The Marin actually dates to the 1920s. In an old photo taken from a plane, it shows as an ornamented facade typical of the period.
The first time I saw the Marin in the 1980s, it was still a single screen. The facade was painted brown and was completely plain. However the marquee was a rectangular canopy without reader boards, but with bands of neon and the name MARIN, in neon, centered on the marquee front.
The three screens now inside face sideways to the original axis of the auditorium.
When old buildings across the street from the Reel Joy were being demolished to make way for the complex which houses the modern cinema, one wall was uncovered which had a painted sign which advertised “Reel Joy Theatre Photoplays”, with an arrow pointing at the theatre across the street. I didn’t have a camera with me, and next trip through, the building (and sign) were of course gone. It was then that I concluded (correctly) that the Reel Joy had to date earlier than its moderne signage would indicate. Photos in several books on Monterey County history include photos which show the Reel Joy’s original facade. It was fairly plain, with a rectangular marquee canopy.
The theatre still stands. It has long been used for retail. For a time, a karate studio operated in the former auditorium.
The facade still looks like a theatre. The marquee and any signage are long gone, but the stucco streamlined ribbed or fin motif which once backed the sign is still there.
It is listed as operating in the 1951 Film Daily Yearbook.
The vertical sign tower of this theatre, while a completely original and unusual piece of metal scultpture and neon, nods its head slightly to the 1930s tower which was once on the “old” Santa Cruz Theatre down the street (1920, remodeled 1939, changed to office and retail by the 1970s). The crescent moon on one side of the Santa Cruz 9’s sign tower and the star on the other side, as well as the stepped structure crowning the tower pay tribute to motifs on the old tower applied during the 1939 remodeling of the earlier theatre.
Aha! Closer examination reveals another possibility for this photo (ken mc’s post of Sept. 7th). I notice that each bay between the pilasters as you go down the sidewalls is done in a completely different ornamental style. Not only that, but each ceiling section has a different ornamental plaster design. I think what we have here is a photo of a “display” theatre for either a decorative plaster studio, a decorative painting studio, theatre architect, or all of the above. It’s like a “sampler” of theatre design. This sort of thing was done for tradeshows for theatre seat companies, box office designs, and later on, concession stand designs. Certainly designers and decorators themselves would have wanted to do the same.
I counted the seats as best as I could (hard to do in the front rows) and the seating capacity is under 200.
Wow! The photo in the previous posting by ken mc is something I’ve never seen before! Looks like it might even be a private screening room from some palatial estate. If it’s really a public movie theatre, is has to be a nickelodeon that was given an Egyptian remodeling. You’ll notice that most of the plasterwork is Renaissance in style. The Egyptian detailing is confined to cavetto moldings in the bays closest to the screen, along with a sunburst ceiling ornament like Grauman’s Egyptian has (and was then copied in many Egyptian style theatres from Boise to Ogden to Oakland). Some Egyptian cavetto moldings can also be seen along the top of the walls closest to the viewer. So, either this is a little theatre which went through a remodel, or someone changed the design direction during construction.
Clarification: What I meant in the fifth sentence from the end in my previous post by “same school of thought” was the previews being from the ipod school of sound compression thinking, not the headphone and sofa tradition of listening. Apologies.
Quick comment about sound compression. It seems to be the norm on music recordings too. I might guess this is due to the ipod generation and others who carry their music around with them. Having been first raised on classical music and Broadway tunes, and then cutting my pop music teeth during the golden age of arena rock (which, commercial though it was, had lots of dynamics), I find that so much pop music sound recording just seems like a sound wall. This makes guitars, drums, and most frustratingly, vocals, hard to separate in my mind. I could go on about the horrible crop of singers too (either waifs, whiners, or yellers), but that’s another subject. Now we have a whole generation of pop music listeners who are mainly hearing compressed sound come at them as this banging, booming assault, like the Red Sea crashing-in on the Egyptians. This may account for the fact that more than a few kids are discovering old rock—particularly the Beatles. Ah, those great days when listening to albums was a pre-arranged appointment with one’s headphones and a sofa. Some of my friends added a few tokes to the recipe, but I chose not to. Seems like previews are coming from the same audio school of thought. Are the features themselves next? Probably not. So much of moviegoing today is about the sound wrapping around you. Hopefully it will remain this way.
