In the L.A. Library’s online California Index, I have come across many references to theaters designed by L.A. Smith in the early-mid 1920s, but the index doesn’t always reveal their later names, and usually doesn’t give the exact street address. I’ve been trying to match them up with theaters listed here, and have succeeded with a few, but there are more that I haven’t been able to connect. I think that some of them aren’t listed here at all, especially those on the south side of town. I wish I could get ahold of the periodicals from which the information was taken themselves, instead of just these scans of library index cards.
But Smith was a remarkably prolific architect in those years. I have seen references to at least two dozen theaters he designed between 1920 and 1926. Significantly, there is a reference to a theater at 43rd and Central which he designed , originally called the Casino, owned by an investor named J.V. Akey, and leased to West Coast Theaters. (This information all comes from the June 17th, 1921 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor.) This has made me wonder if perhaps that is not a typo in the Film Daily Yearbooks from the 1950’s. It seems possible that whoever operated the Tivoli under the name Bill Robinson might have switched theaters, moving one block south sometime in the 1940s, and taken the name with them.
I remember the Bill Robinson being listed in the L.A. Times movie section well into the 1950s, at least, but unfortunately I was only ever familiar with the section of Central Avenue north of Washington Boulevard, so I have no memory of ever having seen this theater or others nearby, which were a mile or so south of Washington.
I remember that, in the early 1960s, this theater was quite well known for its ongoing concert series, Jazz at The Metro. I heard it mentioned on the local jazz radio station at the time, which I think was KBFK-FM, and it was frequently plugged in the entertainment section of The Los Angeles Times. I always intended to check it out, but never got around to it.
Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 3/15/1937 says that architect Clifford A. Balch had prepeared the plans for remodeling an existing building at 417-419 N. Fairfax for use as a movie theatre.
Southwest builder and contractor of 2/13/1925 says that Richard D. King was the architect for the Ravenna Theatre, and that it was being built for Chotiner Theaters.
I have found an additional reference to the Scenic Theater. Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 7/18/1919 says that architects A.R. Walker and P.A. Eisen had prepared the plans for the theater.
One night, sometime around 1963, I accompanied two adventurous friends to the Regent Theatre. It was a grind house, serving mostly as a place for drunks to get off the street, but one of the features on their triple bill that night was a very bad (as it turned out) movie of Jack Kerouac’s novel “The Subterraneans” with George Peppard. The movie had flashed through the regular theaters so fast that we had missed it, and we wanted to see it badly enough to brave a skid row grind house.
My chief memory of the place is of worn floors, peeling paint, broken seats, a barrel-vaulted ceiling of astonishing dirtiness, loud sound and surprisingly bright light from bare bulbs (both of these features apparently intended to keep the drunks from getting too comfortable), and several patrons who talked to themselves. Oh, yeah- and the smell. I mean The SMELL! The theater was in bad, bad shape.
The saddest thing, though, was that the movie was even worse than the theater. What a stinker! But what the hell. I think it only cost us fifty cents each, and we got to say that we’d been to a movie on skid row. The Regent was the only Main Street movie house I’ve ever been in, and I cherish the memory. Thanks, Regent, and so long.
This theater has had four names: The Morosco, The President (in the 1930s), The Newsreel (in the 1940s, before that name was transfered to the Tower Theatre) and The Globe.
I have found that the Majestic opened on November 23rd, 1908. It was owned by M.A. Hamburger, owner of Hamburger’s Department Store, which was located just up the block at the corner of 8th and Broadway. The store later became the May Company.
Thomas Tally’s first Broadway Theater was located on the same block as the Majestic.
I saw English language movies at the State many times in the early-mid 1960s. At that time, the only big downtown theaters regularly showing movies in Spanish were the Million Dollar, United Artists and California. Even most of the small theaters on Broadway were still showing movies in English.
