Just wanted to clarify for longislandmovies what I said about admission prices (I’m in SF) since I am the one that mentioned the $10 admission price. I resent paying so much for admission when the audience is noisy and cell phones keep going off. The commercials were the final nail in the coffin. My business goes now to usually single screen theatres that don’t show commercials and some multi screen theaters were the audience is at least respectful. The admission price is still $10 or close and I don’t mind paying it if I can sit in peace and not be constantly distracted. The multiplexes (AMC, Loews)are the biggest offenders and not what I would call “great theaters” with their box look and $1.98 decorating.
I hardly ever go to theatres anymore that show commercials. That pretty much means I see a lot of films at home on dvd. I’m one of the defectees that couldn’t stand the rude audiences, the cell phones andplunking down nearly $10 to get in. Instead,I patronize the theatres that don’t have commercials. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a commercial at any of the Landmark Theatres, the Grand Lake in Oakland or the Castro in SF. The Kabuki has just been sold to Sundance, possibly another 8 commercial free screens. I don’t own a car so bought a good audio/video system but it’s not the same as sitting in a theatre with an audience. The commercials killed it for me.
I never received my agenda either and I’m thoroughly out of the closet and have been for 35 years. I think someone has got the gay agenda confused with the straight agenda. Brokeback was made by straight people for a straight audience. It’s theme (according to the straight author of the story) is homophobia in rural America. We see this form of psychological terrorism inflicted on Ennis at a young age and the repressed and fearful person that Ennis turns into. We see that it destroys his marriage— and the love of his life. Rural America (and the big cities for that matter) can still be a very dangerous place for gay people and this is not 1963. The high profile murder of Matthew Sheppard comes to mind. My own personal opinion is that I thought Brokeback was a far superior film to Crash although I liked it also. The fact that it didn’t really have an agenda is one of the reasons the film has done well in all it’s bookings nationwide and will probably have a huge dvd audience next month when it comes out again. Might not have won best picture but I think Brokeback, as a story and a film, will have a long life.
According to an AP story today Brokeback placed 9th in last weekend’s ticket sales but still has the highest per screen average at $10,330 per screen and is still going strong in every market it is playing in, despite it’s gay theme. Last night it won 4 Golden Globes including best picture, director, screenplay and song.
Wondering if jn’s theatre will show Transamerica (Felicity Huffman-Best Actress Golden Globe) – about a transexual or Copote (Phillip S Hoffman-Best Actor Golden Globe) about an openly gay writer??
Noticed that GabeDF’s Mar ll entry of the largest theatres ever built left out the Fox here in San Francisco. According to it’s listing on the Cinema Treasures website, the Fox had 4651 seats making it the 8th largest American theatre.
Bought a copy of this fantastic book this afternoon at my neighborhood Noe Valley bookstore. What a gem it is. I’ve lived in the Bay Area all my life and here in the City since 1969. So much has been lost but this book makes it all come back to life. Thanks so much to Jack Tillmany for his efforts.
The Castro Thetare is my neighborhood theatre. Not quite familiar with some on the list but just wanted to say that it is a 1920’s movie palace, still in pretty good condition and not part of a multi/mega plex. And still doing pretty good business.
Just wanted to add to brubec…..I’ve been going to the Grand Lake more and more to see the big screen movies (Aviator, Chicago, Lord of the Rings III, etc.) in the downstairs main theatre. Nice big screen and great accoustics and sound. It’s worth the trip to Oakland, easy freeway access, an easy ½ hour walk from the 19th St subway station, if you drive parking is fairly easy, especially on Sundays. Bargain prices at matinees are indeed bargains. Going to this theatre is fun!!
Re:Evolution concerns prompt censorship. This seems unbelievable. The right wing religious zealots can now dictate which movies are going to be shown in our theatres? This sounds more like communist Russia or China than the “land of freedom”. Can’t the people who don’t believe in evolution just skip this IMAX film and let the rest of the people in Texas and the Carolinas see it? The stranglehold these intollerant people have is going to suffocate the rest of us.
