Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94114
429 Castro Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94114
75 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 185 comments
Last week, my wife and I visited this neighborhood and passed by the Castro. While it was closed at the time, we really enjoyed viewing the terrific facade – and the tiles in the outer lobby were wonderful. This is something that you really have to view in the flesh.
Will, That is a great picture of the beautiful interior. Thanks!
I’ve posted information and photos from a recent visit here.
Here is the ticket booth taken in 2009:
http://tinyurl.com/y7hoeww
Thats a great photo from the 40s…the Castro is my favourite theatre on the West Coast…but its a long way from Brighton U.K :)
This is a larger version of the photo at the top of the page:
http://tinyurl.com/y8z5oa9
It was nice to see on the Castro website that they have returned somewhat to the kind of programming that was typical of the 1980s; the screens even look like their brochures of that period.
I went to the Castro this week to see a double feature of Goodbye Mr.Chips, and Wuthering Heights. About halfway through Wuthering Heights, some people in the audience began laughing at the film in a mocking way.While waiting for the second feature, I formulated the following theory. At some point the people who were laughing had made an emotional connection with the film, but regarded themselves as too tragically hip to have that happen. So as a defense mechanism they mock.This happens fairly often at the Castro. It is especially bad during the annual Film Noir festival. You almost feel people are going to the movies to make fun of them. Comments anyone?
The Castro in 1997:
View link
Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cwf5do
Same here, Justin, although I’d admittedly love to see the inside of the Castro Theatre some day.
I saw the theater while watching the movie “Milk”. Very classy theater, even though I haven’t been inside it.
I love it!! Thanks, Lost Memory.
Aha! Okay. Thanks for the info.
Thanks, Lost Memory. It looks like the Castro Theatre was just cleaned and renovated? Was it?
My nostalgia burns brightly.
If the Castro Theatre wasn’t on the opposite side of the country for me, I’D go, also!
Petula Clark performing at the Castro Theatre? Oooh…how exciting! I remember Petula Clark. I was a big fan of hers in the mid to late 1960’s, when I was a teenager, and when Petula Clark was in vogue and popular.
Yeah……love that great-looking marquee. Thanks for the photo, Lost Memory.
What a spectacular-looking theatre, both inside and out!! Too bad about the occasional problems with the film, etc. and the lighting. Is there a way to fix it? Just curious. I don’t reside in S. F., or anywhere on the West Coast, but if was a S. F. resident, or West Coast resident, I’d be all ears, if one gets the drift.
MARQUEE: My dim memory has the current Castro marquee (repainted for the Milk movie filming) to be a close approximation to what the marquee had in the 1970s. The marquee and the whole exterior were painted in various shades of beige for some unknown reason in the 1990s. It was so bad the name was barely visible during the daytime. Also, the neon appears to have been redone, spruced up, and animated (it now flashes) for the Milk movie filming.
CEILING: I remember the Castro both pre and post 1989 quake, and the thing I remember most about the “restoration” was that the ceiling looked like it had just a coat of shellac on it. Of course, given the time frame and expense it would have been impossible to re-paint the ornate ceiling image to restore it to what it originally was. Before the quake the ceiling had lost a lot of plaster, so much that it looked speckled white. It would have been a 6-month project just to repaint the ceiling imagery. I assume that the shellac was an easy way to cover over the white and leave as much of the rest of the image as they could do under the circumstances.
SEATING: My only argument with the current Castro experience is the wooden cup rings between the seats. Better that they could have been attached to the seat in front rather than between where it’s too easy to bump a cup with your elbow.
An AP story in today’s SF Chronicle says the Castro set a box office record for the opening 3 days of Milk. The film grossed $109,440 Nov 26-28 beating the previous 3 day record of $50,584 set in May for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Wow. I have never met an author who doesn’t care if he sells any books.It was the whole linking to the ad for your book thing that threw me off. I am sorry if I offended you, and I look forward to your postings on Cinema Treasures.
Jack Fritscher: My book “Gay San Francisco” featuring the Castro Theater as an icon on its cover is, yes, a trade paperback, but it is also the first GLBT book to be published simultaneously in a series of “free and green pdfs” at www JackFritscher com.
Now, in my eighth decade, I could care less if I sell a book; in fact, I am giving away free access to the entire text of “Gay San Francisco” to everyone at my site.
As a senior citizen who is an eyewitness to gay film history, my intent at this Cinema Treasures site is to join the online community and enhance Cinema Treasures' lore and history about the magic symbolism of theater marquees.
Mr Fritscher… Are you planning on doing something nice for the people who run this sight? The reason I ask is that you seem to be using them to try and sell your book under the pretext of posting a picture of the Castro.
For a great photo of the Castro Theater shot in the 1990s, see the cover of the new book “Gay San Francisco” at www.JackFritscher.com Author Fritscher met his lover, and now legal spouse, under the marquee of the Castro Theater on May 22, 1978, the first night after the White Night Riot and the first birthday for Harvey Milk after his assassination by Dan White. Fritscher and spouse Hemry are specialists in reporting the untold Tales of the City in their 2008 book “Gay San Francisco.”