Yes, most definitely the Richmond UA was originally the T&D (and then the Fox). I have a postcard of the facade when new, with “Blood and Sand” starring Rudolph Valentino on the marquee. I have seen photos of the facade as remodeled by Amands, and it was sort of deco, and not altogether a good, cohesive design, in my opinion. It was, however, better than the plain and flat facade which replaced it.
sigh So sad to hear what has become of what was my hometown theatre ‘til I was 10. I went to the Bay from the mid-60s until 1973. Attended it once in the mid-90s when passing through. Never got to hear the organ. As someone who still believes screens visible without anything being projected on them is an absolute SIN, I’m quite saddened by the above posting(s). When I was a kid, the Bay had two curtains—one which would part, the image would project onto the second one, which was a waterfall, and it would seductively lift its scalloped skirts. As I mentioned on the CT Bay page, there were beautiful leafy murals on either side of the screen, which I hope might be hidden behind the (now former) organ chambers. Dare I hope that someday, the Bay facade might once again be white with an aqua fluted section in the middle, and the marquee and facade sign once again red, and those little neon scrolls in the center of the marquee once again flash green, yellow, and pink?
The present marquee, when first installed, was painted red and white. It was outlined in neon, and where the center panel which now says “Golden State Theatre” is, there were once vertical neon tubes, crowned by the name STATE, also in neon. The neon was removed in the 60s, when officials who thought they knew what was good for everyone prohibited most neon on Alvarado St., resulting, as in all cities that went through this process in those days, in a dark, drab, and forbidding nighttime streetscape.
A theatre historian/collector friend of mine just acquired a stack of photos showing the Fox California with its pre-Skouras, but deco interior—very thoroughly photographed. There were chandeliers identical to those still in the Watsonville Fox, what appear to be the original Cornelius-designed organ grilles were visible, though flanked by simple moderne pilasters which now flank Skouras swirls. The metal poles supporting the balcony still had their original 20s plaster, with Ionic capitals just like the ones which still exist in the Mezzanine passageway. Speaking of the latter, the three gold-painted goddess figures were not there. Rather, the space between the Ionic pilasters was occupied by a very classy deco mural of leaping gazelles and-or hounds amid stylized foliage. In both lobby spaces and auditorium, there were simple moderne wall light fixtures where the present sheet-metal-foliage fixtures are.
Not surprisingly, the deco etched mirror in the lobby had a twin where the concession stand now is.
Last year I bought a black and white postcard of this theatre from the 40s (judging by the cars out front). At the time, the theatre was called the Dolan. “DOLAN THEATRE” was written on the marquee in neon.
Recently-discovered photos show that the tropical murals of the El Rey were NOT the original decor. The streamlined ornamental plaster—yes, but there were originally geometric deco patterns all over the walls and ceiling, much like on the tilework over the lobby drinking fountain!
Drove by the other day, and the stucco exterior was all painted in white primer, and on one side, a contemporary vivid earth toned color was being applied. While I’d love to see the original mint green restored, the new color beats the horribly cold and chalky grey and blue-grey which has marred the exterior since the mid-80s.
Update: The Bay Theatre organ has been removed, and either donated or sold to a religious school. Though I always am disappointed to see an organ removed from a theatre, maybe this will allow the original murals flanking the original screen area to once again be seen, if they’ve survived the intervening years.
This theatre was also called the State, at one point. It was the Plaza when I photographed the exterior in 1984. My photo shows it playing a double feature of “Kagemusha,” and “Throne of Blood.” A year or two later, it had been renamed Palace. By the late 1990s, it had been renamed McNear’s Mystic.
Indeed the Tivoli and Royal photos are of the same theatre. In 1977, there was still metal grillework above the marquee concealing the original facade. The facade, with its Corinthian pilasters, is now exposed, and has been for a number of years now. It looks exactly like what is shown in the photo at the top of this page, though the Royal marquee shown in the 1977 view is still there.
In the big picture, beyond the issues of what’s going on with the Paramount and Fox Oakland today, there’s the inevitability of two things:
1. Growth. It is inevitable for all cities. It may yet take a while, but ultimately, Oakland will need both these theatres.