My copy of the Los Angeles Times movie listings of February 10th, 1971, shows English language movies playing at the following Broadway theaters: Cameo, Roxie, Tower, Arcade, Los Angeles, Palace, and State, plus the Warrens (Warner Downtown) on Hill Street and the Olympic on 8th Street. With the exceptions of the Cameo, Arcade and Roxie, all these theaters were showing new or recent mainstream Hollywood films. Spanish language movies were being shown at these theaters: Astro, Broadway, Globe, Orpheum (American movies dubbed into Spanish) Rialto and United Artists. The Million Dollar had a “Call theatre for program” notice, but the movie was undoubtedly in Spanish, that theater having shown no English language movies at all since at least 1960.
A copy of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section has listings for only eight Broadway theaters, and none on any other downtown street. Of those eight, the Million Dollar was showing movies in Spanish, the Orpheum was showing a double feature of recent American releases dubbed into Spanish, the Rialto, State, Tower, Los Angeles and Palace were all showing triple features of action or horror movies in English, and the Cameo was showing four features of the same sort of fare, in English. Apparently, the market downtown for movies in Spanish had just about collapsed by that time.
But the Corwins maintained a first-run or second-run policy at most of the surviving big theaters on Broadway and at the Warrens as well, clear through the 1960s. The Globe began showing Spanish language movies before the end of the decade, and the Palace did for a while, but then returned to second-run Hollywood films. The Orpheum began running mostly American movies dubbed into Spanish (or sometimes subtitled in Spanish) about the middle of the decade, and kept that policy pretty much until it closed. Interestingly enough, in the early 1980s, the Palace went back to a first run policy for a while, but ended it after a Laemmle fourplex opened on Figuroa Street near the Bonaventure Hotel.
But I do remember the Broadway theatres of the 1960s as mostly still being fairly popular, well-maintained houses showing first run American movies. The serious decline in their fortunes didn’t set in until the 1970s.
Actually, the Miracle Mile, (thus named in the 1920s by its developer, A.W. Ross), extends from Sycamore Street (one block east of La Brea) westward to Fairfax Avenue, so the Four Star is virtually at its doorstep. See a brief description of the area in The Larchmont Chronicle.
I never attended the Four Star, but I have a good idea of what it was like, as I went to several movies at the almost identical U.A. Pasadena. It was a nice building, but leg room was minimal, so closely packed were the seats.
If this theater was owned by Thomas Tally, then it was the second of his movie houses of that name (which I suppose accounts for it being called Tally’s “New” Broadway.) A Los Angeles Times article of 12/28/1909 announced that Tally had leased a site for a theater on Broadway near 9th Street. A Times article of 7/7/1929 is headlined “Old Broadway landmark passes into history” and announces the demolition of Tally’s Broadway to make room for an expansion of the May Company department store. The old May Company building (originally called Hamburger’s Department Store) still extends a bit more than halfway down the block from 8th Street, so Tally’s original Broadway must have been a couple of doors north of the old Majestic Theater.
Incidentally, Mr. Hamburger owned the Majestic himself, and was a member of the investment group which financed the construction of the new theater (across Broadway from the Majestic) which became the 4th Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.
According to cards in the L.A. Public Library’s California Index (search terms=“theater” “ Whittier” and “Scenic”), The Roxy is indeed the former Scenic Theater, though the Index misspells the name as “Roxie.”
Plans for the Scenic were announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 8/19/1919. A later issue of the same publication (3/27/1925) names the owners as Whittier Amusement Company, 211 Philadelphia Street, and reports that the theater would be remodeled and redecorated, and that a new organ would be installed by the Moller Company.
The theater was still called the Scenic as late as 1932, when the 11/5/1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald announced that a Mr. Reno Wilk had been named as its manager.
The Roxy was destroyed by an arson fire in late September, 1971, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1st that year.
L.A. Smith was probably the architect of this theater. I have found two references to it in the Southwest Builder and Contractor, issues of ¾/1921 and 4/22/1921. Both give the location of the planned theater, designed by Smith, as on Western Avenue between 3rd and 4th streets, though the exact address is not given. The project is described as a two story brick building, 110 by 150 feet, with theater and two shops on the ground floor, and three offices on a small second floor.
I remember seeing the Embassy while passing by, many years ago, but can’t remember if it fits that description. If it did, and was the only theater on that block, then it probably is Smith’s work.
