say that the new Fox was “…designed by Mel Glatz, Fox construction engineer, assisted by Les Newkirk, city manager of Fox Theatres here.” Apparently Mel Glatz later left Fox and set up on his own. In a couple of later issues of Boxoffice, I’ve run across references to him as a “theatre consultant” credited with other theater designs.
Anyway, if the first Boxoffice article is true, then there was an earlier Fox Theatre in Boulder that is missing from the Cinema Treasures database. If the second article is true, then the current Fox Theatre was newly built in 1961, and the Rialto Theatre was a different house that should have its own Cinema Treasures page.
I’ve also come across references to other old theaters in Boulder that are missing from Cinema Treasures, but can’t find addresses for any of them. There was an Isis Theatre, opened about 1929, remodeled in 1949. A 650 seat Varsity Theatre was opened by Fox Intermountain in 1941, then closed for nine years beginning about 1961, and then was remodeled and reopened as the Boulder Art Cinema in 1970. A Flatirons Theatre was opened in 1950 or 1951, and was still operating under that name in the mid-1970s.
A Motorena Drive-In was open as early as 1951. In 1967, an 800 seat house called the Village 70 opened in the Arapahoe Village Shopping Center. Three auditoriums, with 400 seats each, were added to it in 1977. Also in the 1970s, Highland Theatres was operating a theater called the Holiday Twin, which may have been a single-screener when they bought it in 1966.
In addition, I came across one reference to a United Artists Regency Theatre, a downtown house which was taken over by an independent operator in 1968. I wonder if either the burned Fox or the UA Regency was the Isis Theatre, renamed?
When, back on January 2 of this year, Warren G. Harris wondered about who might have actually designed this multiplex, the answer was already available in my comment from May 2, 2006. That’s the problem with long threads. Stuff gets lost. Anyway, to repeat, it was Gould Evans Associates (called Gould Evans Goodman at the time they did this project.)
I see that the “firm” listing at the top of the page now names Beyer Blinder Belle Architects as the designers of the multiplex, and that firm is mentioned in the intro section of the page as well. But the New York Times article to which AlAlvarez was probably referring in his reply to Warren only says that Beyer Blinder Belle “…designed the 42nd Street project.” Indeed on BBB’s web site, they do lay claim to the Hilton Times Square project, of which the AMC Empire is a part, but nowhere on their site do they claim to have designed the multiplex itself.
That honor (or disgrace, to judge from some of the more irate comments above) belongs to Gould Evans Associates, which does include the AMC Empire among their projects, as featured on their web site (you have to click on “Architecture” then “Portfolio” in the left columns, then “entertainment centers” at page center, then “AMC theatres, national and international locations” to reach a photo- or perhaps three photos- I’ve never seen the place and don’t know if the two interior shots depict this theater or other AMC locations- of the AMC Empire. Why do architecture firms have such Byzantine web sites?)
Presumably, AMC insisted on Gould Evans, with whom they already had an established relationship, to design the multiplex itself, while Beyer Blinder Belle probably took care of the actual restoration work on what was left of the historic Empire Theatre. BBB does specialize in restoration and renovation. In fact, they did the renovation of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, and should probably be credited with that project on the Apollo’s Cinema Treasures Page.
BBB also designed the Hilton Theatre (Ford Center) on 42nd Street, built inside the shells of the old Lyric Theatre and the neighboring Apollo Theatre, using bits and pieces of their interiors for the decoration of the new house.
Oh, and there is one other source for the information that Gould Evans Associates was involved in the AMC Empire’s development. The firm is among sources of information about the project listed on page 109 of an obscure book called “Cinema Treasures”, published in 2004, and written by Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs (whoever they are.) I don’t suppose anybody here has read it?
The original Hastings Theatre was designed by South Pasadena architect Roland Decker Pierson. Pierson had earlier designed at least two other big, single-screen theaters for the Sterling Organization, these being the Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance, and the Montclair Theatre in Montclair.
