Crestview Cinemas
4720 Manzanita Avenue,
Carmichael,
CA
95608
4720 Manzanita Avenue,
Carmichael,
CA
95608
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing 6 comments
This theater was never twinned. I heard the screen was HUGE so porn must have been something to see there. Went by there around 1986-87 and it was second-run then (marquee had a double feature of Back to School and Ferris Bueller’s Day off which had been out for months). In 1990 they tried a re-opening but didn’t really go anywhere showing B-movies like Rockula, then it became a live theater for a while. While closed there was a fire and was demolished after that.
Cinema 150 was UA’s name for large theaters in the 60s, there was a similar one in San Jose. Other Cinema 150s had domes like the Centurys, one was in Seattle and another in Little Rock.
Gonna try this comment again…I think I used a forbidden word the first time and am not sure why they second try didn’t post.
Anyway: There was a period, I think during the summer of 1976 but am not sure, where the Cinema 150/Crestview ran nothing but rock movies: Pink Floyd at Pompeii, Yessongs, The Song Remains the Same (all in 4-track mag) and many others.
During that period I was able to talk the projectionist a few times (they were still doing 2000' changeovers) and he said that 70mm was considered when the place was built but for whatever reason they ultimately didn’t go for it, so they weren’t technically a D-150 house. They did have Ampex 4-track mag, though. Aside from the rock era, I can remember it being used for a re-release of 2001.
Many years later after I had moved to Santa Rosa, I went to the Corte Madera Cinema and had a jarring time travel moment as the place was exactly the same as the Cinema 150, though my understanding is that the Corta Madera did have 70mm.
I was just by the old site yesterday and I think it’s safe to say that the status is demolished, not just closed.
The correct opening date is September 28th 1966.
So was this a D-150 equipped theater? That would make sense for a variety of reasons. And I would also assume they showed OKLAHOMA! in its 70mm/30fps version. Anyone know?
The Cinema 150 opened on September 28th, 1968 and was taken over by the Mitchell Brothers, who renamed it on September 15th, 1975 Cinema and switched to adult programming. It closed in April 1976 when the lease was bought out by the mall’s owner after neighborhood requests. It reopened as the Crestview Cinemas with two screens on May 1977 and closed in 1987. Grand opening ads posted.
Mike, what was so wrong that the neighborhood wanted the theater closed? Adult films?