Helix Theatre
7980 La Mesa Boulevard,
La Mesa,
CA
91942
7980 La Mesa Boulevard,
La Mesa,
CA
91942
2 people
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I remember as a kid going to the Helix on saturday for a double flix @ .50. Would get a buck from my parents, a soda and and a tub of popcorn. If we got 1.25 it was a large slurpee up the street. Good old days with Steve and the gang.
Between the years 1951 and 1960 I must have went to this theater over 200-400 times. Started as a lad when we moved to La Mesa in 1950. Use to line up for the Saturday cartoon marathons wrapped 100 or so deep around the corner of the movie house. Ended in 1959 when in high school I found the Drive-in’s.
Years 1956-59 me and my friend would go to the old Palarimos pizza (just a whole in wall) buy a large $1.00 pizza each and then go to the movie costing $.50 (as a kid was $.25). remaining $.50 of my $2.00/week\ allowance went for 2 plus gallons of gas for crusing around and to drive to school for the week.
Going on 74 this year and I look back longingly at those times.
Buck
Remember the “Cry Room” in the back?
I went to double feature matinees in the early 70’s every weekend during the summers (the place was air conditioned!)… saw MAROONED(1969), SILENT RUNNING(1972) & SOYLENT GREEN(1973) for 75cents there.
@ Arriano: The zip codes in La Mesa changed. I grew up in La Mesa in the 70’s & 80’s, and used to live walking distance from the Helix theater – my zip code used to be 92041, which no longer exists :(
ZIP code is wrong. Should be 91942
I grew up within walking distance of this theater. During the early 1950s there was a Saturday afternoon matinee, typically a couple of B westerns or the like. It cost two bits to get in, and with another quarter you could buy a box of popcorn and get a soft drink from a vending machine, the kind where acup dropped down. You had a choice of three favors, probably a cola, lemon-lime, or orange, but of course we all switched the selector back and forth to produce. “suicide”. There was always a line from the box office, located on the right, around the front and along the west side.
As I got older, I would go to the night time showings, still walking. I am not sure whether or not there were first run showings, but at the least there were current films above the B level. This continued through high school and probably a bit during summers when I was home from college.
I saw many, many films at the Helix as a kid and teenager in the 1960s. I remember coming around the curve of La Mesa Blvd. from El Cajon Blvd. and hoping not to see a giant line around the theater! Good times back then.
This opened on September 7th, 1948. I uploaded the grand opening ad here.
I was one of the two projectionists at this theatre when it closed. What a great experience. The full time projectionist at the time told me we were going to get to show the movie “Soylent Green” to close out this grand run of this old and wonderful place. At the last moment they cancelled that and yes i do believe “Jaws” took its place. We showed “Jaws” so much i knew every scene and line of that movie by heart. The cameras were fun. Had to monitor the carbon sticks in them to make sure they did not burn down to far or….no picture. The change over from camera one to camera two was also interesting. We would get two signal marks on the main screen. The first mark was to get the camera that had the ready reel going and the second mark we watched for on the screen from the the booth was for the exchange from the camera with the used reel to the camera with the next sequenced reel. When the screen went white (no picture) a loud bell in the booth would go off to alert us. I did not need that bell, ha. You could here the boo’s from the patrons when that happened. Usually happened when a splice in the film broke more than a change over. Man, do i have some stories…………… When i was there at the end the theatre did not pack in 825 people very often but when it did or got close the place rocked. the reaction of the big crowd in there was magical. I got into acting because of that experience and am so very thankful for it.
One theatergoer says he “saw ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Great Waldo Pepper’ there the last day it was open – December 4, 1976."
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Here is an item in Boxoffice magazine, April 1950;
Contending it is impossible to continue operations profitably in view of the film rentals he must pay, Burton Jones has closed his Helix Theater in La Mesa. He has operated the 700 seat house there for several years.
The Star Theater in La Puente, CA is one of the few quonset huts that are still around, although it too is on a short list to be demolished.
Here are two architect sketches from UCLA:
http://tinyurl.com/6652wd
http://tinyurl.com/6n3v7q
Here are three photos from 1948:
http://tinyurl.com/2kya6j
http://tinyurl.com/36g7z8
http://tinyurl.com/3499bm
From the UCLA Digital Collection:
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Address was corner of University Avenue and La Mesa Blvd, La Mesa, CA, 92104, now occupied by a neighborhood shopping center. The theater was ½ block east of the northeast corner of the intersection, now under the parking lot. In 1964 when the first regional shopping center, Grossmont Center, was built, shopowners would give away kid’s weekend matinee passes to the Helix so that parents would come shop at the Grossmont, lines around the theater would be 2 or 3 deep to see the Elvis summer films. The theater had a very small parking lot on the east side and in the rear.