2. Regardless of all our cocooning technology today, people are going to still need to go out for live events of all sizes. The need to gather in groups and be entertained has taken a slap from all the individualized entertainment devices of late, but the communal need will always be with us.
25-50 years from now, I predict that every surface parking lot in downtown Oakland will be filled with highrise dwellings and places of business, as will most real estate now occupied by buildings of one or two storeys. The densely populated inner city is going to come back—out of necessity. Future generations will make good use of these two large entertainment venues downtown.
I went to a movie once at the Uptown, in 2000, to see “Elizabeth.” The lobby was mostly in original condition, though it needed work. The auditorium was ‘plexed, as mentioned above, and had been pretty much gutted in the process. I don’t remember there being any decoarative features surviving in there.
This is the only one of the eight theatres designed from scratch by Pflueger to be demolished. The facade derived much design influence from the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon. The auditorium featured rich sculptural ornamentation, an unusual undulating ceiling, and a large face over the proscenium.
For quick reference, the other Pflueger theatres are:
CASTRO, San Francisco
ALHAMBRA, San Francisco
STATE, Oroville
SENATOR, Chico
EL REY, San Francisco
PARAMOUNT, Oakland
ALAMEDA, Alameda
Older theatres remodeled by his firm include:
METRO, San Francisco
ROYAL, San Francisco
NEW MISSION, San Francisco
NEW FILMORE, San Francisco
I really wouldn’t put either the appelation Deco or Moderne on this one. Simply, “Pueblo Revival.” Other than perhaps the reader board—and that only slightly—there really are no features visible which I would consider either Deco or Moderne.
I don’t know about the theatre at Savin Rock, but this amusement park used to be frequented by my Dad in the 20s and 30s. The horses from the carousel there found their way in the 70s to California, where they were restored and put into a carousel at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
Errata:
The spelling, according to my notes at the time, of the owner/builder’s last name is McNamara. My apologies for spelling it “MacNamara” during the rest of my above post. Just goes to show one can’t proofread too many times!
The Marin actually dates to the 1920s. In an old photo taken from a plane, it shows as an ornamented facade typical of the period.
The first time I saw the Marin in the 1980s, it was still a single screen. The facade was painted brown and was completely plain. However the marquee was a rectangular canopy without reader boards, but with bands of neon and the name MARIN, in neon, centered on the marquee front.
The three screens now inside face sideways to the original axis of the auditorium.
When old buildings across the street from the Reel Joy were being demolished to make way for the complex which houses the modern cinema, one wall was uncovered which had a painted sign which advertised “Reel Joy Theatre Photoplays”, with an arrow pointing at the theatre across the street. I didn’t have a camera with me, and next trip through, the building (and sign) were of course gone. It was then that I concluded (correctly) that the Reel Joy had to date earlier than its moderne signage would indicate. Photos in several books on Monterey County history include photos which show the Reel Joy’s original facade. It was fairly plain, with a rectangular marquee canopy.
The theatre still stands. It has long been used for retail. For a time, a karate studio operated in the former auditorium.
The facade still looks like a theatre. The marquee and any signage are long gone, but the stucco streamlined ribbed or fin motif which once backed the sign is still there.
It is listed as operating in the 1951 Film Daily Yearbook.
The vertical sign tower of this theatre, while a completely original and unusual piece of metal scultpture and neon, nods its head slightly to the 1930s tower which was once on the “old” Santa Cruz Theatre down the street (1920, remodeled 1939, changed to office and retail by the 1970s). The crescent moon on one side of the Santa Cruz 9’s sign tower and the star on the other side, as well as the stepped structure crowning the tower pay tribute to motifs on the old tower applied during the 1939 remodeling of the earlier theatre.
Aha! Closer examination reveals another possibility for this photo (ken mc’s post of Sept. 7th). I notice that each bay between the pilasters as you go down the sidewalls is done in a completely different ornamental style. Not only that, but each ceiling section has a different ornamental plaster design. I think what we have here is a photo of a “display” theatre for either a decorative plaster studio, a decorative painting studio, theatre architect, or all of the above. It’s like a “sampler” of theatre design. This sort of thing was done for tradeshows for theatre seat companies, box office designs, and later on, concession stand designs. Certainly designers and decorators themselves would have wanted to do the same.
