Thanks for the link to that article, Michael. Very interesting! But it doesn’t say when Star Wars opened at the Plitt. We only know that it wasn’t during the opening weekend. Was it the L.A. Theater that they referenced as opening a few weeks later? That sounds right to me. I do seem to remember that it was playing simultaneously at the Avco and the Plitt but I was an Avco junkie and it was closer to me so it wasn’t until it left the Avco that I started viewing it regularly at the Plitt. Therefore it “felt” to me as if it had “moved” but you are correct.
I attended that footprint ceremony at the Chinese, referenced in that article, when they brought the film back after a few weeks of “Sorcerer”. But, strangely, I never actually SAW Star Wars at the Chinese Theater until the Special Editions. I did see both Empire and Jedi at the Egyptian in Hollywood and that was also where they ran the full trilogy screening somewhat after Jedi.
I’m looking forward to seeing the full six film marathon when it runs at the upcoming Star Wars convention here in L.A. but I’m a little concerned about what sort of screen and presentation we’ll be viewing the films on if the marathon is actually AT the Convention Center.
I don’t imagine this theater gets a lot of traffic here. I worked there in it’s final months as the “House Manager” (I believe that was my title) which was essentially the head Asst. Mgr. below the general manager. That general manager was Bill Day in those final months and I had transferred with him from the United Artists Westwood Theater which (shamefully) there is no listing for which I can find on these pages. I had worked for 17 years at the Westwood House but did the change to Woodland Hills as a favor to Bill (not to mention the fact that they gave me a raise and, since I had moved to Northridge, it was closer to home).
Generally speaking, there were only two houses out of the six which were pretty decent. More than any film we played, I mostly remember when the trailers arrived for The Phantom Menace. I would go into the theater almost every time to watch it and must have seen that coming attraction sixty or seventy times.
But the theater closed as did the Westwood House and, barring a brief period doing projecton in La Canada, my time with U.A. was over.
They weren’t the greatest theaters around but the job was a lot of fun.
While I think the Village Theater is the grandest theater in Westwood, the Avco always held the fondest place in my heart until that time of supreme butchery – an act so abhorent that nearly a decade later I still can’t think about it without getting angry.
I’m sure I saw films there before 1977 but it was my experience seeing Star Wars on opening day, May 25th, that changed my life. I became a huge movie buff and changed my dream from becoming a novelist to becoming a filmmaker.
I actually saw the second show of the day at 2:50 in the afternoon with my friend, Anthony, who’d ditched our fifth and sixth period Drama class at Uni High with me for the occasion. We loved it so, we stayed through the third show and by the time we left, the line for the film stretched down Wilshire to Glendon and up Glendon as far as I could see. I saw the film there more than 50 times over the next three months before it moved to the Plitt in Century City where it stayed for more than a year.
I saw the first shows of Empire and Jedi there as well although, since the Avco always had their first show at 10 A.M., I saw Jedi earlier at Midnight at the Egyptian in Hollywood. But I still saw it first at the Avco because I attended a 5 P.M. benefit screening there the day before it opened.
I saw the first show of Alien and then Aliens on opening night was unbelievable! I also saw the sneak preview of E.T. there although that was actually in one of the upstairs theaters. The theater shut down not long after Jurassic Park: The Lost World came out and when it re-opened, the unthinkable had happened. They’d cut our beloved first floor theater into two, thus destroying one of the three great screens of Westwood (along with the Village and the National).
With the National now closed, I suppose it’s pure fantasy to think that they might ever restore the first floor to one theater again. Westwood certainly needs another great screen but as long as they make more money with four screens than with three, I know it could never happen.
With the sad closing this week of Mann’s National Theater in Westwood, I am reminded of just how imporatant the Village Theater is to me. It is my theater of choice for any major blockbuster. My earliest clear memory of it was back in the late ‘60’s. I took part in a Boyscout/Cubscout Christmas parade through Westwood and, at the end of the parade, we all got to go into the Village Theater and watch The Alamo with John Wayne.
It would be nearly impossible to name all of the movies I’ve seen there on opening night but it’s strongest associations for me now lie with the Star Wars films. Despite the fact that I saw the original three films at the glorious (and now castrated) big screen at the Avco, with the release of the Special Editions in 1997, the Village became THE Star Wars Theater in Westwood and I saw each of those as well as each of the Prequels at the first show, putting in time-share hours over three weeks to see The Phantom Menace.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Spiderman 3 there at the first show in a couple of weeks with a cheering crowd of fans. That’s what the Village Theater will always mean for me. Long may it reign!
I love both of your ideas – of re-releasing the previous Indiana Jones films leading up to the release of the fourth and of major Hollywood players such as Steven Spielberg stepping in to try to save the National. In such a scenario, would it still be run by Mann or would it become an independent like the Crest?