Went to the 3:45 matinee this afternoon. The projectionist Mr Garcia mentioned gave a short history of the theatre before the show started. He said the theatre would be open for a few weeks more but that Million Dollar Baby would be the theatre’s last film. In the 50’s Mike Todd supervised the installation of the current screen (for Todd AO presentation), the orginal “surround” speakers were in the ceiling and the 2 sound systems installed now are Dolby Digital and Sony’s SDDS. The projectionist said they use the Dolby Digital system because it “sounds better”. The projectors also were modified in the 50’s for 70mm showings so that the correct aspect ratios could be achieved. Unless somehow this theatre can be saved from the wrecking ball, in a few weeks we will just have our memories of the Coronet.
Went to the 3:45 matinee this afternoon. The projectionist came down to the front of the auditorium and gave a short history of the theatre then told the audience that Million Dollar Baby would be the last film shown there and that the closing date would be in the next “couple of weeks”.
The first time I went into the Coronet was during the long run reserved seat engagement of My Fair Lady. The top of the marquee was festooned with plastic flowers and I believe flags of many countries sprouted from the flower baskets. All the seats had clean white covers over the tops of the seatbacks. The house curtain was a deep yellow and besides the huge screen the Coronet had about the best sound system in the City. Going to the Coronet was an event. Over the years I’ve seen many films there. The last time I went in some jerk sitting behind me yacked on his cell phone until 3 of us asked him to shut up. They didn’t even use the deep yellow curtain anymore – it was permanantly open. The show started with a bunch of commercials. It was sad to see the theatre go down the tubes. It’s corporate (don’t care) ownership was showing very badly.
Seems like it would be economic suicide to change the programming to the point that people would stop going. The Nassers have owned the theatre for decades, and I doubt they want to see it close due to a lack of patronage. I wonder if they are considering twinning or triplexing which was kicked around in the late 70’s or early 80’s. The theatre is a national historical landmark but don’t know it that protects the interior as well as the facade. There was a noisy demonstration in front of the theatre Saturday (18th)over the firing of Anita Monga and the hiring on an LA programmer who obviously doesn’t know the local film scene (according to an interview with him in a recent SF Chronicle column by Ruthe Stein – “The Movie Insider”). Time will tell whether his programming will bring movigoers into the Castro or whether it was the wrong employment decision. The “Film Noir” series that has been so popular at the Castro has pulled out and will be at the Balboa.
The Pagoda Palace is slated to become a taqueria in less than a year. A story in todays SF Chronicle says the theatre was sold to Joel Campos, who owns 2 La Corneta Taquerias in other parts of the City. The restaurant will take up about half the 10,000 sq ft building.
What’s also amazing that this theatre is still going after 20 years is that the screens in the 4 theatres are not much bigger than todays TV sets and they don’t have any upgraded sound.
The Palace can be seen in the 2002 documentary “The Cockettes”. Nocturnal Dream Shows were wildly popular here in the early-mid 70’s. Presented at midnight (after the Chinese movies) throngs of people would crowd the box office waiting for the box office “lady” to finish decorating the box office windows (usually with feather boas) so they could buy tickets (for about $2) to see the Cockettes. There was always a film, usually a 30’s or 40’s musical, after the stage show. Divine threw dead fish from a shopping cart on the stage out into the audience to herald the showing of her new film “Female Trouble”, Sylvester would bring down the house singing “Big City Blues” and a very stoned audience would always have a great time. Busby Berkeley films were favorites. Someone was trying to reopen it as Muriel’s Supper Club a few years ago but their financing dried up.
The Kabuki 8 was San Francisco’s first multiplex. The Kabuki Theatre was orginally built for roadshow type Kabuki presentations. There just wasn’t enough Kabuki companies to keep the theatre going full tilt and since the whole idea was to enhance Japantown businesses the theatre was rented out for plays, music concerts and revues. Local producer Sebastian presented Divine in a big flop here called “The Heartbreak of Psoriasis” in the mid 70’s, by then the rows of seats had been replaced with tables and chairs so food and drinks could be sold with the shows. AMC put back the traditional seating and built the other 7 theatres on the Fillmore St side of the theatre. The main theatre (AMC called it “the Big House”) has a gigantic screen and was the first SF theatre to install a THX sound system.