The Hastings was the subject of an article in the March 25, 1968, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, describing the unusual features of its design, including its continental seating arrangement and reverse auditorium. The seating capacity was given as 1,542.
Two more theaters that can be attributed to Roland Decker Pierson are the Edwards Huntington in Huntington Beach, and the Azusa Drive-In in Azusa.
The architect of this theatre was Roland Decker Pierson. Sterling’s Rolling Hills was one of several theaters featured in an article on theater concession stands published in the October 19, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The November 30, 1970, issue of Boxoffice had an item saying that Sterling had again hired Pierson, this time to design a two-screen addition to the Rolling Hills Theatre. Each of the new auditoriums would seat 500, and would have been stacked one above the other. This would have been the first such theater in the Los Angeles area had the plans been carried out.
After designing the Rolling Hills Theatre, Pierson also designed at least two other theaters for Sterling: The Montclair, in the city of the same name, and the Hastings in Pasadena.
Boxoffice Magazine ran an item about a proposed theater in Montclair in its issue of August 15, 1966. The Montclair Theatre was to be built by Sterling Theatres (later called SRO Theatres), and was designed by Roland Decker Pierson, the South Pasadena architect who had designed Sterling’s Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance. The item was illustrated with an architect’s rendering of the exterior.
Later issues of Boxoffice, published after the house opened, mention that Pierson designed the Montclair Theatre.
The April 6, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item on this theater, with an architect’s rendering which closely resembled the final design. At the time, the proposed name of the house was the Beach Theatre. The architect was Roland Decker Pierson. The cost of the building was projected to be $742,000, and seating for 1055 patrons was planned.
The theater was the second house built for United Cinema Corporation, a company founded and controlled by James Edwards, but which was separate from the Edwards Theatre Circuit, of which he was also still the president, and which still had its headquarters in San Gabriel.
Items in various issue of Boxoffice Magazine from 1955 indicate that the Edwards San Gabriel Drive-In opened early that year. The architect of the 1100 car theater was J. Arthur Drielsma. The project included a 2,400 square foot building at the base of the screen tower, on the street side, which was designed as an office for the Edwards Theatre Circuit, and the company’s headquarters remained there from 1955 until it was moved to Orange County in the 1970s.
The February 4, 1956, issue of Boxoffice featured a photo of the Edwards San Gabriel Drive-In, about a year after it had opened.
Though Edwards opened the theater in partnership with Pacific Drive-Ins, and for many years it appeared in the Pacific Drive-Ins listings in the Los Angeles Times, by the mid-1980s it was being listed in the Edwards Cinemas section, along with the Edwards Drive-In and the Azusa Drive-In.
To expand on my comment just above, the May 20, 1950, issue of Boxoffice says that the architect for the conversion of the Masque into the Vagabond was Dwight Gibbs. In addition, the item says that Herb Rosener also owned five theaters in San Francisco and one in Portland, but it doesn’t name them.
An item in the May 27, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine provides some information about this theater. It became a film house, and was renamed the Vagabond, in 1950. Before that, it had been a legitimate house called the Masque Theatre. After being enlarged and completely remodeled, it became the fifth art house in a small, local chain operated by Herb Rosener. The other theaters in the chain were the Laurel, Esquire, Studio, and Sunset Theatres.
The October 8, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine noted that the Big Sky Drive-In had opened recently. It was designed by architect J. Arthur Drielsma. The May 7 issue of the same magazine had said that theater was being built by, and would be operated by, a partnership called Big Sky Corporation.
A brief item in the December 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that Lou Berman had disposed of his interests in the Big Sky Drive-In to Jack Drumm and a group of associates.
Though the Edwards Theatre Circuit did once operate several drive-ins in the San Gabriel Valley (usually in partnership with Pacific Drive-Ins), I don’t recall the Big Sky being among them. My memory of the listings so long ago is pretty dim, though. I do know that the Big Sky was listed in the Times with the Pacific Drive-Ins by 1971.