Studios themselves mostly had to give up theater ownership decades ago but I’m not sure how or if that would effect independent owners who work in the film industry. I was also never sure how exactly deals like the ones Disney has with the El Capitan (and used to have with the Crest)work. Does Disney actually own the El Cap and what is it’s arrangement with Pacific Theaters?
I worked at the United Artists Westwood (once called the United Artists Cinema Center) for 18 years and I know they had some sort of deal with Tri-Star which poured huge amounts of money into our remodeling. I was always proud of the fact that we were the theater that turned a four-plex into a three-plex, bucking the trend of theaters like the Avco and the Mann Westwood which did the opposite. Of course, now it’s a drugstore so it doesn’t matter much anymore.
Anyway, I would favor and do what I could to help with any scenario that would preserve the National for future generations. It’s sobering to realize that it was the LAST single screen theater built in Califoria and that was 37 years ago! We’re not likely to see it’s like again.
I just returned from watching the curtain close for what, apparently, was the final time at the Mann National Theater in Westwood. I’d already seen Shooter but I had to be there to pay my respects to one of the great theaters of Westwood.
The theater opened in 1970 and I believe I saw Scrooge there later that year, followed by Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971 and 1776 in 1972. I was too young to see The Exorcist there in 1973 but I remember the faux open bedroom window they had set up for it on the Eastern exterior wall of the building, a wall that has now been covered up by a shopping center for decades. The billowing curtains of that window gave me the creeps as a kid.
In Jr. High, I saw re-releases of Jaws and Fantasia there but it was in 1979, with the opening of Star Trek the Motion Picture that I started my habit of seeing movies there on opening day (having camped out the night before to see the first show), a habit which continued on and off over the decades up until the release of The DaVinci Code last year.
But the film that I probably most associate with the National is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw the first two showings there on opening day and countless more in the weeks that followed.
Boy, for a long time I’ve missed the huge poster murals they used to paint on the exterior Western wall, overlooking Galey. It was stirring indeed to see Indiana Jones painted there, 30 or 40 feet high!
With the big screen at the Avco long ago bisected and now the National closing, The Village theater is the only truly GREAT screen left in Westwood! And out of the 18 screens we had there less than a decade ago, we will now be down to 9.
Farewell National Theater! You gave me countless hours of joy and you will be sorely missed!
Thanks for the link to that article, Michael. Very interesting! But it doesn’t say when Star Wars opened at the Plitt. We only know that it wasn’t during the opening weekend. Was it the L.A. Theater that they referenced as opening a few weeks later? That sounds right to me. I do seem to remember that it was playing simultaneously at the Avco and the Plitt but I was an Avco junkie and it was closer to me so it wasn’t until it left the Avco that I started viewing it regularly at the Plitt. Therefore it “felt” to me as if it had “moved” but you are correct.
I attended that footprint ceremony at the Chinese, referenced in that article, when they brought the film back after a few weeks of “Sorcerer”. But, strangely, I never actually SAW Star Wars at the Chinese Theater until the Special Editions. I did see both Empire and Jedi at the Egyptian in Hollywood and that was also where they ran the full trilogy screening somewhat after Jedi.
I’m looking forward to seeing the full six film marathon when it runs at the upcoming Star Wars convention here in L.A. but I’m a little concerned about what sort of screen and presentation we’ll be viewing the films on if the marathon is actually AT the Convention Center.
Best wishes,
Alan Sanborn
I don’t imagine this theater gets a lot of traffic here. I worked there in it’s final months as the “House Manager” (I believe that was my title) which was essentially the head Asst. Mgr. below the general manager. That general manager was Bill Day in those final months and I had transferred with him from the United Artists Westwood Theater which (shamefully) there is no listing for which I can find on these pages. I had worked for 17 years at the Westwood House but did the change to Woodland Hills as a favor to Bill (not to mention the fact that they gave me a raise and, since I had moved to Northridge, it was closer to home).
Generally speaking, there were only two houses out of the six which were pretty decent. More than any film we played, I mostly remember when the trailers arrived for The Phantom Menace. I would go into the theater almost every time to watch it and must have seen that coming attraction sixty or seventy times.
But the theater closed as did the Westwood House and, barring a brief period doing projecton in La Canada, my time with U.A. was over.
They weren’t the greatest theaters around but the job was a lot of fun.
Best wishes,
Alan Sanborn
While I think the Village Theater is the grandest theater in Westwood, the Avco always held the fondest place in my heart until that time of supreme butchery – an act so abhorent that nearly a decade later I still can’t think about it without getting angry.
I’m sure I saw films there before 1977 but it was my experience seeing Star Wars on opening day, May 25th, that changed my life. I became a huge movie buff and changed my dream from becoming a novelist to becoming a filmmaker.