Loew’s Warfield boasted one of the more impressive marquees of the Market St movie palaces. It was 3 sided with the street side arched. Full of lights and neon it also featured an inner marquee above the inside of the arch. The towering verticle sign was 6 stories high (like its neighbor around the corner, the Golden Gate). May West was there for the premier of her film “Sextette” in the 70’s. Looking a little “waxy” and seated in a big chair, she was carted across the stage to a mic by a couple of oiled up bodybuilders. They propped her up and she said in her best Westian “Thanks for commin' to my picsha” and then was carted back to the wings. The sold out crowd went wild. Architecturally, I think this is one of the nicest of the remaining movie palaces in San Francisco. The beautiful fan-like ceiling made the theatre look wider than it was deep and it has a beautiful classically painted mural over the proscenium. The balcony has chandeliers hanging from blue-lit coves. The marquee and verticle sign had to be taken down in the late 60’s when pile drivers came through building the side supports of the BART subway. The side walks were widened and street trees added when subway construction was finished – and the new “look” forbade putting back those big marquees and verticle signs on any theatre that faced Market St. That’s why they all have flat, fixed to the building plastic marquees now.
The Embassy was a unique movie going experience. The Ten-O-Win wheel was rolled out at intermission and a tuxedoed Dan McClean would call out the numbers and colors that the two arrows (each spun in a different direction) landed on. If you had the lucky ticket you would call out and an usher or usherette would come running to you hollering out “Balcony” (if the winner was seated in the balcony) “Pay $5”, or whatever the prize amount was, then peal off the ones to you. Does this sound like the 1950’s? This was still going on well into the 1980’s. By then it was not uncommon to see streetpeople sleeping it off in the front side orchestra where their snoring would not bother most of the audience. There was usually a double bill and the fare tended towards Charles Bronson pix, Peckinpaw, westerns, action films etc and occasionally something like “Nashville”. The feeling there was that it was a family operation – I remember seeing the same employees for over 15 years in the 70’s and 80’s. From the etched glass in the tunnels upstairs leading to the balcony, to the chain that dragged across the stage floor every time the curtains opened and closed (it had come loose from the left curtain’s bottom hem – I guess to weigh it down), to the free popcorn they gave away on Christmas eve, to the peeling paint over the proscenium and that colorful marquee the Embassy was unique on Market St.
Thanks to Eric Hooper for his “last look” photos. The Coronet is next on UA/Regal’s demolition list for the Richmond. It’s sad that there are so few single screen theatres left in SF. TV/Video/DVD/Home theatre have all shortened the lives of our larger theatres as well as corporate neglect. As`nice as it was to sit in the downstairs Alexandria, the sound was “digital-mushy” and the upstairs theatre’s sound systems never sounded like they’d been upgraded past the 70’s. The only thing that will keep these large thatres open is crowds ($$$$$$) or owners who want to keep them open-or-creative programming (like the Castro).
Saw “The Sand Pebbles”, “Myra Breckinridge” and “The Exorcist” in the upstairs theatre which was called The Penthouse, in the late 60’s. An escalator had been installed from the lobby to the mezzanine. The downstairs theatre showed Cinerama films – “2001” played there for a couple of years. The last time I remember going into the downstairs theatre for a film was a double bill – “Zacharia” a rock western, was being shown on a conventional wide screen, and a sneak preview of “The Andromeda Strain” (with Hollywood bigwigs in the audience), was shown on the Cinerama screen.
I saw the last showing of “Wag the Dog” on the closing night of the Alhambra. After the film ended they turned on the houselight. Unfortunately it looked as though the restoration that had been done for the “Roger Rabbit” reopening had already begun to age. During the restoration (back to a single screen theatre) part of the orginal proscenium was revealed behind another renovation and the results can be seen in the above photo. On foggy damp nights its minarets glowed beautifully. For “Roger Rabbit” a new sound system was installed – the theatre had great accoustics.
In the late 1970’s a friend of mine and I snuck inside the empty Fox. The open side front door down near the stage provided the only light inside the cavernous auditorium. All the seats had been removed but the two big gold Buddahs that flank the stage were still standing guard and it looked like homeless people were using the stage to camp on. And now with the marquee restored it looks like the Fox will be coming back to life.
