Pacific's Hastings 8
355 N. Rosemead Boulevard,
Pasadena,
CA
91107
355 N. Rosemead Boulevard,
Pasadena,
CA
91107
13 people
favorited this theater
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A chronology of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley’s 70mm presentation history has recently been published. Hastings is mentioned numerous times.
At the time the theater closed I made this list of movies I saw there over the years.(I only included movies I saw in the big theater.)
1970s The Wizard of Oz (rerelease in ‘71-'73), Fantasia (rerelease), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, California Suite
1980s 9 to 5 (with trailer for Outland), Time Bandits, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Blue Thunder, Twilight Zone: The Movie (and trailer for Never Say Never Again), Krull, Top Secret, 2010: Odyssey 2, Ladyhawke, Return to Oz, The Black Cauldron, The Color Purple, Santa Claus: The Movie, Poltergeist 2: The Other Side, Song of the South (1986 rerelease), Golden Child, Platoon, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Space Balls, Ishtar, Creepshow II, Nothing in Common (Tom Hanks/Jackie Gleason), The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Blind Date, Three Men and a Baby, Good Morning Vietnam, A New Life (Alan Alda/Ann-Margaret), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? High Spirits (I only peaked in on this one), *Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1990s Dick Tracy/Roller Coaster Rabbit (Roger Rabbit featurette), Reversal of Fortune, Terminator 2, The Rocketeer, Bugsy, Nightmare Before Christmas, Independence Day, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
2000s Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones, Star Trek X: Nemesis, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith
I only ever saw two movies here. Robocop 2 and Ghosts of Mars.
Expanded to 4 screens on December 6th, 1985. Grand opening ad posted.
Is this indoor theatre the one that replaced Hastings Drive-in?
This was featured on the G4 program “Human Wrecking Balls”
I guess the large curved D-150 screen was taken out when they turned the place into a multiplex. To bad they didn’t keep it in the large cinema. How sad now It sits all closed up.
The opening film at the Hastings Theatre was “The Graduate”.
Here is a December 1972 ad from the Valley News:
http://tinyurl.com/npacof
I remember a few movies here as a kid, Close Encounters and Time Bandits. And probably many Disney films in the 70s.
The first film I saw at the Pasadena Hastings was ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, which was released in April of 1968, so this was likely one of the very first screenings at the theatre. I was 10 years old, and since my dad worked on the Apollo space program, I was extremely interested in all things related to space travel, and incredibly excited to see this movie. Since it was a late showing, and the movie long, rather slow-paced, and the seats quite comfortable, I (of course) fell asleep just before the classic final sequence. When I woke up, I asked my parents what I’d missed, and I think it might have been the first time I’d ever asked a question they couldn’t answer. I didn’t get to see it in its entirety until years later, when I finally understood their befuddled silence. It remains one of my favorite films, and the Hastings from then on always a magical place to see movies.
Sorry to hear the Rialto is also no more. That theatre was (along with the Fox Venice- now sadly an indoor ‘swap meet’ and the Nuart, thankfully still screening films) one of the ‘trinity’ of LA area art houses responsible for introducing foreign and independent films to an entire generation in the ‘70’s.
The original Hastings Theatre was designed by South Pasadena architect Roland Decker Pierson. Pierson had earlier designed at least two other big, single-screen theaters for the Sterling Organization, these being the Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance, and the Montclair Theatre in Montclair.
The Hastings was the subject of an article in the March 25, 1968, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, describing the unusual features of its design, including its continental seating arrangement and reverse auditorium. The seating capacity was given as 1,542.
Two more theaters that can be attributed to Roland Decker Pierson are the Edwards Huntington in Huntington Beach, and the Azusa Drive-In in Azusa.
I took some photos the day before it closed. They’re just from a cheap pocket-sized Nikon. I just took photos until an usher yelled at me to stop, because they didn’t want photos showing up in the paper (from a cheap pocket camera?), so I waited until she left and took more pictures. What was she going to do, ban me from coming back? The place was closing!
Anyway, exterior:
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Interior, main house:
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Torn draperies in the back:
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Blurry photo of one of the little side screens:
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More exteriors:
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Night shots:
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The status of the theatre should be listed as closed now.
I just viewed some of the photos posted on Cinematour and that huge auditorium sure brings back memories of some of the huge theatres we once had here in New Jersey. Nice wide room, with acres of seats, and how about all that carpeting in front of the screen before the first row of seats. Nowadays all we get are shoeboxes and tile floor (if we’re lucky).
Yes, the main house at the Chinese Theatre is still large as is the Village Theatre in Westwood.
Gone? GONE?! I think I’m going to cry!
Though I didn’t discover this place until it became a multiplex, it still had that large screen auditorium. I went to see all three of the “Lord of the Rings” movies there. They opened for those three years right around my birthday so that was part of my birthday present. I took my cousin there to see the Harry Potter movies. Where do we go now? (Honestly, I can’t think of where there are big screens any longer. Is the main auditorium at Grauman’s Chinese still fairly large? It’s been years since I’ve been there.)
Movies are special to me. It seems like they should be an experience in and of themselves. I love going at night to large screen theatres. Somehow leaving a theatre at nighttime lets me bask in the movie magic for just a little while longer.
I hate multiplexes with there little non-descipt rooms. I once went to one where the theatre I went into wasn’t much larger than my combo living room/dining area. And the screen was no larger than a big screen TV. No joke. I can’t remember what film that was now. If I want to watch a film on a TV screen I’ll stay home.
What a shame about the Hastings. Just read the post and saw that it has been closed – again for lack of attention. It was, without a doubt, the best room to see a big screen presenation of a film in the Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley.. The first film I reacll seeing there was “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” in 1977 – pretty heady stuff for a naive 17 year old Irish-Catholic boy! I had to read the novel to figure out what I had just seen. Other films over the years included, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind;” Blade Runner;“ "The World According to Garp;” “Blue Thunder;” “Krull;” and “Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade;” and “Crimson Tide.” Great theater, lots of good memories. It was bad enough when they divided it the first time, but when they divided THAT and created those little shoe-box theaters (greed?), it was really terrible. But as long as the main auditorium was intact – and you checked that your film was playing in it – it was still worth going out there to see it. Now it’s gone – along with all the great other Pasadena theaters and Alhambra theaters of my youth, including The Monterey, The Garfield, The El Rey and recently, The Rialto. Now they only exist in my memory. I even went to the Hastings a few times with my ex-wife and mother in law to see “Godfather III” and “Dances with Wolves!” Yikes. Lest we forget …
I think the marquee was damaged in a storm and not repaired to working condition.
The thing is that they did use to have all the movies listed on the marquee, with the one playing in the big theater using bigger letters.
My guess, and it’s just a guess, is that with eight different screens, there wasn’t room enough on that marquee to list all of the shows and showtimes.
That marquee is the original marquee, back when it was just a large single screen theatre. (About 1986 is when the theatre underwent its first expansion.)
A better question might be why didn’t Pacific upgrade and build a LARGER marquee, at the time when they expanded the theatre and added the additional screens.
What’s the reason for not putting the showtimes on the marquee? It doesn’t seem like Pacific wanted this place to succeed, does it?
Me not enough. I only popped by and bought a ticket just to snoop around. I have some pictures too. Ed’s cover most of what I got but I’ll get em to Cinematour.
Thank you for the pictures. I spent way too much time at this place.
Ed’s photos can be viewed over at CinemaTour. It doesn’t seem as though we could photoshop the interior auditorium photos as well as I had hoped, but hey, it’s something!
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/2704.html