The architect of this theater is named as Arthur W. Hawes, and the owner as Frances S. Fonda, in a notice about its planned construction published in Southwest Builder and Contractor, issue of April 12, 1940. The place must not have opened until 1941, or very late 1940.
(Yes, eadkins, Frances Fonda was Mrs. Henry Fonda, Jane’s mother.)
And, like Moviemanforever, I saw “Five Easy Pieces” at this theater- though it wasn’t on the night when they did the preview of “The Owl and The Pussycat.”
If this was indeed the theatre originally called the Tivoli, then the architect was L.A. Smith. Southwest Builder and Contractor of 8/26/1921 announced its construction, but gave the location as 42nd and Central, which should have put it in the 4200 block (assuming it was south, rather than north, of 42nd Street.)
I have found a listing for the Villa Glen theater at 404 North Central Avenue in Glendale, from the Independent theater listings in the Los Angles Times of February 10th, 1971. They were showing a double feature of movies called “Flap” and “Hotel.” That issue of The Times contains no listing for any theater on Colorado Street, so the Glen was undoubtedly closed by then.
I am more certain than ever that the theater on Colorado Street, designed by Kenneth A. Gordon, opened in 1925, and first operated by Lou Bard, was never called the Villa Glen, but only Bard’s Glen and, later, simply the Glen. We are definitely dealing with two different theaters here. Because of this, I don’t know if the comment by DanMorse above applies to this theater, or to the actual Villa Glen on Central Avenue, mentioned in the comment by barton. That he saw “Bonnie and Clyde” at the Villa Glen on Central Avenue seems more likely.
In any case, there should be two seperate listings for these two distinct theaters.
The architect of this theater, and the hotel in which it is located, was Myron Hunt, one of the leading archtects of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. His other works include the Huntington Hotel, Public Library, and The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, most of the buildings of Occidental College in the Eagle Rock district of Los Angeles, The Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, and dozens of other significant structures throughout California, as well as a large number of (mostly palatial) private dwellings in communities such as San Marino, Palos Verdes Estates, and Santa Barbara.
L.A. Smith was the architect of the Belmont. Completion of his plans was announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor, 2/13/1925. The theater was to be leased to West Coast Theaters.
The earliest reference to this theater that I can find is from an L.A. Times story of March 20th, 1924, that announces the world premier there that night of the Norma Talmadge movie “Secrets.”
A Times article from February 7th, 1929 says “Fox-Criterion name bestowed on playhouse.”
An article in Daily Variety from February 6th, 1935 is headlined “Criterion Reopens,” but no mention of any name change yet. Another Daily Variety article from about that time makes reference to some sort of wage dispute, so I think the closure might have been related to a strike of some sort. But I have found no later refernces to the Criterion,
I’ve been unable to find any references at all to a theater called the Grande Internationale. My own earliest clear memory of the intersection of 7th and Grand (only three blocks west of Broadway, actually, and two blocks west of the Warner Theatre at 7th and Hill) date from about 1960, and there was no trace of a theater there by that time.
The Mason Theater is indeed the same as the Mason Opera House. Opened in 1903, it was designed by Chicago architects Marshall and Wilson, working with Los Angeles architect John Parkinson. (Benjamin Marshall designed several Chicago theaters, including the ill-fated Iroquois, which opened the same year as the Mason.) The Mason was the first big theater on Broadway, and immediately became the prime venue for the most prestigious shows and soloists visiting Los Angeles. In its first years, it hosted such stars of the day as Lillie Langtry, Adelina Patti and Helen Modjeska.
The theater was sufficiently successful that it was able to finance a major renovation in 1924, carried out by the firm of Meyer and Holler, which enhanced the already lavish appointments of the house. One newspaper of the day reported the new style of the theater to be “Pompayan,” but its interior style was in fact the sort of eclectic renaissance-beaux arts classicism which was soon to be displaced in fashion by more modern styles. The exterior of the theater retained the rather simple facade of an ordinary early 20th century commercial block, but the interiors were as opulent as anything in the city.