I counted the seats as best as I could (hard to do in the front rows) and the seating capacity is under 200.
Wow! The photo in the previous posting by ken mc is something I’ve never seen before! Looks like it might even be a private screening room from some palatial estate. If it’s really a public movie theatre, is has to be a nickelodeon that was given an Egyptian remodeling. You’ll notice that most of the plasterwork is Renaissance in style. The Egyptian detailing is confined to cavetto moldings in the bays closest to the screen, along with a sunburst ceiling ornament like Grauman’s Egyptian has (and was then copied in many Egyptian style theatres from Boise to Ogden to Oakland). Some Egyptian cavetto moldings can also be seen along the top of the walls closest to the viewer. So, either this is a little theatre which went through a remodel, or someone changed the design direction during construction.
Clarification: What I meant in the fifth sentence from the end in my previous post by “same school of thought” was the previews being from the ipod school of sound compression thinking, not the headphone and sofa tradition of listening. Apologies.
Quick comment about sound compression. It seems to be the norm on music recordings too. I might guess this is due to the ipod generation and others who carry their music around with them. Having been first raised on classical music and Broadway tunes, and then cutting my pop music teeth during the golden age of arena rock (which, commercial though it was, had lots of dynamics), I find that so much pop music sound recording just seems like a sound wall. This makes guitars, drums, and most frustratingly, vocals, hard to separate in my mind. I could go on about the horrible crop of singers too (either waifs, whiners, or yellers), but that’s another subject. Now we have a whole generation of pop music listeners who are mainly hearing compressed sound come at them as this banging, booming assault, like the Red Sea crashing-in on the Egyptians. This may account for the fact that more than a few kids are discovering old rock—particularly the Beatles. Ah, those great days when listening to albums was a pre-arranged appointment with one’s headphones and a sofa. Some of my friends added a few tokes to the recipe, but I chose not to. Seems like previews are coming from the same audio school of thought. Are the features themselves next? Probably not. So much of moviegoing today is about the sound wrapping around you. Hopefully it will remain this way.
Yes, most definitely the Richmond UA was originally the T&D (and then the Fox). I have a postcard of the facade when new, with “Blood and Sand” starring Rudolph Valentino on the marquee. I have seen photos of the facade as remodeled by Amands, and it was sort of deco, and not altogether a good, cohesive design, in my opinion. It was, however, better than the plain and flat facade which replaced it.
sigh So sad to hear what has become of what was my hometown theatre ‘til I was 10. I went to the Bay from the mid-60s until 1973. Attended it once in the mid-90s when passing through. Never got to hear the organ. As someone who still believes screens visible without anything being projected on them is an absolute SIN, I’m quite saddened by the above posting(s). When I was a kid, the Bay had two curtains—one which would part, the image would project onto the second one, which was a waterfall, and it would seductively lift its scalloped skirts. As I mentioned on the CT Bay page, there were beautiful leafy murals on either side of the screen, which I hope might be hidden behind the (now former) organ chambers. Dare I hope that someday, the Bay facade might once again be white with an aqua fluted section in the middle, and the marquee and facade sign once again red, and those little neon scrolls in the center of the marquee once again flash green, yellow, and pink?
The present marquee, when first installed, was painted red and white. It was outlined in neon, and where the center panel which now says “Golden State Theatre” is, there were once vertical neon tubes, crowned by the name STATE, also in neon. The neon was removed in the 60s, when officials who thought they knew what was good for everyone prohibited most neon on Alvarado St., resulting, as in all cities that went through this process in those days, in a dark, drab, and forbidding nighttime streetscape.
A theatre historian/collector friend of mine just acquired a stack of photos showing the Fox California with its pre-Skouras, but deco interior—very thoroughly photographed. There were chandeliers identical to those still in the Watsonville Fox, what appear to be the original Cornelius-designed organ grilles were visible, though flanked by simple moderne pilasters which now flank Skouras swirls. The metal poles supporting the balcony still had their original 20s plaster, with Ionic capitals just like the ones which still exist in the Mezzanine passageway. Speaking of the latter, the three gold-painted goddess figures were not there. Rather, the space between the Ionic pilasters was occupied by a very classy deco mural of leaping gazelles and-or hounds amid stylized foliage. In both lobby spaces and auditorium, there were simple moderne wall light fixtures where the present sheet-metal-foliage fixtures are.
