I passed by the Fox back in 2005…..has there been any work on it lately and what’s happening to the restoration??? Their web site only goes back to 2004 and there’s nothing new on it………
When we took it for midnight movies they had not been showing porn too long as I recall. Moving Pictures leased (or maybe subleased) the theater from General Cinema. Moving Pictures Inc took it back to their porn program sometime after we left their employment. I was the one who did the bookings, promotions and “clean up” of the theater in THAT endeavor.
After the success of Mad Max and the moveover of Superman 70mm, the porn distributor got greedy and started cooking the book office receipts. We left the endeavor immediately as we did not want to be associated with the sort of thing.
During the first two weeks of the Mad Max run the house sold out on fridays and saturdays – the sublessor of the theater opened the balcony against my wishes as the fire department had issued an order to keep it closed since there was no sprinkler system installed. The theater manager later informed me later that he had been ordered to open the balcony for the opening night on the Superman moveover – the fire department showede up and the balcony was closed.
The Strand was a great grind house and careful attention was paid to the pairing of flicks on the same programs more often than not when it was managed by Mike Thomas who also took the Warfield for a while. I saw Rocky Horror there for my first time at midnight shows that he ran for years. The calendar that came out throughout the city was an odd sized sheet that displayed titles of films and we always looked for the new one to come out.
I had wished that Mike would have taken the Embassy next door as from what I recall it was a neat theater too! The grind policy there was geared to an older audience and the management was strict about THAT! They too had a loyal following of seniors. One of the Embassy’s employees, an older man, once told me that they provided rrlief and respite at their theater and their audience didn’t have to worry “about the balcony types the Strand has……”
Being a gay male I resented that comment but also understood that many older people probably were homophobic and chose the Embassy over the Strand.
Back in 1980 I worked for a small porn company named Moving Pictures who had the Market Street Cinema (and the Jack London 3 in Oakland) as an outlet for their porno exhibition. I was able to convince the owner to allow myself and another to book midnight films into the Market Street Cinema (concert films like Woodstock, Fillmore, etc) and other films on Friday & Saturday nights. We would go in early Friday evening, change the marquee, put conventional one sheets into the window displays in the outside foyer and change the concession stand from porno products to candy concessions. During this time we would also clean the auditorium floor with bleach water and by midnight it finally caught on. We never competed with the Strand as we were showing other mignight films (they were showing Rocky Horror at the Strand). We did a good business and was finally able to stop the owner from showing porn for several months.
The theater was equipped for 35/70mm project, with 4 track and 6 track mag sound. In 1980 we were the only theater on Market Street that showed the First Run exhibition of Mad Max. The theater SOLD OUT several nights in the first two weeks of Mad Max’s run. Thereafter Warner Borthers allowed us to show the sub run of Superman in 70mm (it did well for a Market Street audience and we had an excellent print). Thereafter we exhibited what was being billed as MGM’s Fabulous Four (2001, Gone With The Wind,– I can’t remember the other two). The porn operator got greedy and fudged on the box office receipts and shortly after we discovered this we quit working for him and the theater went back to porn.
I also remembered a guy named Charley from Fox’s distribution agent in SF who called and asked to borrow the 70mm lenses for Star Wars continued showing at the Fox Warfield when it moved from the Cornonet. The lenses at the Warfield weren’t the right “calibar” so we loaned ours out.
I believe there may have been a couple of live venues there after we left (music and for some reason Grace Jones comes to mind).
I left SF in 1983 for Texas and then visited again in 98 and 2002 – I was saddened to see that porn took the theater as there were some fine acoustics in it.
Oh yeah, there was a bowling alley across the driveway from this theater that was neat in exterior design. I also remember that the area was somewhat dangeorus at night because of a public housing project a block away.
Saw Doctor Zhivago, Finians Rainbow, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind and Song of Norway on this screen. I remember they had a huge curved screen. In those days tickets had seat numbers on them. Does anyone know if this theater is worth restoring??? Or has it been hacked up?
Saw the Sound of Music there when they took all the paperboys to a special morning showing. Also saw How the West Was Wong and 2001 in Cinerama. The last film I saw there was Tommy in “quintrophonic sound.” Nice and loud and great sound for all the shows on the big screen!
It was a fabulous looking theater inside and had a very large screen. I remember as a kid sneaking into the balcony from the fire escape stairs in the alley next to Rike’s Dept Store to see The 10 Commandments – oh yeah, I was playing hookey from school and needed to dodge the cops on the street cause I was scared of being caunt truant. I sat through an entire showing of that movie and in the following years saw many of the big hollywood movies there. It finally went down to be come a small vacant parking lot!
Yes I meant 2001 the film by Kubrick.