The new competition for the Mason at that time included David Belasco’s new theater on Hill Street and the brand new Biltmore Theater on Fifth Street, adjacent to the Biltmore Hotel. Other legitimate theaters were opening in outlying districts, especially Hollywood, where the thriving theater district included the Hollywood Playhouse, the Vine Street Theater, the Music Box, and the El Capitan. The business district of Los Angeles was shifting south and west, and the Mason’s neighborhood was becoming unfashionable, and no amount of decoration could change that fact. In the depression years, the theater began showing movies, though stage plays were mounted at least as late as 1941.
It was about that time that the theater came into the hands of Francisco Fouce, who established it as the leading venue for both Mexican films and Mexican Vaudeville in the city. By 1945, the Mason Theater was presenting stars of the Mexican stage to capacity audiences, and the foyer was lined with posters of the likes of Dolores Del Rio and Cantinflas. Themid-1940s to the mid-1950s were a second golden age for the Mason, which might have continued for years, had the block on which it stood not been targeted for demolition to accommodate the expanding dead zone of government buildings in the project that came to be called (with what I am sure was unintentional irony) the Civic Center. The real center of the city fled away, and the lively entertainments that had filled the Mason fled with it. The Mason has now been gone for almost as many years as it stood, and the street from which it was taken remains what it then became- as dull as a bureaucrat’s dreams.
Downtown Los Angeles has never been forgotten, at least not in the sense that some of the old areas of lower Manhattan were forgotten and then rediscovered. Broadway has been a thriving commercial street for over a hundred years. As late as the 1980s, the sales per square foot in Broadway stores were the second highest of any shopping area in Southern California, exceeded only by pricey Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They continue to be among the highest today.
By 1906, the three major department stores of downtown, (The Broadway, Bullocks, and May Company- then called Hamburger’s) were established at Broadway locations which they would occupy until at least the late 1960s. The Broadway Department Store was the first to go, ironically moving a few blocks west along Seventh Street. Bullocks and the May Company followed in the mid-1980s, moving six blocks west to Figuroa Street. Still, the smaller shops along Broadway have survived, and done quite well, and vacancies are rare.
Broadway has not been a popular destination for the middle class for at least four decades now, but lower income groups still throng to it. The neighborhoods in nearby sections of the city, and many of those those further out with easy access to Downtown by public transit, still attract large numbers of immigrants, and Broadway has long been a street on which you can hear many languages. The place is very cosmopolitan and, by day at least, very busy.
In fact, the theaters are almost the only buildings vacant (at the street level- the offices above have been mostly vacant for years now) along most of the street. Were the large movie palaces to be demolished and replaced with ordinary commercial space, that space would probably fill up quickly. It is a wonder that most of Broadway’s old theater buildings survive at all, so valuable would their space be for retail uses on this busiest of L.A.’s streets.
The area is pretty rough by night, now that the theaters no longer bring crowds, and skid row has long since spilled over and around Broadway, but then Downtown has not been the center of L.A. nightlife since the late 1920s, when the action shifted to Hollywood and, since then, to other parts of the west side. Even the modern business district a few blocks west of Broadway tends to empty out at night. There have been attempts to bring more residents into the area, and many proposals to convert the vacant offices above Broadway’s stores to apartments and lofts, but it’s pretty slow going.
There are a lot of inherent problems in getting a good urban neighborhood established in downtown. For one thing, the blocks are huge, making for poor pedestrian circulation. Also, the area is relentlessly commercial and industrial, with few apartments, and most of those are either in decay or, if built recently, are in projects that are deliberately isolated from surrounding streets. And though public transit has improved somewhat in recent years, it still doesn’t offer the sort of access and reliability that are necessary for urban neighborhoods.
Most importantly, Los Angeles lacks any real urban tradition and thus, those people who are trying to make downtown work like a real city, instead of just the big business district it has long been, come up against a lot of official ignorance, and even hostility. Chances are that Pasadena will develop a good urban core before Los Angeles does, even though Los Angeles has more to work with. But if L.A. does ever get its act together, Downtown could be a great place. It has great potential, but nobody has been able to tap into it yet.