The actual opening of the Lancaster Drive-In was in 1950. It was one of five drive-ins opened in Southern California by the middle of that year that were designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma. It opened as a single screen theater with a capacity of 650 cars. The owners were James Anderson and F. Scott. All this information comes from an article in the march 16, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
Originally built for the Edwards Theatre Circuit, the Sunland Drive-In was among five drive-ins opened around Southern California in 1950 that were designed by Los Angeles Architect J. Arthur Drielsma. These were mentioned in an article in the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article gave the capacity of the Sunland Drive-In as 650 cars.
The Magnolia Drive-In was one of at least five Southern California drive-ins opened in 1950 that had been designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma, according to an article in the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The original owners of the Magnolia were Frank Berrson and Walter Dennis. It was to have a capacity of 475 cars, according to the Boxoffice article.
Although Southwest Builder and Contractor announced in the issue of June 13, 1947, that Clifford and William Balch were preparing the plans for this theater, it appears that the owners decided to go with another architect. The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Starlite was scheduled for a May opening, and that it had been designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma. The magazine said that the theater could accomodate 850 cars. The original owners and operators of the Starlite were Ford Bratcher, his brother Carl Bratcher, and Byron Congdon.
I wouldn’t call the style Art Deco. If anything, it was Art Moderne, with early Googie overtones.
This location is in Rancho Cordova. The address Lost Memory posted is correct.
The theater was scheduled for a fall, 1965, opening, according to an item in the May 31, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The name had not yet been chosen. The drive-in was being built by National General Corporation, and was slated to accommodate 1,182 cars. The architect was Gale Santocono, of San Francisco.
A later article in Boxoffice, December 25, 1961, revealed that the Fine Arts Theatre Corporation was operated by Herb Rosener. Rosener was for many years one of the leading exhibitors and distributors of foreign films in the U.S. He operated at least a dozen art houses in major west coast cities, as well as in Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Cleveland.
“New Indoor Theatre for San Francisco” was the headline of a brief item about this theater in the September 18, 1961, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was to be built for the San Francisco Fine Arts Theatre Corporation, and was intended as a moveover house. The architect was San Francisco theater designer Gale Santocono.
The April 25, 1960, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item saying that the Concord Auto Movies was expected to open sometime around July 1. The theater was designed by San Francisco architect Gale Santocono.
An architect’s rendering of the proposed Andorra Theatre was published with a brief article about the house in the April 6, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was slated for a summer opening that year. Architects were the firm of Supowitz & Demchick (David Supowitz, Israel Demchick.) In its original, single-screen configuration, there were 1000 seats.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine credits the design of this drive-in to both William Glenn Balch and Clifford Balch, as does the June 13, 1947, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor. The same issue of SwB&C also credits them as partners in the design of a proposed drive-in at South El Monte, but their plans were not carried out, and that theater, the Starlite, was eventually designed by J. Arthur Drielsma.
The Boxoffice item also credits the brothers with the design of the Lakewood Drive-In. See my comment of today on the Lakewood Drive-In page for a bit more information about the Balch brothers.
Google Maps thinks W. Carson Street is E. Carson St., and thus the map link for this theater shows a location west of the river. The site was actually at the corner of Carson and Cherry, way east of the river. However, if you change the city to Lakewood, Google Maps finds the right intersection. You can get the same correction by changing the zip code to 90712.
According to an item in the November 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, this drive-in was designed by Clifford and William Glenn Balch, for Pacific Theatres. The item also said that the brothers designed another drive-in for Pacific at the same time, to be built at Roscoe and Sepulveda in the San Fernando Valley.
Clifford Balch (born 1880) would have been about 77 years old at the time these theaters were designed, while his far younger brother William (born 1901) was, at the time, in a business partnership with architect Louis L. Bryan (Balch & Bryan), formed in 1946. I don’t know exactly what the professional relationship between the brothers was at the time, but a few items from about 1947 also appeared in Southwest Builder & Contractor linking them as designers of various drive-ins, and at least one hardtop.
