Garmar Theater

The most recent advertisement I found in the Los Angeles Times was on 18 July 1981 for The Fox and the Hound, and the assessor says the mini mall that replaced it was built in 1981, which leads me to believe that it was demolished in 1981. However, American Classic Images has a photo dated April, 1983. Although both films on the marquee were released in May, 1981. http://americanclassicimages.com/Search/CA1743/txtSearch/bell

Here is a fresh link to the photo of the Garmar’s lobby on the cover of the “Modern Theatre” section of Boxoffice, December 2, 1950.

Correction: Page 194 not 1949

You can find many pictures of Montebello’s landmarks on this webpage:
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So…I was cleaning out an old house here in Los Lunas,NM and found a well preserved, unopened bottle of ‘Private Stock’ Chablis from the Marcel & Jeanne French Cafe in Montebello. Before I opened it or tossed it, I Googled the Cafe and found the musings from all you ol' geezers trying to relive your childhoods in the old days of Montebello. If anyone might want this bottle of wine, and will pay the shipping, I will be glad to send it back to California where it came from..

Here is a 1983 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/d88avt

There is now a Cinema Treasures page for the Vogue Theatre.

I started going over some previous posts and noticed Julia April 28, 2007 said that the Garmar was owned by Al Olander. That is the name my neighbor gave me as owner of the Vogue.
Then, Joe, I looked again at the two photos of Whittier Blvd. that you posted 5/7/08 and saw something interesting. In the 1935 photo on the right/center edge of the photo there is a two story, possibly brick building with what looks like OLANDER in white letters at the top of the building. Could that be the Cameo? Mr. Olander may have been the cinema mogul of Montebello! I’m going to show the photos to my neighbor and see if it jogs her memory any more.

Laurie & Droog: Thanks for the confirmation of the Vogue’s location. Now I can have it added to the Cinema Treasures database. An opening date of 1940s also confirms my suspicion that the Vogue was in a converted store building rather than a purpose-built theatre building. The assessor’s office says the building itself was erected in 1929.

The name Olander is familiar to me. An acquaintance named Don Olander some thirty years ago told me that his family ran either the bowling alley or the coffee shop in the bowling alley (the memory is dim) that was in the northern part of Montebello, southwest of Garfield and Pomona Boulevard. The subject of the Vogue never came up in our conversation, but the name Olander is not common so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same family.

But as one mystery is solved, another opens up. Or, now, two more. The building which is probably at 520 Whittier and which may have been a theater is still a mystery, now that we know it wasn’t the Vogue; and in addition we now have the Cameo on the opposite side of Whittier somewhere in that same area. I’m quite sure that only two theaters (the Garmar and the Vogue) were operating in Montebello by the late 1950s, so the odds of anyone showing up who remembers either the Cameo or the possible theater at 520 Whittier are slim, so this is probably another research mystery.

Yes that is it, it use to be the travel agency.
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Regarding the Vogue Theatre, it was located at the top (north)of the “T” intersection of Whittier Blvd. & South 7th Street. Conlin Bros. Sporting Goods was at the corner of Montebello Blvd.& Whittier Blvd. then one or two small shops and then the Vogue. The theatre closed, remodeled, and was reopened as Montebello Travel Agency in 1971 or 1972. I was at the ribbon cutting. The Montebello Chamber of Commerce or the Montebello News archives would be sources for the exact address.

I’m still trying to track down information about the Vogue, Montebello’s other movie house, which is not yet listed at CT.

The L.A. Public Library has two old photos of Whittier Boulevard looking toward 5th Street, ca.1920 and ca.1935, and in each there is a building with a big arch making up most of the facade. In the 1935 photo, it looks as though this building has display cases form movie posters in its entryway. In the first photo the area is just sort of a muddle. The building might have been converted to a theatre at some date after this photo was taken, or it’s possible it was being remodeled at the time of the photograph.

Montebello was a good-sized town by 1920, and it seems likely that it would have had a move theatre then. The building is a bit narrow,and I’m wondering if maybe this was the elusive Vogue Theatre in an early incarnation. I went there maybe three or four times at most, back in the 1950s, all I remember of it was that it was on the north side of Whittler Boulevard and was very narrow, and the back couple of rows of seats were on risers so you had to go up a step or two from the aisle to reach them (each row had its own steps, so it wasn’t like stadium seating.)

I can’t remember exactly where on Whitter Boulevard the Vogue was, but I’ve always had the impression it was only a few blocks west of Bluff Road, and the block between 5th and 6th Streets would be about right. Does anybody in Montebello have the exact address of the Vogue? I’ve checked the L.A. County Assessor’s parcel viewer on the Internet and the buildings on the west end of that block in the second photo above are apparently still there.

The most likely candidate for the arched building is 520 W. Whittier, Montebello being one of the towns that puts even numbers on the north sides of streets. The building at that address has a construction date of 1915, and an effective construction date (major remodeling) of 1933, which would be about right for the fairly modern style of the Vogue as I remember it. If somebody could dig up the address of the Vogue, we’ll know whether or not this was it’s location.