Huntington Twin Cinema
18543 Main Street,
Huntington Beach,
CA
92648
18543 Main Street,
Huntington Beach,
CA
92648
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Deleted the 1964 grand opening ad and reposted a sharper version of it.
Reopened as a twin cinema on December 22nd, 1976. No grand opening ad found.
The rather busy facade of the Edwards Huntington Cinema was featured on the cover of Boxoffice of July 19, 1965. An interesting feature of Roland Pierson’s design is the convex section of the front carrying the signage, which mimics the proportions and curve of a CinemaScope movie screen; a clever example of architectural form suggesting, rather than following, function. Louis Sullivan must have turned over in his grave, but J. Walter Thompson would probably have been impressed.
There is a photo of the old signage here:
http://tinyurl.com/nnah99
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.
Here is the photo mentioned above:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044357.jpg
This theatre actually opened on December 25, 1964.
James Edwards not only retained control of all his theaters in the San Gabriel Valley into the 1960s, and most of them well beyond that, but continued to expand his holdings there even after the main focus of the company’s expansion shifted to Orange County. The Edwards company owned or operated every english-language theater in Alhambra, San Gabriel, Temple City and Monterey Park from about 1962 until the company was taken over by the Regal group. (Edwards' San Gabriel Drive-In was operated by Pacific Theaters.) Probably 90% of the movies I saw before I was about sixteen, I saw at an Edwards Theater.