Not surprisingly, the deco etched mirror in the lobby had a twin where the concession stand now is.
The central section of the rear wall of the theatre—facing the parking lot—has just been painted VIVID orange. Not sure why.
Last year I bought a black and white postcard of this theatre from the 40s (judging by the cars out front). At the time, the theatre was called the Dolan. “DOLAN THEATRE” was written on the marquee in neon.
Recently-discovered photos show that the tropical murals of the El Rey were NOT the original decor. The streamlined ornamental plaster—yes, but there were originally geometric deco patterns all over the walls and ceiling, much like on the tilework over the lobby drinking fountain!
Drove by the other day, and the stucco exterior was all painted in white primer, and on one side, a contemporary vivid earth toned color was being applied. While I’d love to see the original mint green restored, the new color beats the horribly cold and chalky grey and blue-grey which has marred the exterior since the mid-80s.
Update: The Bay Theatre organ has been removed, and either donated or sold to a religious school. Though I always am disappointed to see an organ removed from a theatre, maybe this will allow the original murals flanking the original screen area to once again be seen, if they’ve survived the intervening years.
This theatre was also called the State, at one point. It was the Plaza when I photographed the exterior in 1984. My photo shows it playing a double feature of “Kagemusha,” and “Throne of Blood.” A year or two later, it had been renamed Palace. By the late 1990s, it had been renamed McNear’s Mystic.
Indeed the Tivoli and Royal photos are of the same theatre. In 1977, there was still metal grillework above the marquee concealing the original facade. The facade, with its Corinthian pilasters, is now exposed, and has been for a number of years now. It looks exactly like what is shown in the photo at the top of this page, though the Royal marquee shown in the 1977 view is still there.
In the big picture, beyond the issues of what’s going on with the Paramount and Fox Oakland today, there’s the inevitability of two things:
1. Growth. It is inevitable for all cities. It may yet take a while, but ultimately, Oakland will need both these theatres.
2. Regardless of all our cocooning technology today, people are going to still need to go out for live events of all sizes. The need to gather in groups and be entertained has taken a slap from all the individualized entertainment devices of late, but the communal need will always be with us.
25-50 years from now, I predict that every surface parking lot in downtown Oakland will be filled with highrise dwellings and places of business, as will most real estate now occupied by buildings of one or two storeys. The densely populated inner city is going to come back—out of necessity. Future generations will make good use of these two large entertainment venues downtown.
I went to a movie once at the Uptown, in 2000, to see “Elizabeth.” The lobby was mostly in original condition, though it needed work. The auditorium was ‘plexed, as mentioned above, and had been pretty much gutted in the process. I don’t remember there being any decoarative features surviving in there.
This is the only one of the eight theatres designed from scratch by Pflueger to be demolished. The facade derived much design influence from the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon. The auditorium featured rich sculptural ornamentation, an unusual undulating ceiling, and a large face over the proscenium.
For quick reference, the other Pflueger theatres are:
CASTRO, San Francisco
ALHAMBRA, San Francisco
STATE, Oroville
SENATOR, Chico
EL REY, San Francisco
PARAMOUNT, Oakland
ALAMEDA, Alameda
Older theatres remodeled by his firm include:
METRO, San Francisco
ROYAL, San Francisco
NEW MISSION, San Francisco
NEW FILMORE, San Francisco
I really wouldn’t put either the appelation Deco or Moderne on this one. Simply, “Pueblo Revival.” Other than perhaps the reader board—and that only slightly—there really are no features visible which I would consider either Deco or Moderne.
I don’t know about the theatre at Savin Rock, but this amusement park used to be frequented by my Dad in the 20s and 30s. The horses from the carousel there found their way in the 70s to California, where they were restored and put into a carousel at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
Errata:
The spelling, according to my notes at the time, of the owner/builder’s last name is McNamara. My apologies for spelling it “MacNamara” during the rest of my above post. Just goes to show one can’t proofread too many times!