OK, Boxoffice does it again. Their November 12, 1949, issue carries another article about this theater, on the occasion of its opening. Jim Banducci is still the owner, but the architect is now William Glenn Balch rather than his brother, Clifford. Seating capacity is given as 874,and the name of the house is simply Rancho Theatre. The article also says that Banducci was the owner of the Arvin Theatre in Arvin.
Here it gets odder. I checked the California Index and found that Clifford Balch designed the Arvin Theatre, according to Southwest Builder & Contractor of April 23, 1937. Then, the July 21, 1939 issue of SwB&C says that the Arvin Theatre had been destroyed by fire. Then, on August 11 that year, SwB&C published what the California Index card refers to as “plans for the Arvin Theatre, Arvin.” Apparently they re-hired the guy who had designed the place that went up in flames.
So, the architect of the Rancho (or El Rancho) Theatre was either William Glenn or Clifford Balch, and it opened in 1949. And the Arvin Theatre, apparently desgned twice by Clifford Balch, is missing from the CT database.
I think the name of this house must have been called the El Rancho. Here’s a blog post by a guy who grew up in the area and used to go to the theater in the 1950s. He calls it the El Rancho.
It’s possible that Clifford Balch designed this theater. Boxoffice Magazine of November 27, 1948, has an item saying that Clifford Balch was preparing plans for a theater in Arvin, for James Banducci. The item mentions a theater called the Arvin already existing. (One comment on the blog post above is from a user who says he has a photo of the Arvin Theatre in 1937.) Without more information, I can’t be sure the El Rancho was a new house built about 1949, or just the Arvin Theatre renamed.
The July 24, 1954, issue of Boxoffice Magazine carried an article about Hugh Bruen’s Sundown Drive-In, then under construction. It identified the designers as Balch, Bryan, Perkins, and Hutchason. William Glenn Balch was the lead architect of this firm. This was one of the first Southern California drive-ins equipped to show wide-screen movies from the day it opened.
The sometimes infuriating Boxoffice Magazine published two articles with conflicting stories about this theater. On June 12, 1961, an article said that the new Fox would occupy the former Rialto Theatre building, which had not been used as a theater “…for more than thirty years.” If that’s true, then the Rialto didn’t last very long. The article also says that “The previous Fox Theatre was a downtown showplace destroyed by fire last April.”
Then the August 14, 1961, issue of Boxoffice said that the Fox Theatre, opened the previous month, had been built on the site of the Rialto, which had been destroyed by fire. I don’t know which article is accurate- assuming that either of them is accurate.
The August article goes on to say that the new Fox was “…designed by Mel Glatz, Fox construction engineer, assisted by Les Newkirk, city manager of Fox Theatres here.” Apparently Mel Glatz later left Fox and set up on his own. In a couple of later issues of Boxoffice, I’ve run across references to him as a “theatre consultant” credited with other theater designs.
Anyway, if the first Boxoffice article is true, then there was an earlier Fox Theatre in Boulder that is missing from the Cinema Treasures database. If the second article is true, then the current Fox Theatre was newly built in 1961, and the Rialto Theatre was a different house that should have its own Cinema Treasures page.
I’ve also come across references to other old theaters in Boulder that are missing from Cinema Treasures, but can’t find addresses for any of them. There was an Isis Theatre, opened about 1929, remodeled in 1949. A 650 seat Varsity Theatre was opened by Fox Intermountain in 1941, then closed for nine years beginning about 1961, and then was remodeled and reopened as the Boulder Art Cinema in 1970. A Flatirons Theatre was opened in 1950 or 1951, and was still operating under that name in the mid-1970s.
A Motorena Drive-In was open as early as 1951. In 1967, an 800 seat house called the Village 70 opened in the Arapahoe Village Shopping Center. Three auditoriums, with 400 seats each, were added to it in 1977. Also in the 1970s, Highland Theatres was operating a theater called the Holiday Twin, which may have been a single-screener when they bought it in 1966.
