Glendale Theatre

Is this the same Glendale Theater briefly seen in the 1954 noir “Crime Wave”?

1926 photo added credit C.C. Pierce.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/743/22873486851_69d260ba4a_o.jpg

I worked here in late ‘79 thru the early 80s. I began as an usher, worked my way up to assistant manager and temporary acting manager. When I was hired on it was still a single screen. I worked there thru the 1980 remodel (see pic in ken mc post above dated 4/23/09), when it became the first multiplex in Glendale. I recall the theatres on Brand Blvd at the time being some of the last single screen theatres in Southern California. Now only the Alex Theatre remains as a vestige to those times.

Here is a 1940 photo from the USC archive:
http://tinyurl.com/coowye

During the last years that Mann Theatres had it. It was used in part to train and certify chiefs of staff and Asst. Managers in the art of projection. When select Mann theatres would opt to run limited service with the projectionist union in Los Angeles.

A few additional bits about the Glendale Theatre have turned up. The L.A. Times announced the theatre’s opening on October 31, 1920. The project was financed by a Dr. W.C. Goodno. A few years later, at the time of the theatre’s 1924 expansion, the owner was named as Louise Goodno.

The theatre’s organ was dedicated early in 1921, according to an article in The Verdugo Foothills Record on January 22 of that year. The organist was Maude Moore Clement.

At the time the Glendale Theatre was wired for sound, its seating capacity was 1231, according to the item published in Exhibitor’s Herald & Motion Picture World on December 28, 1928.

From the LA Times, 8/8/95:

Historic Theater Slated to Be Razed Glendale: Site built in the 1920s, now a target for vandals, is scheduled to make way for $25-million downtown shopping center next year.

But today, the Glendale Theater is a dilapidated, stripped-down building frequented by vandals. City officials said Monday that the theater and several other aging buildings are tentatively slated to be razed early next year to make way for a $25-million redevelopment project.

Several years ago, when the Glendale Redevelopment Agency began planning the project now known as the proposed Glendale Marketplace, the historical society asked city staffers to consider saving the theater and other old buildings and incorporate them into the development. But because the Glendale Theater’s architectural features had been drastically modified over time, the society instead focused its efforts on a well-preserved nearby office building, which it helped save from the wrecking ball.

At the L.A. Public Library’s regional history database, I’ve come across cards which refer to a “Glendale Theatre #1”(no address given, alas), and this theatre on Brand Boulevard is sometimes referred to as “Glendale Theatre #2”, so it’s possible that your photo is of that first Glendale Theatre. As this second Glendale Theatre was opened in 1920, someone who is familiar with the course of women’s fashion in the era might be able to tell from the way the women in this picture are dressed whether or not the photo dates from an earlier year.

This was the second theater in Glendale to bear this name. It opened in 1920. According the Southwest Builder and Contractor, issue of 2/13/1920, the architect was Alfred F. Priest. The cost of the theater was $60,000.

SWB&C issue of 6/26/1924 announced a $20,000 dollar extension at the rear of the theater, for a larger stage and the addition of dressing rooms etc to accomodate stage productions.

SWB&C issue of 7/7/1939 annouced the remodeling of the theater, by then operated by Fox, to include a concrete floor, acoustic plaster, carpets, a plastic veneer ticket booth and new poster cases. The architect for this remodel was (not surprisingly) Clifford A. Balch.

This theatre was located at 122 South Brand Boulevard.