Just wanted to clarify for longislandmovies what I said about admission prices (I’m in SF) since I am the one that mentioned the $10 admission price. I resent paying so much for admission when the audience is noisy and cell phones keep going off. The commercials were the final nail in the coffin. My business goes now to usually single screen theatres that don’t show commercials and some multi screen theaters were the audience is at least respectful. The admission price is still $10 or close and I don’t mind paying it if I can sit in peace and not be constantly distracted. The multiplexes (AMC, Loews)are the biggest offenders and not what I would call “great theaters” with their box look and $1.98 decorating.
I hardly ever go to theatres anymore that show commercials. That pretty much means I see a lot of films at home on dvd. I’m one of the defectees that couldn’t stand the rude audiences, the cell phones andplunking down nearly $10 to get in. Instead,I patronize the theatres that don’t have commercials. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a commercial at any of the Landmark Theatres, the Grand Lake in Oakland or the Castro in SF. The Kabuki has just been sold to Sundance, possibly another 8 commercial free screens. I don’t own a car so bought a good audio/video system but it’s not the same as sitting in a theatre with an audience. The commercials killed it for me.
As of 9/6/06 the theatre sits with it’s verticle sign gone and the entire front boarded over – looks like the taqueria project was abandoned.
I never received my agenda either and I’m thoroughly out of the closet and have been for 35 years. I think someone has got the gay agenda confused with the straight agenda. Brokeback was made by straight people for a straight audience. It’s theme (according to the straight author of the story) is homophobia in rural America. We see this form of psychological terrorism inflicted on Ennis at a young age and the repressed and fearful person that Ennis turns into. We see that it destroys his marriage— and the love of his life. Rural America (and the big cities for that matter) can still be a very dangerous place for gay people and this is not 1963. The high profile murder of Matthew Sheppard comes to mind. My own personal opinion is that I thought Brokeback was a far superior film to Crash although I liked it also. The fact that it didn’t really have an agenda is one of the reasons the film has done well in all it’s bookings nationwide and will probably have a huge dvd audience next month when it comes out again. Might not have won best picture but I think Brokeback, as a story and a film, will have a long life.
According to an AP story today Brokeback placed 9th in last weekend’s ticket sales but still has the highest per screen average at $10,330 per screen and is still going strong in every market it is playing in, despite it’s gay theme. Last night it won 4 Golden Globes including best picture, director, screenplay and song.
Wondering if jn’s theatre will show Transamerica (Felicity Huffman-Best Actress Golden Globe) – about a transexual or Copote (Phillip S Hoffman-Best Actor Golden Globe) about an openly gay writer??
Noticed that GabeDF’s Mar ll entry of the largest theatres ever built left out the Fox here in San Francisco. According to it’s listing on the Cinema Treasures website, the Fox had 4651 seats making it the 8th largest American theatre.
Bought a copy of this fantastic book this afternoon at my neighborhood Noe Valley bookstore. What a gem it is. I’ve lived in the Bay Area all my life and here in the City since 1969. So much has been lost but this book makes it all come back to life. Thanks so much to Jack Tillmany for his efforts.
The Castro Thetare is my neighborhood theatre. Not quite familiar with some on the list but just wanted to say that it is a 1920’s movie palace, still in pretty good condition and not part of a multi/mega plex. And still doing pretty good business.
Just wanted to add to brubec…..I’ve been going to the Grand Lake more and more to see the big screen movies (Aviator, Chicago, Lord of the Rings III, etc.) in the downstairs main theatre. Nice big screen and great accoustics and sound. It’s worth the trip to Oakland, easy freeway access, an easy ½ hour walk from the 19th St subway station, if you drive parking is fairly easy, especially on Sundays. Bargain prices at matinees are indeed bargains. Going to this theatre is fun!!
Re:Evolution concerns prompt censorship. This seems unbelievable. The right wing religious zealots can now dictate which movies are going to be shown in our theatres? This sounds more like communist Russia or China than the “land of freedom”. Can’t the people who don’t believe in evolution just skip this IMAX film and let the rest of the people in Texas and the Carolinas see it? The stranglehold these intollerant people have is going to suffocate the rest of us.
