That isn’t Loew’s State in NYC. The marquee is different than the streamlined one installed in 1959, and SPIRAL ROAD played at the Warner, not Loew’s State.
Bigjoe59: The Michael Todd, Cinestage, McVickers, Palace (AKA Bismark)—these were the regular venues during the 50s and 60s. The Roosevelt had The Longest Day and the United Artists had Funny Girl and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
I will just add to the above post that initially (in the 70s), Syracuse Stage, an Equity theatre, used what is now the Storch theatre, which was called the Experimental Theatre and I think may have used some of the original Regent theatre building. The SU Drama Dept. used the old Regent auditorium at this time, often using just the old stage for both patrons and performers (if I recall correctly). With the construction of the Archibold Theatre the Experimental Theatre was renamed the Storch after the founding artistic director of Stage and former chair of the Drama Dept, and the Drama Dept now uses it for its productions.
“Ben-Hur” played 74 weeks at the Todd. Just checked Variety. It opened Christmas week 1959 (I remember that—I lived in Chicago then) and closed mid-May 1961. But that is still shorter than “The Sound of Music.”
The Fine Arts was almost my first job when I started college at UCLA. I had gotten the usher job, had picked up my uniform, and then got a better job at the biomedical library on campus, which ended seeing me through four years of college and the first year of graduate school. But it would have been really neat to have a first-job at a movie theater!
Hello bigjoe59—that may have applied to NY and the RKO and Loew’s distribution, but Fox West Coast played first run films in various neighborhoods, in large part because of the spread of LA: downtown, Hollywood, mid-Wilshire/Beverly Hills, Westchester are all different neighborhoods. I suspect you may be equating “neighborhood house” with second-run (i.e. after first-run), which is how the two chains worked in NYC, dividing the market for films after they played Broadway first-run run, usually exclusively. But that was not how exhibition worked in every city. In the time referenced, the Chinese played pretty much to its neighborhood—Hollywood.
In the 30s, 40s, and early 50s this was how Fox West Coast, the theater chain subsidiary of 20th Century-Fox, showed first-run films in its theaters in Los Angeles: the Chinese played first-run day and date with a downtown theater (the Loew’s State, then for a short time in the 50s the Los Angeles), a Wilshire Blvd theater (usually the Ritz but sometimes the Carthay Circle if it was not playing a roadshow exclusive run), and a Westchester theater (the Loyola), so that may have been what Coate meant. The Chinese was exclusive for a time after it opened, and then went exclusive again in 1953 some months prior to CinemaScope and The Robe. During the time in between, the Chinese and those other theaters would play an A picture from 20th or MGM or UA double-billed with a B picture, usually for the pictures' first week, and then the double bill would move over to another set of Fox theaters to continue the first-run. This was how The Wizard of Oz opened in LA, for instance. At some point in the 40s, Fox, which was booking Loew’s and UA theatres then too, set up a second first-run block, including the Los Angeles, Egyptian, and Fox-Wilshire, which then mainly showed MGM films starting in the mid-40s, leaving Fox films to the other set-up. Warners did something similar with its first-run films, playing them in its downtown house, Hollywood Blvd theater, and the Wiltern. RKO had only a downtown and Hollywood house, as did Paramount once it took over the old El Capitan and renamed it Hollywood Paramount to go with its big Downtown Paramount. There was also a Music Hall chain with houses downtown, in Hollywood, and Beverly Hills that showed some UA pictures and independents. Until the 50s, exclusive runs played the Carthay (sometimes along with the UA theater downtown) or Four Star, both in the mid-Wilshire district. Most first-runs were double billed and played in the multiple configurations I have described. All of this changed as the consent decree split the theaters, roadshows and exclusive first-runs became more common in LA, and the mix-and-match of day dated theaters in LA ceased to correspond so exactly to the theater chains.
I don’t know if that was what Coate meant, but this was the exhibition pattern in LA during those decades. Fox did something similar with its first-run theaters in Kansas City and also day and dated its downtown Denver house with a neighborhood one. When I am bored I read old issues of Variety and the LA Times, LOL.
Can-Can played at the Palace, not the McVickers. This is the Palace theatre in Chicago.
