Valley Theater

Reopened as the Cine Azteca on December 2nd, 1973. Another ad posted.

This opened as Valley on September 5th, 1948 and closed in 1963. It reopened as Fine Arts on July 10th, 1964 as an art cinema that switched over to adult movies by the end of the year. more to come. 1964 grand opening ad in the photo section.

The women who ran the Naked Harem was convicted for running a prostitution ring and having under-age girls.

There was a theater called the Garden Airdome at 900 E. Yandell. Cynthia Farah Haines states it was listed at that address from 1921-22, then for the next three years at 1116 E. Yandell. She also says, “Since 1925, a theatre called the American had been located at 2806 E. Yandell but moved to 1120 E. Yandell where it showed movies until 1935.” She adds, “The American was known as the Little Theatre from 1937 until 1942. it was renamed the Western in 1943and then the Yandell from Oct. 7, 1946 until 1960. (Cynthia Farah Haines, Showtime! From Opera Houses to Picture Palaces in El Paso, Texas Western Press 2006).

The Yandell Theatre is mentioned frequently in Boxoffice in 1947 and 1948, when operator C.M. Garrett wrote capsule reviews for the magazine’s “The Exhibitor Has His Say” feature. I haven’t found it mentioned anytime before 1947.

Neither have I been able to find any mention of a Valley Theatre in El Paso before the Alameda Avenue house opened. If the Yandell was called the Valley before 1947 then it must have been run by somebody who lacked Mr. Garrett’s adeptness at publicity.

The May 9, 1960, issue of Boxoffice said that Clayton Garrett had closed the Yandell Theatre after operating at a loss for several months. Attempts to sell the theater were a failure, and finally the projection room equipment was sold to a local theater equipment dealer and removed. That must have been the end of the place.

The Valley was converted into a dinner theater in 1971, according to a 1975 article in the El Paso Herald-Post. That lasted two years before the theater re-opened as the Cine Azteca, showing Spanish films. That incarnation lasted until February 1975, when the theater closed. Cine Azteca should be another name for this theater.

And to think Adam and I missed it when we went for Cinematour pictures. Why didn’t we think of looking for this theatre at a strip club?!?!

As a young GI stationed at nearby Fort Bliss in 1961 and 1962 I attended the Valley a few times. It was a neighborhood house and never seemed to attract much of an audience at the time. It was a clean and modern theater with a stadium balcony that I liked. I remember watching a double feature of “Ride the High Country” and “Pirates of the Black Witch” there just a couple of days before I got discharged from the Army in the spring of 1962.