Went to the 3:45 matinee this afternoon. The projectionist Mr Garcia mentioned gave a short history of the theatre before the show started. He said the theatre would be open for a few weeks more but that Million Dollar Baby would be the theatre’s last film. In the 50’s Mike Todd supervised the installation of the current screen (for Todd AO presentation), the orginal “surround” speakers were in the ceiling and the 2 sound systems installed now are Dolby Digital and Sony’s SDDS. The projectionist said they use the Dolby Digital system because it “sounds better”. The projectors also were modified in the 50’s for 70mm showings so that the correct aspect ratios could be achieved. Unless somehow this theatre can be saved from the wrecking ball, in a few weeks we will just have our memories of the Coronet.
Went to the 3:45 matinee this afternoon. The projectionist came down to the front of the auditorium and gave a short history of the theatre then told the audience that Million Dollar Baby would be the last film shown there and that the closing date would be in the next “couple of weeks”.
The first time I went into the Coronet was during the long run reserved seat engagement of My Fair Lady. The top of the marquee was festooned with plastic flowers and I believe flags of many countries sprouted from the flower baskets. All the seats had clean white covers over the tops of the seatbacks. The house curtain was a deep yellow and besides the huge screen the Coronet had about the best sound system in the City. Going to the Coronet was an event. Over the years I’ve seen many films there. The last time I went in some jerk sitting behind me yacked on his cell phone until 3 of us asked him to shut up. They didn’t even use the deep yellow curtain anymore – it was permanantly open. The show started with a bunch of commercials. It was sad to see the theatre go down the tubes. It’s corporate (don’t care) ownership was showing very badly.
Pam Trent’s just published “Midnight at the Palace” details the outrageous Cockettes shows held at the Palace in the early 70’s.
Seems like it would be economic suicide to change the programming to the point that people would stop going. The Nassers have owned the theatre for decades, and I doubt they want to see it close due to a lack of patronage. I wonder if they are considering twinning or triplexing which was kicked around in the late 70’s or early 80’s. The theatre is a national historical landmark but don’t know it that protects the interior as well as the facade. There was a noisy demonstration in front of the theatre Saturday (18th)over the firing of Anita Monga and the hiring on an LA programmer who obviously doesn’t know the local film scene (according to an interview with him in a recent SF Chronicle column by Ruthe Stein – “The Movie Insider”). Time will tell whether his programming will bring movigoers into the Castro or whether it was the wrong employment decision. The “Film Noir” series that has been so popular at the Castro has pulled out and will be at the Balboa.
The Pagoda Palace is slated to become a taqueria in less than a year. A story in todays SF Chronicle says the theatre was sold to Joel Campos, who owns 2 La Corneta Taquerias in other parts of the City. The restaurant will take up about half the 10,000 sq ft building.
What’s also amazing that this theatre is still going after 20 years is that the screens in the 4 theatres are not much bigger than todays TV sets and they don’t have any upgraded sound.
The Palace can be seen in the 2002 documentary “The Cockettes”. Nocturnal Dream Shows were wildly popular here in the early-mid 70’s. Presented at midnight (after the Chinese movies) throngs of people would crowd the box office waiting for the box office “lady” to finish decorating the box office windows (usually with feather boas) so they could buy tickets (for about $2) to see the Cockettes. There was always a film, usually a 30’s or 40’s musical, after the stage show. Divine threw dead fish from a shopping cart on the stage out into the audience to herald the showing of her new film “Female Trouble”, Sylvester would bring down the house singing “Big City Blues” and a very stoned audience would always have a great time. Busby Berkeley films were favorites. Someone was trying to reopen it as Muriel’s Supper Club a few years ago but their financing dried up.
The Kabuki 8 was San Francisco’s first multiplex. The Kabuki Theatre was orginally built for roadshow type Kabuki presentations. There just wasn’t enough Kabuki companies to keep the theatre going full tilt and since the whole idea was to enhance Japantown businesses the theatre was rented out for plays, music concerts and revues. Local producer Sebastian presented Divine in a big flop here called “The Heartbreak of Psoriasis” in the mid 70’s, by then the rows of seats had been replaced with tables and chairs so food and drinks could be sold with the shows. AMC put back the traditional seating and built the other 7 theatres on the Fillmore St side of the theatre. The main theatre (AMC called it “the Big House”) has a gigantic screen and was the first SF theatre to install a THX sound system.