In the L.A. Library’s online California Index, I have come across many references to theaters designed by L.A. Smith in the early-mid 1920s, but the index doesn’t always reveal their later names, and usually doesn’t give the exact street address. I’ve been trying to match them up with theaters listed here, and have succeeded with a few, but there are more that I haven’t been able to connect. I think that some of them aren’t listed here at all, especially those on the south side of town. I wish I could get ahold of the periodicals from which the information was taken themselves, instead of just these scans of library index cards.
But Smith was a remarkably prolific architect in those years. I have seen references to at least two dozen theaters he designed between 1920 and 1926. Significantly, there is a reference to a theater at 43rd and Central which he designed , originally called the Casino, owned by an investor named J.V. Akey, and leased to West Coast Theaters. (This information all comes from the June 17th, 1921 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor.) This has made me wonder if perhaps that is not a typo in the Film Daily Yearbooks from the 1950’s. It seems possible that whoever operated the Tivoli under the name Bill Robinson might have switched theaters, moving one block south sometime in the 1940s, and taken the name with them.
I remember the Bill Robinson being listed in the L.A. Times movie section well into the 1950s, at least, but unfortunately I was only ever familiar with the section of Central Avenue north of Washington Boulevard, so I have no memory of ever having seen this theater or others nearby, which were a mile or so south of Washington.
I remember that, in the early 1960s, this theater was quite well known for its ongoing concert series, Jazz at The Metro. I heard it mentioned on the local jazz radio station at the time, which I think was KBFK-FM, and it was frequently plugged in the entertainment section of The Los Angeles Times. I always intended to check it out, but never got around to it.
This theater was earlier known as the La Mirada.
Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 3/15/1937 says that architect Clifford A. Balch had prepeared the plans for remodeling an existing building at 417-419 N. Fairfax for use as a movie theatre.
The Madrid opened in October, 1926. That’s all I’ve been able to find out about it so far.
Southwest builder and contractor of 2/13/1925 says that Richard D. King was the architect for the Ravenna Theatre, and that it was being built for Chotiner Theaters.
I have found an additional reference to the Scenic Theater. Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 7/18/1919 says that architects A.R. Walker and P.A. Eisen had prepared the plans for the theater.
The Mesa was closed in September of 1963. A fire damaged the building in April of 1964, and it was demolished in 1965.
One night, sometime around 1963, I accompanied two adventurous friends to the Regent Theatre. It was a grind house, serving mostly as a place for drunks to get off the street, but one of the features on their triple bill that night was a very bad (as it turned out) movie of Jack Kerouac’s novel “The Subterraneans” with George Peppard. The movie had flashed through the regular theaters so fast that we had missed it, and we wanted to see it badly enough to brave a skid row grind house.
My chief memory of the place is of worn floors, peeling paint, broken seats, a barrel-vaulted ceiling of astonishing dirtiness, loud sound and surprisingly bright light from bare bulbs (both of these features apparently intended to keep the drunks from getting too comfortable), and several patrons who talked to themselves. Oh, yeah- and the smell. I mean The SMELL! The theater was in bad, bad shape.
The saddest thing, though, was that the movie was even worse than the theater. What a stinker! But what the hell. I think it only cost us fifty cents each, and we got to say that we’d been to a movie on skid row. The Regent was the only Main Street movie house I’ve ever been in, and I cherish the memory. Thanks, Regent, and so long.
This theater has had four names: The Morosco, The President (in the 1930s), The Newsreel (in the 1940s, before that name was transfered to the Tower Theatre) and The Globe.
I have found that the Majestic opened on November 23rd, 1908. It was owned by M.A. Hamburger, owner of Hamburger’s Department Store, which was located just up the block at the corner of 8th and Broadway. The store later became the May Company.
Thomas Tally’s first Broadway Theater was located on the same block as the Majestic.
I saw English language movies at the State many times in the early-mid 1960s. At that time, the only big downtown theaters regularly showing movies in Spanish were the Million Dollar, United Artists and California. Even most of the small theaters on Broadway were still showing movies in English.