I actually saw the second show of the day at 2:50 in the afternoon with my friend, Anthony, who’d ditched our fifth and sixth period Drama class at Uni High with me for the occasion. We loved it so, we stayed through the third show and by the time we left, the line for the film stretched down Wilshire to Glendon and up Glendon as far as I could see. I saw the film there more than 50 times over the next three months before it moved to the Plitt in Century City where it stayed for more than a year.
I saw the first shows of Empire and Jedi there as well although, since the Avco always had their first show at 10 A.M., I saw Jedi earlier at Midnight at the Egyptian in Hollywood. But I still saw it first at the Avco because I attended a 5 P.M. benefit screening there the day before it opened.
I saw the first show of Alien and then Aliens on opening night was unbelievable! I also saw the sneak preview of E.T. there although that was actually in one of the upstairs theaters. The theater shut down not long after Jurassic Park: The Lost World came out and when it re-opened, the unthinkable had happened. They’d cut our beloved first floor theater into two, thus destroying one of the three great screens of Westwood (along with the Village and the National).
With the National now closed, I suppose it’s pure fantasy to think that they might ever restore the first floor to one theater again. Westwood certainly needs another great screen but as long as they make more money with four screens than with three, I know it could never happen.
I still mourn the Avco that once was.
Best wishes,
Alan Sanborn
With the sad closing this week of Mann’s National Theater in Westwood, I am reminded of just how imporatant the Village Theater is to me. It is my theater of choice for any major blockbuster. My earliest clear memory of it was back in the late ‘60’s. I took part in a Boyscout/Cubscout Christmas parade through Westwood and, at the end of the parade, we all got to go into the Village Theater and watch The Alamo with John Wayne.
It would be nearly impossible to name all of the movies I’ve seen there on opening night but it’s strongest associations for me now lie with the Star Wars films. Despite the fact that I saw the original three films at the glorious (and now castrated) big screen at the Avco, with the release of the Special Editions in 1997, the Village became THE Star Wars Theater in Westwood and I saw each of those as well as each of the Prequels at the first show, putting in time-share hours over three weeks to see The Phantom Menace.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Spiderman 3 there at the first show in a couple of weeks with a cheering crowd of fans. That’s what the Village Theater will always mean for me. Long may it reign!
Best wishes,
Alan Sanborn
I love both of your ideas – of re-releasing the previous Indiana Jones films leading up to the release of the fourth and of major Hollywood players such as Steven Spielberg stepping in to try to save the National. In such a scenario, would it still be run by Mann or would it become an independent like the Crest?
Studios themselves mostly had to give up theater ownership decades ago but I’m not sure how or if that would effect independent owners who work in the film industry. I was also never sure how exactly deals like the ones Disney has with the El Capitan (and used to have with the Crest)work. Does Disney actually own the El Cap and what is it’s arrangement with Pacific Theaters?
I worked at the United Artists Westwood (once called the United Artists Cinema Center) for 18 years and I know they had some sort of deal with Tri-Star which poured huge amounts of money into our remodeling. I was always proud of the fact that we were the theater that turned a four-plex into a three-plex, bucking the trend of theaters like the Avco and the Mann Westwood which did the opposite. Of course, now it’s a drugstore so it doesn’t matter much anymore.
Anyway, I would favor and do what I could to help with any scenario that would preserve the National for future generations. It’s sobering to realize that it was the LAST single screen theater built in Califoria and that was 37 years ago! We’re not likely to see it’s like again.
Best wishes,
Alan Sanborn
I just returned from watching the curtain close for what, apparently, was the final time at the Mann National Theater in Westwood. I’d already seen Shooter but I had to be there to pay my respects to one of the great theaters of Westwood.
The theater opened in 1970 and I believe I saw Scrooge there later that year, followed by Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971 and 1776 in 1972. I was too young to see The Exorcist there in 1973 but I remember the faux open bedroom window they had set up for it on the Eastern exterior wall of the building, a wall that has now been covered up by a shopping center for decades. The billowing curtains of that window gave me the creeps as a kid.
In Jr. High, I saw re-releases of Jaws and Fantasia there but it was in 1979, with the opening of Star Trek the Motion Picture that I started my habit of seeing movies there on opening day (having camped out the night before to see the first show), a habit which continued on and off over the decades up until the release of The DaVinci Code last year.
But the film that I probably most associate with the National is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw the first two showings there on opening day and countless more in the weeks that followed.
Boy, for a long time I’ve missed the huge poster murals they used to paint on the exterior Western wall, overlooking Galey. It was stirring indeed to see Indiana Jones painted there, 30 or 40 feet high!
With the big screen at the Avco long ago bisected and now the National closing, The Village theater is the only truly GREAT screen left in Westwood! And out of the 18 screens we had there less than a decade ago, we will now be down to 9.
Farewell National Theater! You gave me countless hours of joy and you will be sorely missed!
Alan Sanborn
April 19, 2007