Edison Theatre
236 S. Spring Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90012
236 S. Spring Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90012
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Apparently, the Edison Theatre seen in the movie “Madigan” is the former Edison Theatre at 2700 Broadway in Manhattan, listed here as the Columbia Cinema. Some of the movie’s scenes were indeed filmed in downtown Los Angeles, but this scene was not among them.
There were no theatres operating on Spring Street in the 1960s. I believe that the last Spring Street theatre showing movies was the Lyceum, which closed in 1941. I don’t recall any theatre called the Edison operating anywhere in the Los Angeles area during the 1960s. I’ve never seen “Madigan” but I’ll check it out if it shows up on TV and see if I can solve the mystery.
The Edison Theater was apparently still open in 1968. It can be seen in the Richard Widmark detective film “Madigan”. The exterior of the theater (the marquee shows “Tobruk” with George Peppard and Rock Hudson) is seen when they go in search of Don Stroud to get information about finding a killer. There are interior scenes as well, but they look like studio interiors more than the inside of a theater (there is no wall between the lobby and the auditiorium).
The film was set in New York, but director Don Siegel doubled a number of LA locations for NYC. This worked and I was surprised to find the Edison in LA and not NYC.