In addition, I came across one reference to a United Artists Regency Theatre, a downtown house which was taken over by an independent operator in 1968. I wonder if either the burned Fox or the UA Regency was the Isis Theatre, renamed?
When, back on January 2 of this year, Warren G. Harris wondered about who might have actually designed this multiplex, the answer was already available in my comment from May 2, 2006. That’s the problem with long threads. Stuff gets lost. Anyway, to repeat, it was Gould Evans Associates (called Gould Evans Goodman at the time they did this project.)
I see that the “firm” listing at the top of the page now names Beyer Blinder Belle Architects as the designers of the multiplex, and that firm is mentioned in the intro section of the page as well. But the New York Times article to which AlAlvarez was probably referring in his reply to Warren only says that Beyer Blinder Belle “…designed the 42nd Street project.” Indeed on BBB’s web site, they do lay claim to the Hilton Times Square project, of which the AMC Empire is a part, but nowhere on their site do they claim to have designed the multiplex itself.
That honor (or disgrace, to judge from some of the more irate comments above) belongs to Gould Evans Associates, which does include the AMC Empire among their projects, as featured on their web site (you have to click on “Architecture” then “Portfolio” in the left columns, then “entertainment centers” at page center, then “AMC theatres, national and international locations” to reach a photo- or perhaps three photos- I’ve never seen the place and don’t know if the two interior shots depict this theater or other AMC locations- of the AMC Empire. Why do architecture firms have such Byzantine web sites?)
Presumably, AMC insisted on Gould Evans, with whom they already had an established relationship, to design the multiplex itself, while Beyer Blinder Belle probably took care of the actual restoration work on what was left of the historic Empire Theatre. BBB does specialize in restoration and renovation. In fact, they did the renovation of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, and should probably be credited with that project on the Apollo’s Cinema Treasures Page.
BBB also designed the Hilton Theatre (Ford Center) on 42nd Street, built inside the shells of the old Lyric Theatre and the neighboring Apollo Theatre, using bits and pieces of their interiors for the decoration of the new house.
Oh, and there is one other source for the information that Gould Evans Associates was involved in the AMC Empire’s development. The firm is among sources of information about the project listed on page 109 of an obscure book called “Cinema Treasures”, published in 2004, and written by Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs (whoever they are.) I don’t suppose anybody here has read it?
The closing of the Empire Theatre was noted in an item in the July 23, 1955, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The original Hastings Theatre was designed by South Pasadena architect Roland Decker Pierson. Pierson had earlier designed at least two other big, single-screen theaters for the Sterling Organization, these being the Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance, and the Montclair Theatre in Montclair.
The Hastings was the subject of an article in the March 25, 1968, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, describing the unusual features of its design, including its continental seating arrangement and reverse auditorium. The seating capacity was given as 1,542.
Two more theaters that can be attributed to Roland Decker Pierson are the Edwards Huntington in Huntington Beach, and the Azusa Drive-In in Azusa.
The architect of this theatre was Roland Decker Pierson. Sterling’s Rolling Hills was one of several theaters featured in an article on theater concession stands published in the October 19, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The November 30, 1970, issue of Boxoffice had an item saying that Sterling had again hired Pierson, this time to design a two-screen addition to the Rolling Hills Theatre. Each of the new auditoriums would seat 500, and would have been stacked one above the other. This would have been the first such theater in the Los Angeles area had the plans been carried out.
After designing the Rolling Hills Theatre, Pierson also designed at least two other theaters for Sterling: The Montclair, in the city of the same name, and the Hastings in Pasadena.
Boxoffice Magazine ran an item about a proposed theater in Montclair in its issue of August 15, 1966. The Montclair Theatre was to be built by Sterling Theatres (later called SRO Theatres), and was designed by Roland Decker Pierson, the South Pasadena architect who had designed Sterling’s Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance. The item was illustrated with an architect’s rendering of the exterior.
Later issues of Boxoffice, published after the house opened, mention that Pierson designed the Montclair Theatre.
