Eastland 5 Theatres

It also expanded to 5 screens on June 19th, 1981. No ad found.

I am glad to see the post stating that I was wrong about The Temple of Doom playing in 70mm saying I was wrong and I made it up. This used to be a mean and nasty site to post comments on. Thank you for deleting that post. I am from West Covina and I almost lived at the Eastland theater. I hope I can come back here and read about some of the best movie theaters that I used to go to as a child and teenager.

Still waiting for “I’m sorry, you were right about The Temple of Doom, playing in 70mm' Even after all the crap this person posted about my memory. And making me look like I didn’t know what I was talking about.

I was working on an old VW bus I imported from California to the UK and found a used cinema ticket stub for Eastland. Did some Googling and found myself here :) I wonder what the ticket holder watched ? it has an issue number 138330 although I don’t suppose there are any records :|

Here is a May 1970 ad from the Pomona Progress-Bulletin:
http://tinyurl.com/ygnmmk6

Saw FATAL ATTRACTION here in ‘87, and THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY two years later. Does anyone remember Joe Pirrelli, who was an usher here in the late 80s? Lol, I had a crush on him!

The Eastland Center neighborhood suffered some long delays before it got its movie house. A local exhibitor named Sid Pink had plans to build a 1000 seat theater there as early as 1956, according to the April 7, 1956, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, which said that ground was to be broken soon for the new theater.

Then the March 3, 1958, issue of Boxoffice published a drawing of Sid Pink’s new 1,100 seat theater, with a caption saying it was “…now being built.” The announcement was a bit premature, it seems.

When construction of the Eastland Theatre really began at last, in 1961, it was a project of the Sanborn Theatres circuit. I guess everybody got tired of waiting for Sid Pink to get his show on the road.

Here is a PDF file of the Winter, 1992, issue of SoCal Cinemas' house organ, with a brief article about the 30th anniversary celebration for the Eastland Theatre, which was held on November 21 that year. It mentions that Jayne Mansfield had made a personal appearance for the Eastland’s opening night.

I saw the movie that changed my life at the Eastland Theater, 1982 “Making Love” I was 23 at the time, My wife wanted to go see it, I had no clue it was about a guy who was living a double life. I watched the movie in horror, it all came together I then knew I was gay. Me the Butch HS Football player (Charter Oak) found out what was missing in my life. I soon Divorced and moved to NYC where I have lived ever since. Funny how things come to light.

Also, the company name change —– from Sanborn to SoCal —– took place during 1984, at least as far as newspaper advertising is concerned.

You know, I love this website and enjoy reading everyone’s contributions to the theater entries. But along with the satisfaction comes on occasion a great deal of frustration when people make postings featuring information culled from memory without identifying memory as the source. This page is a good example of what can go terribly wrong when one relies too much on one’s memory. This page is riddled with errors that I feel compelled to attempt to correct…if the page is to have any significant value to serious enthusiasts. I know if someone caught me making an error, I would appreciate and expect a correction to be offered. That’s the beauty of ongoing Internet threads; eventually, hopefully, someone might come along and offer a correction or initiate a stimulating debate.

I don’t believe ANY of the movies mentioned in the intro played at Eastland in 70mm six-track Dolby as claimed. It appears the writer is confusing the six-track magnetic flavor of Dolby Stereo with the optical four-channel type found on 35mm prints, which is what the Eastland, with a few exceptions, ran on a regular basis in the ‘80s.

Eastland did not install Dolby Stereo in 1977 for “Star Wars.” The original first-run of that film in West Covina was at Wescove.

The “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” engagement took place a year earlier than stated.

And on the topic of lost theaters… Here are a couple of pages of photos (both vintage and contemporary) of the two theaters in question. These are from the newly-reconfigured “70mm In Los Angeles” web article posted on the FromScriptToDVD.com website. (If you enjoy these pages, seek out the article’s main page and you’ll discover there’s a whole lot more posted than just a couple of pages!)

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The Eastland opened in the early 1960’s (1963-1964) with one theater, which had over a 1000 seats and 35mm 4-track mag stereo. In the early 1970’s theaters two and three were added along with Dolby Stereo for “Star Wars” in 1977. By 1980 Sanborn Theaters (they changed names to SoCal in the late 80’s) added 70mm to the sister theater the Wescove. Eastland had to wait until 1983 after the big house was split into 3 smaller theaters ( giving it the magic number of five) for 70mm. The summer of 1984 kicked 70mm into high gear with “First-runs” of “Star Trek III” & “GhostBusters”. “Start Trek IV” ” in early 1988 was the final film to be played in 70mm at the Eastland. The original “Die Hard” opened at the Wescove in 35mm Dolby (never played in 70mm at the Eastland), and with 200+ prints of “Dick Tracy” in 70mm in 1990, the Eastland failed to play it (Edwards Azusa ran it for five weeks).

Even with 70mm, the Wescove and Eastland never played “Raiders” or Indy II” in first-run, which ended up at the Mann Fox Covina, in 35mm mono.

Its also in West Covina, not Covina.
The Chain was SoCal Theatres.