My copy of the Los Angeles Times movie listings of February 10th, 1971, shows English language movies playing at the following Broadway theaters: Cameo, Roxie, Tower, Arcade, Los Angeles, Palace, and State, plus the Warrens (Warner Downtown) on Hill Street and the Olympic on 8th Street. With the exceptions of the Cameo, Arcade and Roxie, all these theaters were showing new or recent mainstream Hollywood films. Spanish language movies were being shown at these theaters: Astro, Broadway, Globe, Orpheum (American movies dubbed into Spanish) Rialto and United Artists. The Million Dollar had a “Call theatre for program” notice, but the movie was undoubtedly in Spanish, that theater having shown no English language movies at all since at least 1960.
A copy of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section has listings for only eight Broadway theaters, and none on any other downtown street. Of those eight, the Million Dollar was showing movies in Spanish, the Orpheum was showing a double feature of recent American releases dubbed into Spanish, the Rialto, State, Tower, Los Angeles and Palace were all showing triple features of action or horror movies in English, and the Cameo was showing four features of the same sort of fare, in English. Apparently, the market downtown for movies in Spanish had just about collapsed by that time.
But the Corwins maintained a first-run or second-run policy at most of the surviving big theaters on Broadway and at the Warrens as well, clear through the 1960s. The Globe began showing Spanish language movies before the end of the decade, and the Palace did for a while, but then returned to second-run Hollywood films. The Orpheum began running mostly American movies dubbed into Spanish (or sometimes subtitled in Spanish) about the middle of the decade, and kept that policy pretty much until it closed. Interestingly enough, in the early 1980s, the Palace went back to a first run policy for a while, but ended it after a Laemmle fourplex opened on Figuroa Street near the Bonaventure Hotel.
But I do remember the Broadway theatres of the 1960s as mostly still being fairly popular, well-maintained houses showing first run American movies. The serious decline in their fortunes didn’t set in until the 1970s.
L. Thomas:
Actually, the Miracle Mile, (thus named in the 1920s by its developer, A.W. Ross), extends from Sycamore Street (one block east of La Brea) westward to Fairfax Avenue, so the Four Star is virtually at its doorstep. See a brief description of the area in The Larchmont Chronicle.
I never attended the Four Star, but I have a good idea of what it was like, as I went to several movies at the almost identical U.A. Pasadena. It was a nice building, but leg room was minimal, so closely packed were the seats.
If this theater was owned by Thomas Tally, then it was the second of his movie houses of that name (which I suppose accounts for it being called Tally’s “New” Broadway.) A Los Angeles Times article of 12/28/1909 announced that Tally had leased a site for a theater on Broadway near 9th Street. A Times article of 7/7/1929 is headlined “Old Broadway landmark passes into history” and announces the demolition of Tally’s Broadway to make room for an expansion of the May Company department store. The old May Company building (originally called Hamburger’s Department Store) still extends a bit more than halfway down the block from 8th Street, so Tally’s original Broadway must have been a couple of doors north of the old Majestic Theater.
Incidentally, Mr. Hamburger owned the Majestic himself, and was a member of the investment group which financed the construction of the new theater (across Broadway from the Majestic) which became the 4th Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.
Warren:
According to cards in the L.A. Public Library’s California Index (search terms=“theater” “ Whittier” and “Scenic”), The Roxy is indeed the former Scenic Theater, though the Index misspells the name as “Roxie.”
Plans for the Scenic were announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of 8/19/1919. A later issue of the same publication (3/27/1925) names the owners as Whittier Amusement Company, 211 Philadelphia Street, and reports that the theater would be remodeled and redecorated, and that a new organ would be installed by the Moller Company.
The theater was still called the Scenic as late as 1932, when the 11/5/1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald announced that a Mr. Reno Wilk had been named as its manager.
The Roxy was destroyed by an arson fire in late September, 1971, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1st that year.
L.A. Smith was probably the architect of this theater. I have found two references to it in the Southwest Builder and Contractor, issues of ¾/1921 and 4/22/1921. Both give the location of the planned theater, designed by Smith, as on Western Avenue between 3rd and 4th streets, though the exact address is not given. The project is described as a two story brick building, 110 by 150 feet, with theater and two shops on the ground floor, and three offices on a small second floor.
I remember seeing the Embassy while passing by, many years ago, but can’t remember if it fits that description. If it did, and was the only theater on that block, then it probably is Smith’s work.
