Sunnyvale Theatre
146-48 S. Murphy Street,
Sunnyvale,
CA
94086
146-48 S. Murphy Street,
Sunnyvale,
CA
94086
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Renamed Town & Country Cinema on December 30th, 1969. Ad posted.
I saw many films there in the late 60’s. One I remember was Yellow Submarine, which was produced by the Beatles and was animated. At one point I got reprimanded for partially blocking the screen with a large sucker.
Between the porno theater and the restaurant in 1984 or 1985 they tried to have some punk rock shows. My band, The Barfing Dogs played there opening for The Drab who never got to play because during our set when kids started slam dancing up from the lady who owner the P.A. system pulled the plug on it. Needless to say a riot ensued and I saw the announcer Hawkeyes Joe from a local radio station get hit upside the head by a skateboard. We saw it as a major coupe since as a punk band the ultimate it to start a riot! Good times!
My thanks to fellow historian Jack Tillmany for finding the following today in Motion Picture News, now on Archive.com. It is dated June 17, 1927. “Pete Kyprious and associates have opened their new Strand Theatre at Sunnyvale. The old theatre was closed at once.” The old theatre referred to is the “old” Strand, formerly a nickelodeon called the Empire, which operated two doors to the South on the same side of the street. Kyprious also was part owner of the Casa Grande Theatre in Santa Clara, which had opened in 1925 at 966 Franklin Street. It was later called the Santa Clara.
I went to the theatre as a kid in the 50s. Every Saturday for probably 2 years. Walked from home on Maple saw two features, cartoons, a newsreel probably and a serial. I think admission was $0.10 but can’t be sure. I don’t recognize the facade but probably wouldn’t after all this time.
I was driving by Sunnyvale in the late 80’s and made a detour. The area was rundown, and my favorite theatre was now a porno theatre. Nice to see it’s been fixed up with the resurgence from the computer industry.
Cheers
Charles ctbishop at earth link dot com
According to an old schedule dating from 1927, and now housed at the Sunnyvale Historical Museum, the Strand exhibited five different shows a week. It was a nearly movies-only policy, although the theater’s small stage was occasionally graced at that time by small musical acts, and Oreol McLaughlin of Our Gang Comedies made a personal appearance. At that time, adult admission was 30 cents; children were 15 cents, and anyone sitting in the loge section (the stadium seating in the rear half of the auditorium) paid 40 cents. The theater was renamed Sunnyvale in 1935. Blanco’s Peninsular Theatres took over operation from 1937 to 1943.
The 1949 Film Daily Yearbook lists seating as 934. During its mid-1980s run as Murphy Street Cinema, a policy of two, three, or even four features on a single program was tried, as shown on a schedule from those years which is also preserved at the Sunnyvale Historical Museum. The schedules were distributed locally. Patrons paid differing prices depending on how many features on the program they wished to see, a policy which no doubt led to some confusion. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was shown on Saturdays at Midnight.
The former Sunnyvale (which should not be listed here as Forum anymore—that appellation lasted for a very short time in the 2000s and has not been used for years) is now once again opened as a restaurant and nightclub called Pure. The exterior looks exactly the same as it has for the last decade-plus, and the interior architecture has been through only minor changes. The lobby has been given a treatment of blue and white wallpaper in a metallic swirl motif. The auditorium has been given a uniform white paint job, covering all the walls and ceiling, but otherwise leaving intact the eclectic Egypto-Italo-Skouras-Tatooine plasterwork dating from its days as the Palace, Forum, and Abyss. Down front, the Streamline Moderne plaster proscenium and ceiling coves, as well as aluminum-housed curtain lights in the ceiling from the movie days, survive. The decor gets a sense of color by indirect multicolored LED lighting hidden in coves and sconces, and very imaginatively designed stacked glass table bases. The upstairs lounge room behind the facade’s arched windows seems to no longer be used as a public space, and still preserves its painted decor from the 1990s years as the Palace/Forum. The multicolored window film which I myself installed on the insides of the arched windows in the early 90s is still in place—though bubbled in some spots from nearly 20 years of UV exposure. An added bonus for history: The c. 1940s terrazzo pavement in the entrance and sidewalk out front has been expertly patched and polished.
Another name change: The nightclub operation is now called Abyss, and has been for more than a year now.
I have recently discovered that when this theatre opened circa 1926, it was called New Strand. This is because there was indeed an “old” nickelodeon style Strand in the building next door, two storefronts up. It had a simple front, with arched entrance and a leaded glass transom reading STRAND. This may have been a renaming of the 1911 Empire Theatre, but I cannot confirm this at present. The building still stands with completely remodeled facades, and the former location of the “old” Strand is now Fibbar MaGee’s Irish Pub.
It was listed as the Sunnyvale in the 1970 motion picture almanac. The operator was Sunny-Mount Theaters out of San Francisco.
The central section of the rear wall of the theatre—facing the parking lot—has just been painted VIVID orange. Not sure why.
I went to the Sunnyvale Theater when it showed porno. It was huge inside with red opera curtains on the stage. The screen had a hole in it, taped over. Two side entrances took you to the auditorium with the main floor, and a stadium style balcony in the rear. The balcony section had huge leather style chairs which went up to the back of your neck and they rocked. The lighting fixtures in the rear part of the balcony were burnt out. It was very dark up there and you wouldn’t believe what went on up there! Even the projectionist joined in. He ran the projectors and box office at the same time, the projector was once of the first platter styles. When the theatre converted from porno to mainstream the little display in the window said PORNO IS NO MO! I went to a screening of DAS Boot there afterwards a few years later and the attendance was poor. I didn’t recall seeing any murals on the walls, and at that time the walls of the lobby were covered over with fake brown trailer style stuff.
In the 1970’s(as the Town and Country), it was a dollar house before converting to XXX format(approximately 1974) and stayed that way until the early 1980’s. The AMC Sunnyvale 6(now closed) at the Towne Center mall likely hurt this theater before its porn conversion.
From what I understand, in its current nightclub incarnation, the balcony area is used as a second dancefloor.
Other names this theatre briefly had, after being known as the Sunnyvale: Town and Country Cinema (due to the close proximity of the Town and Country shopping center a block away), and Murphy Street Cinema (very briefly). The only reason I know of the latter name is that I once worked as an illustrator for the graphics firm in Sunnyvale that designed the type and logo for its operators under that name, though by the time I saw said logo the theatre had closed and was being remodeled for its current function, and the Murphy Street Cinema logo was simply a published item in my employer’s portfolio.
This theatre was also known as the Sunnyvale during the 50’s. It is located at 146-48 Murphy Street. It seated 934 people.