El Capitan Theatre

Irving C. Ackerman and Sam Harris announced the El Capitan project with hotel in November of 1926 along with George A. Oppenheimer. The $1.3 million project Fox West Coast was a Spanish Renaissance concept with adjoining hotel. Unfortunately for A-H-O, the cinematic universe completely changed in the 18 month buildout. The “most modern theatre” in San Francisco launched June 29, 1928 without sound making the circuit scramble as the Embassy - followed by several other houses - were making hay with talkies. The venue was hastily retrofitted for Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology on October 26, 1928 with the “Lion and the Mouse.” Ackerman and Harris would be gone quickly selling out to Fox West Coast Theatres effective with the September 20, 1929 show - fortunately prior to Black Thursday but not enough to save their bacon. In August of 1932, Ackerman & Harris had been dissolved and the hotel was auctioned off.

Fox West Coast Theatres downgraded the venue to a second-run discount house yet still with a live show. And its 40 cent maximum price point was the ticket as the venue thrived during the Depression and War years. Prior to its leasing expiry, Fox West Coast closed the El Capitan on July 17, 1956 and was subject of a taxing valuation hearing as the circuits successfully contended many urban movie theaters had plummeted in value in the TV age. The Captain’s chairs were vacant for about a year and sublet to independent operator Norman Smiley - likely hoping to steer the El Capitan to the end of its leasing period in 1958. He converted the aged venue to widescreen projection for presentation of CinemaScope titles. The El Capitan reopened as a deep discount house on May 1, 1957 with “Brute Force” and “Naked City” along with KYA-AM providing live coverage. He closed on October 29, 1957 failing to find an audience (and without a live radio exit show) and cutting his losses.

Ralph Dostal reopened here sharing the space with the Golden Gate Evangelistic Temple on November 29, 1957 with third-run triple features beginning with “The Cavalry,” “Miami Exposé” and “Cha-Cha-Cha Boom!” He threw in the towel quickly on December 15, 1957 likely finding no audience - at all. The space would be converted to other purposes.

In 1961, the Parking Authority approved a plan to demolish the El Capitan auditorium and gutting the lobby for a parking lot of around 350 spots. A salvage sale was held offering everything inside for sale. Demolished in 1961, the facade and the footprint of the lobby remained as a gutted pass-through to a parking lot in the auditorium’s former space.

Not to be confused with that other el capitan theater which went by a different name..

It’s still a hotel and even has a web site.

Constructed in 1928

What remains of the El Capitan Theatre and Hotel was designated a San Francisco city landmark in 1996, which was unfortunately long after the auditorium had been demolished. A PDF of the Planning Commission document with the history of the building can be downloaded with this link. The document says that while G. Albert Lansburgh did in fact act as consulting architect on the project, the architect of record was William H. Crim.

At least they didn’t COMPLETELY destroy it. I’d rather see it become a drive through parking lot with the facade in tact than see it demolished and becoming a Walmart or something…

Some additional photos of the theater fron the San Francisco Public Library: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

A few July 2012 photos can be seen here, here and here.

We called it “The Cap” and it was a beautiful theater. The marquee flashed in beautiful colors and the sign would spell out the letters of the theater one by one. A tall big guy named Dan Mcclean ran the place. He was always dressed in a tuxedo and top hat, greeting you as you came in. I remember his huge black handlebar moustache, my mom thought he was a cutie pie and he would flirt with her. There was a powderroom upstairs and my mom had to powder her nose one more time before we left, and she flirted with him on the way out. What I remember about the Cap, were those beautiful curtains on the stage, there were two of them. When the curtains opened there was another one right behind it that started to open and went straight up. The previews would start and on the screen it would say, “Coming Soon…..To YOUR El Capitan” it made you feel like you owned it.

To comment on the previous post: It was not a bad location at all. El Capitan was, to quote the late SF theatre historian Steve Levin, “A phenomenal moneymaker before television.” From that point, the huge capacity of the house made it a white elephant very quickly, and indeed, competition from smaller, more efficient-to-run theatres in the area would have had an effect. Any need for a big house in the Mission neighborhood was filled by the smaller, but still capaceous, New Mission Theatre, across the street and to the South. The New Mission managed to keep its doors open into the 1990s, but not without having taken a turn as a boxing match venue before reverting back to a regular movie policy in its last years. Add to this the smaller Tower, Grand, and Crown, and a downtown-sized palace like El Capitan was a dinosaur, once people started staying home more to watch the Small Screen.

Ken mc… FYI, regarding you notes of Feb 29, 2008;
Apart from the cluster of theaters around that part of Mission Street, there are others several miles out of downtown as this endless road winds its way through the Mission district.

I’ve posted some recent photos here.

Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cyquvh