The architect of the Rivoli was L.A. Smith, according to the notice in Southwest Builder and Contractor, issue of 6/24/1921.
The architect of this theater is named as Arthur W. Hawes, and the owner as Frances S. Fonda, in a notice about its planned construction published in Southwest Builder and Contractor, issue of April 12, 1940. The place must not have opened until 1941, or very late 1940.
(Yes, eadkins, Frances Fonda was Mrs. Henry Fonda, Jane’s mother.)
And, like Moviemanforever, I saw “Five Easy Pieces” at this theater- though it wasn’t on the night when they did the preview of “The Owl and The Pussycat.”
If this was indeed the theatre originally called the Tivoli, then the architect was L.A. Smith. Southwest Builder and Contractor of 8/26/1921 announced its construction, but gave the location as 42nd and Central, which should have put it in the 4200 block (assuming it was south, rather than north, of 42nd Street.)
I have found a listing for the Villa Glen theater at 404 North Central Avenue in Glendale, from the Independent theater listings in the Los Angles Times of February 10th, 1971. They were showing a double feature of movies called “Flap” and “Hotel.” That issue of The Times contains no listing for any theater on Colorado Street, so the Glen was undoubtedly closed by then.
I am more certain than ever that the theater on Colorado Street, designed by Kenneth A. Gordon, opened in 1925, and first operated by Lou Bard, was never called the Villa Glen, but only Bard’s Glen and, later, simply the Glen. We are definitely dealing with two different theaters here. Because of this, I don’t know if the comment by DanMorse above applies to this theater, or to the actual Villa Glen on Central Avenue, mentioned in the comment by barton. That he saw “Bonnie and Clyde” at the Villa Glen on Central Avenue seems more likely.
In any case, there should be two seperate listings for these two distinct theaters.
The architect of this theater, and the hotel in which it is located, was Myron Hunt, one of the leading archtects of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. His other works include the Huntington Hotel, Public Library, and The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, most of the buildings of Occidental College in the Eagle Rock district of Los Angeles, The Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, and dozens of other significant structures throughout California, as well as a large number of (mostly palatial) private dwellings in communities such as San Marino, Palos Verdes Estates, and Santa Barbara.
L.A. Smith was the architect of the Belmont. Completion of his plans was announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor, 2/13/1925. The theater was to be leased to West Coast Theaters.
The earliest reference to this theater that I can find is from an L.A. Times story of March 20th, 1924, that announces the world premier there that night of the Norma Talmadge movie “Secrets.”
A Times article from February 7th, 1929 says “Fox-Criterion name bestowed on playhouse.”
An article in Daily Variety from February 6th, 1935 is headlined “Criterion Reopens,” but no mention of any name change yet. Another Daily Variety article from about that time makes reference to some sort of wage dispute, so I think the closure might have been related to a strike of some sort. But I have found no later refernces to the Criterion,
I’ve been unable to find any references at all to a theater called the Grande Internationale. My own earliest clear memory of the intersection of 7th and Grand (only three blocks west of Broadway, actually, and two blocks west of the Warner Theatre at 7th and Hill) date from about 1960, and there was no trace of a theater there by that time.
The Mason Theater is indeed the same as the Mason Opera House. Opened in 1903, it was designed by Chicago architects Marshall and Wilson, working with Los Angeles architect John Parkinson. (Benjamin Marshall designed several Chicago theaters, including the ill-fated Iroquois, which opened the same year as the Mason.) The Mason was the first big theater on Broadway, and immediately became the prime venue for the most prestigious shows and soloists visiting Los Angeles. In its first years, it hosted such stars of the day as Lillie Langtry, Adelina Patti and Helen Modjeska.
The theater was sufficiently successful that it was able to finance a major renovation in 1924, carried out by the firm of Meyer and Holler, which enhanced the already lavish appointments of the house. One newspaper of the day reported the new style of the theater to be “Pompayan,” but its interior style was in fact the sort of eclectic renaissance-beaux arts classicism which was soon to be displaced in fashion by more modern styles. The exterior of the theater retained the rather simple facade of an ordinary early 20th century commercial block, but the interiors were as opulent as anything in the city.
