Rancho Circle Theatre

This theatre was located at Rancho and Bonanza in the same shopping center as the Rancho Circle Car Wash (rebuilt as a Terrible Herbst car wash in the early 2000s) and the infamous Larry’s Villa topless lounge. I lived just south of there on Mesquite Avenue from 1966 – 1986, and visited the theatre a few times, once to see a late 1970s re-release of Walt Disney’s Fantasia. It was a small neighborhood strip mall theatre with just two screens I believe.

The Rancho Circle wasn’t much of a movie theater due to its size (seat count: probably less than 200). During the first several years of its existence, it ran 2nd & 3rd-run features (a.k.a. “subruns”) after their 1st engagements were over & done with, elsewhere. (An example: not long after this theater opened up, they ran a triple-bill of “A Boy Named Charlie Brown”, “Snoopy Come Home”, and “Skin Game” with James Garner & Lou Gossett.) The theater RARELY played 1st-run features - exceptions: when the theater opened sometime in 1973, the opening feature was a low budget horror flick called “Pigs” (not only did it have to do with rabid pigs, but since ‘73 was the year of “The Exorcist”, the guy who made this POS decided to have an exorcism with a teenage girl as well. Needless to say, “Pigs” didn’t last for more than a week - if it did, maybe 2, but that’s about it. And sometime in 1974, the theater got the exclusive engagement of “Amazing Grace” starring
Moms Mabley - including the world premiere, which Mabley showed up for. Unfortunately, the next year (1975) Mabley passes away. As Samm 98 pointed out above, the theater eventually switched to Spanish language movies - including an exclusive Vegas engagement on the only movie that Spanish 'Boy Band’ “Menudo” made. (DON’T EVEN ASK - have NO idea what it was called! All I remember is that when it came here, the theater put ads in both the Vegas newspapers (The Sun & Review Journal) screaming “HEY GIRLS - WE GOT THE NEW MENUDO MOVIE!!!”)