I passed by the Fox back in 2005…..has there been any work on it lately and what’s happening to the restoration??? Their web site only goes back to 2004 and there’s nothing new on it………
When we took it for midnight movies they had not been showing porn too long as I recall. Moving Pictures leased (or maybe subleased) the theater from General Cinema. Moving Pictures Inc took it back to their porn program sometime after we left their employment. I was the one who did the bookings, promotions and “clean up” of the theater in THAT endeavor.
After the success of Mad Max and the moveover of Superman 70mm, the porn distributor got greedy and started cooking the book office receipts. We left the endeavor immediately as we did not want to be associated with the sort of thing.
During the first two weeks of the Mad Max run the house sold out on fridays and saturdays – the sublessor of the theater opened the balcony against my wishes as the fire department had issued an order to keep it closed since there was no sprinkler system installed. The theater manager later informed me later that he had been ordered to open the balcony for the opening night on the Superman moveover – the fire department showede up and the balcony was closed.
The Strand was a great grind house and careful attention was paid to the pairing of flicks on the same programs more often than not when it was managed by Mike Thomas who also took the Warfield for a while. I saw Rocky Horror there for my first time at midnight shows that he ran for years. The calendar that came out throughout the city was an odd sized sheet that displayed titles of films and we always looked for the new one to come out.
I had wished that Mike would have taken the Embassy next door as from what I recall it was a neat theater too! The grind policy there was geared to an older audience and the management was strict about THAT! They too had a loyal following of seniors. One of the Embassy’s employees, an older man, once told me that they provided rrlief and respite at their theater and their audience didn’t have to worry “about the balcony types the Strand has……”
Being a gay male I resented that comment but also understood that many older people probably were homophobic and chose the Embassy over the Strand.
Whatever happened to Mike Thomas??? Anyone know?
Back in 1980 I worked for a small porn company named Moving Pictures who had the Market Street Cinema (and the Jack London 3 in Oakland) as an outlet for their porno exhibition. I was able to convince the owner to allow myself and another to book midnight films into the Market Street Cinema (concert films like Woodstock, Fillmore, etc) and other films on Friday & Saturday nights. We would go in early Friday evening, change the marquee, put conventional one sheets into the window displays in the outside foyer and change the concession stand from porno products to candy concessions. During this time we would also clean the auditorium floor with bleach water and by midnight it finally caught on. We never competed with the Strand as we were showing other mignight films (they were showing Rocky Horror at the Strand). We did a good business and was finally able to stop the owner from showing porn for several months.
The theater was equipped for 35/70mm project, with 4 track and 6 track mag sound. In 1980 we were the only theater on Market Street that showed the First Run exhibition of Mad Max. The theater SOLD OUT several nights in the first two weeks of Mad Max’s run. Thereafter Warner Borthers allowed us to show the sub run of Superman in 70mm (it did well for a Market Street audience and we had an excellent print). Thereafter we exhibited what was being billed as MGM’s Fabulous Four (2001, Gone With The Wind,– I can’t remember the other two). The porn operator got greedy and fudged on the box office receipts and shortly after we discovered this we quit working for him and the theater went back to porn.
I also remembered a guy named Charley from Fox’s distribution agent in SF who called and asked to borrow the 70mm lenses for Star Wars continued showing at the Fox Warfield when it moved from the Cornonet. The lenses at the Warfield weren’t the right “calibar” so we loaned ours out.
I believe there may have been a couple of live venues there after we left (music and for some reason Grace Jones comes to mind).
I left SF in 1983 for Texas and then visited again in 98 and 2002 – I was saddened to see that porn took the theater as there were some fine acoustics in it.
Oh yeah, there was a bowling alley across the driveway from this theater that was neat in exterior design. I also remember that the area was somewhat dangeorus at night because of a public housing project a block away.
Saw Doctor Zhivago, Finians Rainbow, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind and Song of Norway on this screen. I remember they had a huge curved screen. In those days tickets had seat numbers on them. Does anyone know if this theater is worth restoring??? Or has it been hacked up?
Saw the Sound of Music there when they took all the paperboys to a special morning showing. Also saw How the West Was Wong and 2001 in Cinerama. The last film I saw there was Tommy in “quintrophonic sound.” Nice and loud and great sound for all the shows on the big screen!
It was a fabulous looking theater inside and had a very large screen. I remember as a kid sneaking into the balcony from the fire escape stairs in the alley next to Rike’s Dept Store to see The 10 Commandments – oh yeah, I was playing hookey from school and needed to dodge the cops on the street cause I was scared of being caunt truant. I sat through an entire showing of that movie and in the following years saw many of the big hollywood movies there. It finally went down to be come a small vacant parking lot!