National Theatre
10925 Lindbrook Drive,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
10925 Lindbrook Drive,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
64 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 757 comments
Some of those seats ended up over at the Mann Festival when Cineplex remodeled the Century Plaza houses.
Yes. I miss the Picwood and the Plitt Century Plaza also. They were theatres I also frequented. The Main “Large” Plitt theatre was probably one of the most comfortable theatres in Los Angeles. The sightlines were fantastic in whatever seat you sat in.
There was only afew houses in Los Angeles that had the curtain treatment like the National.
Cinerama Dome
Picwood
Century Plaza 1 & 2
Hollywood Pacific (main house)
It is sad, only because we will never have anything remotely like it again. When I was a young teenager I was truly taken by the National. There was no other theatre like it in L.A. It had its own style that was never replicated.
It might be that once people start getting the city landmark people interested in the theatre, the landowner would be stuck with a large theatre doing ok to no business. It would be harder for them to raze the house. So we get stuck with a field of dreams of this once great movie house.
I miss it too. I have a shot of the theatre playing “The Exorcist” framed in my office.
It still saddens me when I pass by and still see an empty lot. What was the urgency to pull it down. We could have had more enjoyment out of it for the past 2 years.
went to see Book of Eli at the Village last night. Where the National once stood is now a chainlink fenced-off empty lot, densely covered with 3 to 4 foot high weeds. It’ll probably be that way for a while. Lots of empty retail space in westwood right now.
Damon, I have a few hundred shots of Westwood and Hollywood& other Los Angeles theatres from 70’s through the 90’s. I have not really started at the large job of transfering them from slides and to scan the prints & negs yet. I even have the shots of the Village without the FOX sign on the tower and shots of it returning to the top of the tower. Even it sitting on a truck bed between the two theatre.
That was a great post of the 1970 Box Office mag, I posted it on my facebook page weeks ago. Does anyone know if there are any archived pics of Westwood in the 70’s/80’s anywhere online?
From Boxoffice, August 31, 1970, an article about the National with several photos.
Another one bites the dust!!!!!!!
D. Packard,
I think it’s a testament to just how beloved this theater was that we’re still discussing it two years after the final showng on that massive screen. I truly, truly envy you guys that had the opportunity to experience all of Westwood during its 70s and 80s heyday. That’s what I loved so much about these theaters… that I could still approximate that feeling whenever I went there now. But I fully know it is/was nothing like being there in the day. You would just hope that the lessons learn by the National are applied to the Village/Bruin (assuming anyone actually paid attention).
wow, we’re still here, posting. Some of my friends are just NOW (at the end of 2009) discovering the demise of the place. I’ve toyed around with the idea of making a film about working at Mann Theaters in Westwood at the time (‘83-85) It could be like American Graffiti of the 80’s in the cinema world of Westwood Village, and how things changed drastically in the late 80’s, leading up to the present day deterioration of everything. (think Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America meets American Graffitti) Of course this film will never get made but, I can still toy with idea’s, can’t I?
It’s too bad the Cultural Heritage Commission views history strictly as a year and not via some sort of cultural impact (as their name would suggest). Maybe they can right this wrong and if that land stays vacant for more than forty years, they can hopefully declare the empty lot a landmark.
Well, Westwood residents wanted less traffic, less congestion, and over just less. They’re certainly getting their wish. A few more years and we might have several empty lots and loads of vacant storefronts. That’ll really up the property value in the neighborhood.
Also what kind of owner has his 17 year old son and 9 year old daughter work concessions during a private screening on a school day?
Wow people still on here. I really got sad when my former assist manager Marie told me they finally demolished it. But I feel DJT Cinemas didn’t have a plan on how to keep it going. I remember Tom and Don talking about how everything was already booked for the 07 summer and they could only get scraps. Why wouldn’t they plan ahead and get some blockbusters before opening. Also the reason the midnite movies failed, they wouldn’t give me a budget for advertising. They cut their own throats. They also had the lease on the culver 6. It was third run movies for $6, anyone know if it’s still around?
I miss Westwood back when it was a Village. I was at UCLA from 85-88, but had been frequenting since 1980 or so, and it still had all the small town college vibe. Now days it’s in a very sad state. I take my mom to her eye doctor on Wilshire/Gayley often and see the vacant weed strewn fenced lot where the National and a lot of my youth once stood. I remember Cafe Casino, DB Levy’s, Ships, Acapulco, Pinoccio’s, Baxter’s, as well as the National, Picwood, Plaza, UA Cinema Center, Mann’s Westwood, Plitt, Tower, Wherehouse, Penny Lane, Old World, Alice’s, etc… and the entire fun vibe that Westwood had. You didn’t need a destination in mind, you just ‘went down to the Village’ and humg out. Maybe a cafe/restaurant, browsing a bookstore or independent store. Now it’s all corporate destination driven trips. No wonder a snooty eatery like EuroChow failed. This is supposed to be a fun free-wheeling college town, not an investment banker high-end ‘what’s the bottom line’ exclusive town. I thank God I got to experience it in the 80’s as it is all gone now and all the fun of being young is stripped. Too bad no older teens or UCLA students will ever experience what it was like to go to Mardi Gras, the Homecoming parade, and just hanging out in Westwood on a Friday or Saturday night was like. They may think it is fun but while they have a couple national chain stores and three worthy movie houses left ( Village, Bruin, Crest) they too will soon be gone or be diced into multiplexes. When I was there we had 10+ theatres and tons of stand alone stores. R.I.P. Westwood.
I watched ZODIAC again over the weekend. It is nice to have the National immortalized in this film.
I think this used to be the location of an A&P market in the fifties and sixties…it got torn down and the Mann went up…time moves on, I guess….
There’s a sign on the lot about 24/7 retail space opening up in Spring of 2009. Oops. I think they’re going to miss that deadline.
There was no logic, just greed. I think that now the economy is holding back any new development now, with so many empty retail spaces the need for new ones seems to be last thing on anyone’s mind. Westwood is already a ghost town. It is a shame they should not let the National keep running in the meantime. The theatre was a one of a kind theatre that WE WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN.
Oh, and of course the offence grows the longer that huge hole in the ground remains empty. The “logic” behind tearing the theartre down really hurts.
This one breaks my heart. My fav theatre as a kid growing up in LA. My other fav was the ABC Century Plitt. Saw Superman, Indiana Jones and had a great date for Top Gun. A little over a year ago I brought my 7 yo son to Westwood to see the new Indiana Jones movie and for some reason I thought it was at the National. When we pulled into Westwood Village from Wilshire I was in complete shock to find a hole in the ground where the massive National once stood. Knowing there was only one other theatre in Westwood the movie could be showing, we bought our tickets at the Village Theatre and once we got situated in our seats, much to my surprise, tears started to roll down my face. I couldn’t believe I was crying about a movie theatre being torn down…this place was special. Ah, the impact of the movies and the places you see them.
I knew Mike. I worked at the Village from late 1980 into early 1983.
My late partner, Mike Shaw, was the projectionist at the Village theater (for 25 years )when the Star Wars Trilogy was re-issued in 1997