Carthay Circle Theatre
6316 San Vicente Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
6316 San Vicente Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
37 people favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 130 comments
Oh, dear. Whoever wrote the caption for the USC photo probably just read the old street sign in the and searched Google Maps for Eulalia Boulevard in Los Angeles, and it came up with Eulalia Street in Glendale. USC needs to run their photos by some old people with memories.
I thought in the first photo they were comparing the Carthay to a church in Glendale, but as you can see in the second photo, they are geographically challenged:
http://tinyurl.com/cfh2ef
This is a circa 1930s photo from the USC archives:
http://tinyurl.com/cepmhh
Here is a 1949 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/dkt8x3
The Carthay Circle also opened THE LONGEST DAY on a reserved seat hard ticket policy in October of 1962. Although the picture was shot in Cinemascope, Mr Zanuck had a special blown up 70MM print made for the Rivoli in New York and the Carthay Circle. As I remember, the picture ran there for about 6 months. Fox had a big premiere the night before the film opened in the courtyard of the Carthay that was televised on a local LA station. What a party.
This is from Boxoffice magazine in January 1960:
LOS ANGELES-Carthay Circle Theater here is to get the roadshow run of Fox’s “Can-Can”. “Porgy and Bess” closes a 26-week engagement at the house next week. National Theaters' chief film buyer, M.A. Lundgren, will go to New York with Gordon Hewitt to conclude arrangements for the booking, following the world premiere at New York’s Rivoli in March.
thanks voxpop
i’ll do it when i have a chance and post it
Wow….do you think it would be possible to take a photo of it and post it? I’d love to see it.
i own a bas relief over one of the lobby water fountains in the downstairs Carthay Circle lobbyshowing a pioneer woman against a wagon wheel. i bught it from Cleveland wrecking and it proudlystanding in my garden
voxpop
Do they allow people to visit?
No, they have a large werehouse of great fixtures stored away from many of their demolition work from around the country.
That’s interesting…..I really hope they didn’t just demolish without removing things like statues, but who knows. At least the Forty-niner statue is repaired and back where it has been since 1925. And the two thieves are in jail for 16 months each. Here is a scan of the outside and inside of the original program from the dedication ceremony of the Forty-niner statue. A friend gave it to me for a holiday gift.
Inside of program:
View link
Outside of program:
View link
National General Theatres used the Cleveland Wrecking Company on the demolition. What ever National General’s management left after the theatre closed Cleveland Wrecking Company had salvage title to the fixtures.
Does anyone have information on what became of the sculpture in the lounge of the theater? Here’s a photo:
View link
Here is a 1937 photo from the LAPL:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics45/00072352.jpg
If one looks closely at the above picture you can tell the image by the marquee is Jennifer Jones in Song Of Bernadette. So this premere and photo are from 1943.
Matt Spero
I wish I could afford this negative…I’m sure the price will go up fast at the last minute. Beautiful photo of this theater:
View link
Yeah, maybe its from the 50’s when Isabel Bonner dropped dead on the stage in her role of a lifetime. See above…
These are the types of advertisements I have for the Carthay Circle:
View link
They must be from some type of small format magazine from back then.
I have the ads in frames, but I’ll try to take a photo without a lot of glare if possible. It’s the same thing with Elia Kazan….he pronounced his own name EEL-ya but most people say it differently.
To vokoban, not sure I’d know how to do it myself, but would it be difficult to post one or two or a few of those classic ads online? How wonderful it would be to see them! And I agree 100% about the spelling – Theatre. Many called Leonard the conductor “Bern-STEEN,” while others said “Bern-STINE.” Tempest in a teapot, why not ask the owner of the name? Bernstein himself quite simply stated the STINE option, as would be proper in German or Yiddish. So there, be it Bernstein or Carthay Circle, the final decision rests with the one who owns the name!
I have tons of ads from the this theater from the late 20’s and early 30’s and it is always spelled Carthay Circle Theatre. As a general term I use theater when referring to any structure that showed movies but I use ‘theatre’ when using the actual name if that’s how it was advertised.
Theater or Theatre? The Web’s many sources are amply divided between the two. In essence, “theater†is the American spelling, and “theatre†is British, but often used in the U.S. as a kind of affectation or quaintness, especially in the early days of Hollywood filmdom. However, one Web site, Historic Neon Signs in Los Angeles, settles the bet. It shows a bold and beautiful archival photograph of the actual neon sign: “Carthay Circle Theatre.†Many sites provide first-hand evidence of “Fox Theatres Corp.”
ken
do you know how many statues were placed around the theatre? i always knew of the gold panning one,and i was happy to hear about the other one that was bought right before the demo by a local neighbor.
charlie