Loew’s Warfield boasted one of the more impressive marquees of the Market St movie palaces. It was 3 sided with the street side arched. Full of lights and neon it also featured an inner marquee above the inside of the arch. The towering verticle sign was 6 stories high (like its neighbor around the corner, the Golden Gate). May West was there for the premier of her film “Sextette” in the 70’s. Looking a little “waxy” and seated in a big chair, she was carted across the stage to a mic by a couple of oiled up bodybuilders. They propped her up and she said in her best Westian “Thanks for commin' to my picsha” and then was carted back to the wings. The sold out crowd went wild. Architecturally, I think this is one of the nicest of the remaining movie palaces in San Francisco. The beautiful fan-like ceiling made the theatre look wider than it was deep and it has a beautiful classically painted mural over the proscenium. The balcony has chandeliers hanging from blue-lit coves. The marquee and verticle sign had to be taken down in the late 60’s when pile drivers came through building the side supports of the BART subway. The side walks were widened and street trees added when subway construction was finished – and the new “look” forbade putting back those big marquees and verticle signs on any theatre that faced Market St. That’s why they all have flat, fixed to the building plastic marquees now.
The Embassy was a unique movie going experience. The Ten-O-Win wheel was rolled out at intermission and a tuxedoed Dan McClean would call out the numbers and colors that the two arrows (each spun in a different direction) landed on. If you had the lucky ticket you would call out and an usher or usherette would come running to you hollering out “Balcony” (if the winner was seated in the balcony) “Pay $5”, or whatever the prize amount was, then peal off the ones to you. Does this sound like the 1950’s? This was still going on well into the 1980’s. By then it was not uncommon to see streetpeople sleeping it off in the front side orchestra where their snoring would not bother most of the audience. There was usually a double bill and the fare tended towards Charles Bronson pix, Peckinpaw, westerns, action films etc and occasionally something like “Nashville”. The feeling there was that it was a family operation – I remember seeing the same employees for over 15 years in the 70’s and 80’s. From the etched glass in the tunnels upstairs leading to the balcony, to the chain that dragged across the stage floor every time the curtains opened and closed (it had come loose from the left curtain’s bottom hem – I guess to weigh it down), to the free popcorn they gave away on Christmas eve, to the peeling paint over the proscenium and that colorful marquee the Embassy was unique on Market St.
Thanks to Eric Hooper for his “last look” photos. The Coronet is next on UA/Regal’s demolition list for the Richmond. It’s sad that there are so few single screen theatres left in SF. TV/Video/DVD/Home theatre have all shortened the lives of our larger theatres as well as corporate neglect. As`nice as it was to sit in the downstairs Alexandria, the sound was “digital-mushy” and the upstairs theatre’s sound systems never sounded like they’d been upgraded past the 70’s. The only thing that will keep these large thatres open is crowds ($$$$$$) or owners who want to keep them open-or-creative programming (like the Castro).
Saw “The Sand Pebbles”, “Myra Breckinridge” and “The Exorcist” in the upstairs theatre which was called The Penthouse, in the late 60’s. An escalator had been installed from the lobby to the mezzanine. The downstairs theatre showed Cinerama films – “2001” played there for a couple of years. The last time I remember going into the downstairs theatre for a film was a double bill – “Zacharia” a rock western, was being shown on a conventional wide screen, and a sneak preview of “The Andromeda Strain” (with Hollywood bigwigs in the audience), was shown on the Cinerama screen.
I saw the last showing of “Wag the Dog” on the closing night of the Alhambra. After the film ended they turned on the houselight. Unfortunately it looked as though the restoration that had been done for the “Roger Rabbit” reopening had already begun to age. During the restoration (back to a single screen theatre) part of the orginal proscenium was revealed behind another renovation and the results can be seen in the above photo. On foggy damp nights its minarets glowed beautifully. For “Roger Rabbit” a new sound system was installed – the theatre had great accoustics.
In the late 1970’s a friend of mine and I snuck inside the empty Fox. The open side front door down near the stage provided the only light inside the cavernous auditorium. All the seats had been removed but the two big gold Buddahs that flank the stage were still standing guard and it looked like homeless people were using the stage to camp on. And now with the marquee restored it looks like the Fox will be coming back to life.