I saw American Grafiti in cinema 1, the big auditorium
Why s this photo here? It is not Loew’s State.
That isn’t Loew’s State in NYC. The marquee is different than the streamlined one installed in 1959, and SPIRAL ROAD played at the Warner, not Loew’s State.
This looks like the RKO Palace in Cleveland, not the one in Cincinnati.
Bigjoe59: The Michael Todd, Cinestage, McVickers, Palace (AKA Bismark)—these were the regular venues during the 50s and 60s. The Roosevelt had The Longest Day and the United Artists had Funny Girl and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
I will just add to the above post that initially (in the 70s), Syracuse Stage, an Equity theatre, used what is now the Storch theatre, which was called the Experimental Theatre and I think may have used some of the original Regent theatre building. The SU Drama Dept. used the old Regent auditorium at this time, often using just the old stage for both patrons and performers (if I recall correctly). With the construction of the Archibold Theatre the Experimental Theatre was renamed the Storch after the founding artistic director of Stage and former chair of the Drama Dept, and the Drama Dept now uses it for its productions.
“Ben-Hur” played 74 weeks at the Todd. Just checked Variety. It opened Christmas week 1959 (I remember that—I lived in Chicago then) and closed mid-May 1961. But that is still shorter than “The Sound of Music.”
The Fine Arts was almost my first job when I started college at UCLA. I had gotten the usher job, had picked up my uniform, and then got a better job at the biomedical library on campus, which ended seeing me through four years of college and the first year of graduate school. But it would have been really neat to have a first-job at a movie theater!
Hello bigjoe59—that may have applied to NY and the RKO and Loew’s distribution, but Fox West Coast played first run films in various neighborhoods, in large part because of the spread of LA: downtown, Hollywood, mid-Wilshire/Beverly Hills, Westchester are all different neighborhoods. I suspect you may be equating “neighborhood house” with second-run (i.e. after first-run), which is how the two chains worked in NYC, dividing the market for films after they played Broadway first-run run, usually exclusively. But that was not how exhibition worked in every city. In the time referenced, the Chinese played pretty much to its neighborhood—Hollywood.
In the 30s, 40s, and early 50s this was how Fox West Coast, the theater chain subsidiary of 20th Century-Fox, showed first-run films in its theaters in Los Angeles: the Chinese played first-run day and date with a downtown theater (the Loew’s State, then for a short time in the 50s the Los Angeles), a Wilshire Blvd theater (usually the Ritz but sometimes the Carthay Circle if it was not playing a roadshow exclusive run), and a Westchester theater (the Loyola), so that may have been what Coate meant. The Chinese was exclusive for a time after it opened, and then went exclusive again in 1953 some months prior to CinemaScope and The Robe. During the time in between, the Chinese and those other theaters would play an A picture from 20th or MGM or UA double-billed with a B picture, usually for the pictures' first week, and then the double bill would move over to another set of Fox theaters to continue the first-run. This was how The Wizard of Oz opened in LA, for instance. At some point in the 40s, Fox, which was booking Loew’s and UA theatres then too, set up a second first-run block, including the Los Angeles, Egyptian, and Fox-Wilshire, which then mainly showed MGM films starting in the mid-40s, leaving Fox films to the other set-up. Warners did something similar with its first-run films, playing them in its downtown house, Hollywood Blvd theater, and the Wiltern. RKO had only a downtown and Hollywood house, as did Paramount once it took over the old El Capitan and renamed it Hollywood Paramount to go with its big Downtown Paramount. There was also a Music Hall chain with houses downtown, in Hollywood, and Beverly Hills that showed some UA pictures and independents. Until the 50s, exclusive runs played the Carthay (sometimes along with the UA theater downtown) or Four Star, both in the mid-Wilshire district. Most first-runs were double billed and played in the multiple configurations I have described. All of this changed as the consent decree split the theaters, roadshows and exclusive first-runs became more common in LA, and the mix-and-match of day dated theaters in LA ceased to correspond so exactly to the theater chains.
I don’t know if that was what Coate meant, but this was the exhibition pattern in LA during those decades. Fox did something similar with its first-run theaters in Kansas City and also day and dated its downtown Denver house with a neighborhood one. When I am bored I read old issues of Variety and the LA Times, LOL.