Criterion Theatre
1315 3rd Street,
Santa Monica,
CA
90401
1315 3rd Street,
Santa Monica,
CA
90401
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 32 comments
August 1954 photo in Santa Monica History Museum Facebook link below.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=487759623355706&set=pb.100063650169166.-2207520000.&type=3
The Criterion theatre reopened showing Spanish movies on February 16th, 1981. Grand opening ad posted.
Criterion photo in this article.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/how-santa-monicas-third-street-became-a-promenade?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58e06932a167da000a98ca59&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
I loved this theater when I was a kid! What a grand auditorium! I spent every Saturday afternoon there, seeing Disney double features. In the early ‘70s, kiddie matinees were 75 cents a ticket! Which left 25 cents to buy candy across the mall, at Woolworths.
I made one end-of-the-road visit, in the late ‘80s. Whew! By then, it was a nasty grindhouse, with men sleeping. It was so beyond hope that they didn’t even have glass in the projection booth window anymore — so you could hear the equipment clanging away. Sad.
Nixols and Navan, the Criterion Theatre was (mostly) demolished. The Criterion 6 which stands there now (and has its own page here, where this discussion is ongoing) is the historic facade of the old building on a brand new structure.
Also, where did you get the idea that they’re going to demolish this? The article only talks about converting the building…
a crime to this historic theater is about to take place in the form of casual permission by a city that no longer cares about its past or citizens, for the owner to demolish and convert this into more expensive stores and unaffordable condos/apartments. If they did care, they would put a stop to this and declare it a landmark. Just another nail in the coffin of downtown Santa Monica.
12/7/12 Santa Monica Daily Press “…The property owner of the Criterion 6 received permission in November to convert the theater into general retail…” http://www.smdp.com/amc-backs-off-theater-development/115340
That linked photo that Lost Memory posted on Dec 22, 2006 is more “new” Criterion than “old” Criterion. Like the El Miro down the street, it was so modified that it earned a new page here.
The 1981 photo is when theatre was leased by Metropolitan Theatres along with the Cine on the Mall (aka: El Miro).
Here is a 1925 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/6nfug6
Here is an early sixties photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2sara9
The Criterion played it during that time as a double feature, but the print they got was a very splicey one.
Film going was more fun back in the 70’s than it is now. Usually I ended up seeing most films 2nd run “after the Westwood/Hollywood” debuts. Usually a double feature, and there were re-issues a year later. I cannot tell you how many times the Monica Twins had “Young Frankenstein”. I saw it at the Monica’s when it went 2nd run after the Avco, then again with re-issues at the same theatre. Films were not so over-hyped, and over-produced back then. Now it is too much overload and films are on DVD almost right out of the theatre. DVD is now what the 2nd run used to be.
I remember that double feature of “Jaws” and ‘Waldo Pepper" at the Criterion. The Criterion had a nice large Scope screen. The Criterion, Meralta (Culver City), Holiday (Canoga Park) were the 49 cent houses and for a short time the former Pacific Beverly Hills Theatre tried it at .99 cents.
I grew up in Santa Monica and went to the Criterion quite often when it was a Single Screen Mann theatre. Lots of Disney films but distinctly remember seeing a double feature of “Jaws” and “The Great Waldo Pepper” in Febraury 1976. Late 70’s/early 80’s it was a 49 cent theatre that changed its second run double features every week. I remember going EVERY Friday during the Summer of 1979 to see the latest double feature, and did not care what was showing.
Tearing up the promenade in 1965:
http://tinyurl.com/39lb5b
The smaller old theater would be the El Miro later Cinema then Cinema on the Mall and Cine Latino before it closed.
There was another smaller old theater down the mall from the Criterion I worked at the summer of 1977. They had the same owner or management company. I remember the Criterion was way more lavish and beautiful than the one I worked at. We had dollar matinees that would have lines of sr.citizens down the block. I was sitting in the box office when the newspaper guy was going up and down the mall hawking his papers saying Elvis had died.
ken mc, thanks so much for the links to those photos – the place really was as huge as I’d remembered it as a kid. I hope that someone can turn up some photos of the old lobby someday, too. Thanks also for pointing out the LA Public Library web site as a source of great old photos.
Never mind the comment above. The Fox Dome is already listed. Here are some pictures of the Criterion from the LA Library:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics18/00028801.jpg
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics18/00028802.jpg
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics18/00028803.jpg
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics18/00028806.jpg
There are several pictures of the Dome Theater on the Ocean Park Pier that are listed on the LA Library website. If this theater is listed here under a different name, please let me know.
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044402.jpg
Look for the Criterion at the far end of the Promenade:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics32/00050683.jpg
I went there as a kid in the ‘70s when it would show family films like the Disney/Kurt Russell movies or “Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.” Then, in the early '80s (83-84) I worked across the street from it at J.J. Newberry’s. By then the theater was showing double-features for .99, then it went down to triple-features for .49. On one Christmas weekend they showed the “Ten Commandments” for free. I don’t know how they made a profit. I went a few times to see the (mostly terrible) movies they showed like Lucio Fulci’s “7 doors of death” (aka “The Beyond”). It was a real grindhouse experience complete with bums and delinquents heckling the screen, the audience and each other. Management did not seem to care that this once-great theater was now given to the dregs…
The Los Angeles Times carried an article about the Criterion headlined “Santa Monica theater will open soon” in its December 30th, 1923 issue, so the theater must have opened early in 1924. An article in the Santa Monica Outlook of August 4th, 1923, announced that the theater’s organ had been ordered.
I remember seeing Bridge on The River Kui when I was in Jr High.