Fox Theatre

Does anyone know if there is any info about a VHS video documentary about the fox? I remember it had a section about the organ with Ev Nourse as well as the facade falling down at the end. What was the name of the video and where can I get it?

The bookings for the Fox in the 1960’s were not very good and the film studio was having financial difficulties so little wonder that National General wanted to drop this large house. Attendance and film production declined in the late 1950’s which hurt many theatres across the nation. The major studios now were only producing two event films a year presented at the long run roadshow reserved seat theatres with desired seating between 1200-1500. This left the Fox without the big fims they were playing such as the “Robe” a few years earlier. Its to bad that the Fox wasn’t divided into two theatres playing the roadshow fims which may have saved it from the wrecking ball and then could have been restored back at a later date. The balcony could have been turned into a second theatre without damaging the decor because it was such a large space. I wonder if anyone had thought about doing that at the time because the Golden Gate was divided two years later.brucec

Don’t forget the chain offered the theatre building to the city of San Francisco on a bond measure. The city would just have to buy the land the theatre sat on and they would get the theatre building. The citizens of San Francisco voted againist it. This was around the second round of property down sizing the chain did. On the East Coast they closed and razed the Famed Roxy Theatre in NYC.

I wish someone would research it and could tell me who was the actual executive in charge that made the decision on behalf of National Theatres & Television Inc.. to demolish the Fox.
So many treasures, investments, large companies are demolished, bancrupted, or destroyed and you never know who the person is truly responsible and should be held accountable. only recently the government has focused in and the press has pin-pointed execs like ken lay (Enron and MCI Worldcom) that were the persons that made the decision.

Who was the man that made that decision. Thats what we need is a web site called “Executive held responsible”

I have enjoyed looking at these slides in both formats. The color brings out the richness and suptious plushness of the interiors.

I will wait with baited breath!

OMG…thanks. Duh

Some of your viewers might be interested in Richard Apple’s excellent web site on the Fox Theatre.
He recently has posted a number of pictures that I reconstructed from old publicity photos, many of which were taken between May and July, 1929.

View link

More will be added from time to time, as they are completed. I would welcome your comments.

Bill Swain, San Francisco

This lobby photo from the USC archive is dated 1915, which is before the theater opened. Perhaps the date is a mistake.
http://tinyurl.com/3y5vkc

Thank you, William
This kind of research is fascinating indeed. We are lucky to have access to this website. I found one of my boyhood movie houses in these archives as well. An Art Deco movie house, the Cascade Theater in Redding Ca, which has been faithfully restored and is now a performing arts center operated by Jefferson Public Radio of Ashland, OR. They have a broadcast studio in an area where the adjoining soda fountain had been. I think it was named The Golden Pheasant…not sure.
I will try to get a copy of the book and Annual you mention.
Thanks again, William.
Linden Carlton

Those would be very interesting to see, William. I would also enjoy reading the book. I have two books that acknowledge the Fox but not to great extent. (American Picture Pacaces – Naylor, and Movie Palaces – Pildas)

I know that some of the auditorium seats were acquired by a small S.F, performance theater, but I can’t recall it’s name..One of its triumphs was Alec Teague’s Beach Blanket Babylon.

I knew Alec when he relocated to Ashland Oregon in the early 80s and produced entertainments (Aside by Aside, Alec Teague’s Scrooge) on the stage of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Angus Bowmer Theater.

The three bullet shaped bronze ash urns are well located and admired in an exclusive B&B in historic Jacksonville, Oregon.

Yes William, as documented. (Read my first paragraph again) I think the film must have opened on the following day, June 29th for its regular engagement. I don’t know why I wrote July 1st…sorry.

The theater was closed to the public on that day until the festivities began in the evening, and I don’t remember what time that was. It was a Gala Event, and invitational, I am pretty sure. Perhaps one of the historians might have a record of that event?

That piece describes the 30th anniversary and it’s printed program handout, which quoted the opening day speech given by the then Mayor of San Francisco. I did not buy one of the fancy programs, if there was one, and I didn’t stay to see the film, “Say One For Me”.

I no longer have the photos taken on the grand staircase.
I did find three of the small Art Deco bullet shaped ash urns in vertigre cast tripod stands at a flea market, and sold them to a B&B