Lyric Theatre

Whatever the lobby is being used for, it appears that the auditorium has been reconfigured for use as a wedding chapel and associated reception rooms. The entrance to the Guadalupe Wedding Chapel is around the corner on Florence Avenue.

The June 22 article that OCRon uploaded confirms A. H. McCulloh as the architect of the Lyric Theatre. The June 25 article says that the theater was decorated in the Egyptian style, but also says that the Lyric was a “copy” of Grauman’s Million Dollar, and that house was not Egyptian at all.

The unusual spelling of the architect’s surname, McCulloh, appears to be correct, as it is spelled that way in several trade journal items from 1921 and 1922. I can find only one instance of a Los Angeles architect called A. H. McCollough, that being from 1913, and that might not even be the same guy.

Southwest Builder & Contractor of May 27, 1921, said that the plans for this theater were being prepared by Walnut Park architect A.H. McCulloh.

I went to Pacific Boulevard Elementary School in the early ‘70s and this theatre was on the route to and from school.

So were the California and Park theatres.

Here is a 1983 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c3xgsm

New book-length Pussycat Theatre history from the San Diego Reader:
View link

Advertised at Pacific & Florence in the LA Times on 1/15/75. Interesting to see a whole ad page of adult theaters – that was already abolished when I started reading the Times in 1984.

I didn’t get to this location yesterday, as I was running out of daylight. I think 7208 Long Beach is below Firestone Boulevard. It looks like Pacific turns into Long Beach Blvd when you get that far south.

Here is an excerpt from an LA Times article of 9/21/75. I assume Walnut Park and Huntington Park are interchangeable, unless it was a typo:

Scandalous, said the Walnut Park neighbors of the once palatial Lyric Theater. The old movie house was a public scandal. The source of the outrage was film content. The Lyric had switched from a steady diet of Spencer Tracy films to what homeowners in 1955 sneeringly called ‘girlie films".

The flesh flashed on the Lyric’s screens was accompanied by whispered rumors of raunchy stag films slipped in from Mexico and shown at midnight. Stories of a bookie joint in the same block heightened the area’s unsavory reputation. But that was 20 years ago, before X-rated films had taken on an aura of fashionability.

In those older days, homeowners were incensed about the showing of the so-called skin flicks. Public meetings condemning the theater were held. Outrage was expressed. Protests planned. Lawsuits mulled.

But nothing really happened. And nothing really changed. Today the old Lyric Theater grinds out the likes of “Love, Lust and Violence” and “Tower of Love”, both rated “Super-X”.

And there hasn’t been a protest in years.

CORRECTION:

THE TOWN theatre @ 444 South Hill, L.A.

THE TOWER was a later Pussycat in Oakland

I NEED HELP !!!
I am in desperate need of pictures or any sort of memorabilia that any one of you would be so kind as to send me a copy of via email or fax. I am finishing up my research paper on the Whittier Village Cinemas and the history of the Pussycat Theater.

Please please please, help a soon to be college grad if you have the time.

thank you for your consideration,

Susie Balpuesta
Whittier, California

(562) 686-5990

Indeed the Lyric was a Pussycat Theatre. And what I’ve been told was the original Pussycat Theatre. This is the theatre that owner Gerald Tate and former restaurant manager Vince Miranda launched their chain of adult houses. Free speech battles were fought by Mr. Tate throughout the sixties and seventies that culminated with his arrest and conviction. Miranda ran what became Walnut Properties while Tate did time in Atascadero. After his release and a changing moral climate Tate bought the rights to an adult feature called “Deep Throat”. He played it for years in his theatres and made millions. His estate which included much prime CA real estate was left to his lover Jonathon.