The new competition for the Mason at that time included David Belasco’s new theater on Hill Street and the brand new Biltmore Theater on Fifth Street, adjacent to the Biltmore Hotel. Other legitimate theaters were opening in outlying districts, especially Hollywood, where the thriving theater district included the Hollywood Playhouse, the Vine Street Theater, the Music Box, and the El Capitan. The business district of Los Angeles was shifting south and west, and the Mason’s neighborhood was becoming unfashionable, and no amount of decoration could change that fact. In the depression years, the theater began showing movies, though stage plays were mounted at least as late as 1941.
It was about that time that the theater came into the hands of Francisco Fouce, who established it as the leading venue for both Mexican films and Mexican Vaudeville in the city. By 1945, the Mason Theater was presenting stars of the Mexican stage to capacity audiences, and the foyer was lined with posters of the likes of Dolores Del Rio and Cantinflas. Themid-1940s to the mid-1950s were a second golden age for the Mason, which might have continued for years, had the block on which it stood not been targeted for demolition to accommodate the expanding dead zone of government buildings in the project that came to be called (with what I am sure was unintentional irony) the Civic Center. The real center of the city fled away, and the lively entertainments that had filled the Mason fled with it. The Mason has now been gone for almost as many years as it stood, and the street from which it was taken remains what it then became- as dull as a bureaucrat’s dreams.
CConnoly:
Downtown Los Angeles has never been forgotten, at least not in the sense that some of the old areas of lower Manhattan were forgotten and then rediscovered. Broadway has been a thriving commercial street for over a hundred years. As late as the 1980s, the sales per square foot in Broadway stores were the second highest of any shopping area in Southern California, exceeded only by pricey Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They continue to be among the highest today.
By 1906, the three major department stores of downtown, (The Broadway, Bullocks, and May Company- then called Hamburger’s) were established at Broadway locations which they would occupy until at least the late 1960s. The Broadway Department Store was the first to go, ironically moving a few blocks west along Seventh Street. Bullocks and the May Company followed in the mid-1980s, moving six blocks west to Figuroa Street. Still, the smaller shops along Broadway have survived, and done quite well, and vacancies are rare.
Broadway has not been a popular destination for the middle class for at least four decades now, but lower income groups still throng to it. The neighborhoods in nearby sections of the city, and many of those those further out with easy access to Downtown by public transit, still attract large numbers of immigrants, and Broadway has long been a street on which you can hear many languages. The place is very cosmopolitan and, by day at least, very busy.
In fact, the theaters are almost the only buildings vacant (at the street level- the offices above have been mostly vacant for years now) along most of the street. Were the large movie palaces to be demolished and replaced with ordinary commercial space, that space would probably fill up quickly. It is a wonder that most of Broadway’s old theater buildings survive at all, so valuable would their space be for retail uses on this busiest of L.A.’s streets.
The area is pretty rough by night, now that the theaters no longer bring crowds, and skid row has long since spilled over and around Broadway, but then Downtown has not been the center of L.A. nightlife since the late 1920s, when the action shifted to Hollywood and, since then, to other parts of the west side. Even the modern business district a few blocks west of Broadway tends to empty out at night. There have been attempts to bring more residents into the area, and many proposals to convert the vacant offices above Broadway’s stores to apartments and lofts, but it’s pretty slow going.
There are a lot of inherent problems in getting a good urban neighborhood established in downtown. For one thing, the blocks are huge, making for poor pedestrian circulation. Also, the area is relentlessly commercial and industrial, with few apartments, and most of those are either in decay or, if built recently, are in projects that are deliberately isolated from surrounding streets. And though public transit has improved somewhat in recent years, it still doesn’t offer the sort of access and reliability that are necessary for urban neighborhoods.
Most importantly, Los Angeles lacks any real urban tradition and thus, those people who are trying to make downtown work like a real city, instead of just the big business district it has long been, come up against a lot of official ignorance, and even hostility. Chances are that Pasadena will develop a good urban core before Los Angeles does, even though Los Angeles has more to work with. But if L.A. does ever get its act together, Downtown could be a great place. It has great potential, but nobody has been able to tap into it yet.