The April 6, 1964, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item on this theater, with an architect’s rendering which closely resembled the final design. At the time, the proposed name of the house was the Beach Theatre. The architect was Roland Decker Pierson. The cost of the building was projected to be $742,000, and seating for 1055 patrons was planned.
The theater was the second house built for United Cinema Corporation, a company founded and controlled by James Edwards, but which was separate from the Edwards Theatre Circuit, of which he was also still the president, and which still had its headquarters in San Gabriel.
Items in various issue of Boxoffice Magazine from 1955 indicate that the Edwards San Gabriel Drive-In opened early that year. The architect of the 1100 car theater was J. Arthur Drielsma. The project included a 2,400 square foot building at the base of the screen tower, on the street side, which was designed as an office for the Edwards Theatre Circuit, and the company’s headquarters remained there from 1955 until it was moved to Orange County in the 1970s.
The February 4, 1956, issue of Boxoffice featured a photo of the Edwards San Gabriel Drive-In, about a year after it had opened.
Though Edwards opened the theater in partnership with Pacific Drive-Ins, and for many years it appeared in the Pacific Drive-Ins listings in the Los Angeles Times, by the mid-1980s it was being listed in the Edwards Cinemas section, along with the Edwards Drive-In and the Azusa Drive-In.
To expand on my comment just above, the May 20, 1950, issue of Boxoffice says that the architect for the conversion of the Masque into the Vagabond was Dwight Gibbs. In addition, the item says that Herb Rosener also owned five theaters in San Francisco and one in Portland, but it doesn’t name them.
An item in the May 27, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine provides some information about this theater. It became a film house, and was renamed the Vagabond, in 1950. Before that, it had been a legitimate house called the Masque Theatre. After being enlarged and completely remodeled, it became the fifth art house in a small, local chain operated by Herb Rosener. The other theaters in the chain were the Laurel, Esquire, Studio, and Sunset Theatres.
The October 8, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine noted that the Big Sky Drive-In had opened recently. It was designed by architect J. Arthur Drielsma. The May 7 issue of the same magazine had said that theater was being built by, and would be operated by, a partnership called Big Sky Corporation.
A brief item in the December 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that Lou Berman had disposed of his interests in the Big Sky Drive-In to Jack Drumm and a group of associates.
Though the Edwards Theatre Circuit did once operate several drive-ins in the San Gabriel Valley (usually in partnership with Pacific Drive-Ins), I don’t recall the Big Sky being among them. My memory of the listings so long ago is pretty dim, though. I do know that the Big Sky was listed in the Times with the Pacific Drive-Ins by 1971.
The actual opening of the Lancaster Drive-In was in 1950. It was one of five drive-ins opened in Southern California by the middle of that year that were designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma. It opened as a single screen theater with a capacity of 650 cars. The owners were James Anderson and F. Scott. All this information comes from an article in the march 16, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
Originally built for the Edwards Theatre Circuit, the Sunland Drive-In was among five drive-ins opened around Southern California in 1950 that were designed by Los Angeles Architect J. Arthur Drielsma. These were mentioned in an article in the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article gave the capacity of the Sunland Drive-In as 650 cars.
The Magnolia Drive-In was one of at least five Southern California drive-ins opened in 1950 that had been designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma, according to an article in the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The original owners of the Magnolia were Frank Berrson and Walter Dennis. It was to have a capacity of 475 cars, according to the Boxoffice article.
Although Southwest Builder and Contractor announced in the issue of June 13, 1947, that Clifford and William Balch were preparing the plans for this theater, it appears that the owners decided to go with another architect. The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Starlite was scheduled for a May opening, and that it had been designed by Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma. The magazine said that the theater could accomodate 850 cars. The original owners and operators of the Starlite were Ford Bratcher, his brother Carl Bratcher, and Byron Congdon.
I wouldn’t call the style Art Deco. If anything, it was Art Moderne, with early Googie overtones.