Fox Criterion Theatre

Opening as Criterion on September 26th, 1923 Criterion theatre opening Wed, Sep 26, 1923 – 29 · The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) · Newspapers.com

Great history and photos and vintage ads.

Here is a January 1928 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/4o743f

Thomas Tally’s off-and-on relationship with the Kinema/Criterion must have had a long run. I find numerous references in the California Index to a situation in 1935 in which it appears that Tally lost control of the theatre then regained it. However, in 1929 the house was clearly under Fox management, as on February 7 of that year The Times reported that its name would be changed to Fox Criterion (this was the period when William Fox put together the chain he would control for only a few years.) If Tally had hold of the place in 1919, then he must have lost it at least twice, altogether.

Thanks! Yep, I meant Tally’s New (ie first) Broadway as the candidate for first movie theatre on Broadway.

I’m now finding LA Times references to ‘Tally’s Kinema’ in late 1919… (Viz, Dec 5: ‘During his weekly executive session with the staffs of his two theaters, the Broadway and the Kinema…’)

Could this have been the ‘handsome and comfortable picture house’ he was dreaming about to the Times a year before (see my quote under Tally’s Broadway. But the quote makes it sound like he was intending to build a theatre, not take one over. And then – could he have retired in the ‘20s, and then resumed control of the Kinema? 'Tis most byzantine…

There were movie theatres on Broadway before Thomas Tally opened Tally’s Broadway Theatre at 833 S. Broadway in December, 1909. In fact, his own Tally’s New Broadway had already been operating at 554 S. Broadway for several years (the confusing name “New Broadway” might have been chosen to differentiate the house from earlier Tally theatres on other streets; I can’t find any evidence that Tally had had any earlier theatre on Broadway.)

The L.A. public library claims that this photo, depicts the interior Tally’s at 833 S. Broadway. That room looks too small to contain the nearly 900 seats the theatre was supposed to have had, though. I think it might be a picture of the narrower 554 S. Broadway Tally’s (the library’s photo database contains numerous errors, unfortunately.) In any case, most of the interior shots I’ve seen of L.A. theatres from that period look much the same as this photo, showing coffered ceilings and a bit of restrained classical detailing, so even if this photo isn’t of the second Broadway, that theatre probably did look a lot like it, or like the Hyman, or Woodley’s Optic.

The later Broadway’s facade was also rather plain in comparison to that of the Kinema (I’ve been unable to find an interior shot of the Kinema, but according to the contemporary descriptions the inside had the same French Renaissance style as the outside.) Also, even at 1700 seats, the Kinema would have had nearly twice the capacity of Tally’s Broadway.

The one other theatre I know of that might lay claim to the title of first purpose-built movie palace in Los Angeles is Quinn’s Supurba, the ca.1914 theatre on Broadway (the building was eventually demolished to make way for the Roxie). I’ve been unable to find out much about the Supurba, but the photos of it show an ornate facade, and the Roxie, on the same footprint, had some 1600 seats, so the Supurba might well have been both fancy enough and large enough to qualify as a palace, though not on the scale of the Mark brothers 1914 Mark Strand Theatre in New York, the approximately 2500 seat house usually considered the first movie palace in the U.S.

The Strand, however, had a stage large enough for vaudeville (the Supurba may have had one as well), so the Marks were clearly hedging their bets. The Kinema had only a vestigial stage, seven feet deep (see KenRoe’s comment on December 14, 2004 above). I don’t know if there were any other theatres of the Kinema’s size built in that era that had no provision for the staged “prologues” which had, by 1917, become a standard part of movie presentations in the country’s movie palaces.

I guess the question is, what makes a movie palace? I read somewhere a figure of 2,500 seats, which would exclude the Million Dollar. (And indeed the Los Angeles Theatre, so surely architectural and decorative style is also part of the answer.) It sounds like the Kinema was halfway there…

But no, I don’t think Tally’s came close. He made the first dedicated space for projected movies at the back of his Phonograph Parlor, in 1896; his 1902 Electric Theater on Spring Street was the first standalone, purpose-built movie theater in the country; and he may or may not have opened the first movie theater on Broadway. He also seems to have owned the Kinema right at the end of his career, sometime after he’d announced his retirement.

I figured both were possible – that the LA Times might have been boosting the figure, and that the seat numbers might have fallen over time, with refurbishments and redesigns…

But bottom line, we’re sure this wasn’t the first purpose-built movie palace in Los Angeles?

Pre-opening publicity gave a seating capacity of 2500 for the Kinema. The Times article on the occasion of the grand opening probably used that number because the paper had used it in earlier articles about the project. Owners often exaggerated the size of their proposed theatres. There are later articles that gave lower seating capacities for the Kinema/Criterion. One 1928 article in Exhibitor’s Herald gave the seating capacity as 1680. In fact the house was probably always in the 1700-1800 range.

Secrecy in 1929:
http://tinyurl.com/2n6csu
http://tinyurl.com/33khk6

Here is an Auguat 1918 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/27rfmw

I posted another ad over on that page. Thanks.

An ad a few weeks later puts the Brooks Theater at 730 S. Grand, so it apparently has no relation to the Criterion.