Aztec Theatre

Closed 1994.

Currently an ice cream shop.

Here is an undated photo:
http://tinyurl.com/nu4sme

Nice photos, thanks.

There is a photo of the current occupant on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/c25r3w

The San Diego Reader has compiled all the Walnut articles onto one webpage, along with around 100 graphics and photos that never appeared in ANY of the published versions. Also included is a Pussycat Theatre mini-history, updates on various Walnut-related lawsuits, etc.

RE the Aztec, there’s a new addition to the article that refutes some info in the book that says Black Dahlia murder victim Betty Short saw a movie at the Aztec and stayed with an employee just before going to LA and getting killed. An old newspaper ad reproduced on the Reader page shows the ACTUAL movie Short saw, which was not the movie listed in the book – in fact, very oddly, Short saw “The Blue Dahlia” at the Aztec just before going to LA! A hitherto unknown and fascinating fact that Black Dahlia buffs will want to check into ——– the old Aztec ad was found and provided by blogger myspace.com/sandiegocinerama, where a BUNCH of old Aztec ads (and ads for other San Diego theaters) are scanned.

View link

When Wesley “Andy” Andrews and Charlie Smith bought the Aztec, all of those one-sheets and stills were gone. In fact, apart from a lot of old junk, the basement was pretty much empty. Andy and Charlie started their own collection when they reopened the Aztec in January of 1974. I remember Mr. Sorenson and also Preferred Theatres. Royal Fox Walker, who had been the manager of the Plaza Theatre, worked for Walnut Properties as their maintenance man for a long time.

There’s a cover article in today’s San Diego Reader, detailing the histories of all the downtown theaters once run by Vince Miranda, at one time co-owner of California’s Pussycat Theatre chain. This is one of the theaters chronicled in the piece, which is built from a series of email interviews with Cinema Treasures contribs Dan Whitehead and Tim David (David is Miranda’s godson). Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have any of the great photos and graphics seen in the printed version – I wrote the piece and will probably put scans of the graphics on my own webpage before much longer, after the next issue comes out. Here’s a link to the article on the Reader site:

View link

This is our second major feature on southern CA theaters in about a year (the other, “Field Of Screens,” is just on San Diego drive-ins and can be found on the Reader site with the search bar). If anyone here likes the article(s) and would like to encourage the publisher to greenlight more, feel free to leave your thoughts about the piece in the comment section after article. The paper really pays attention to reader comments!
http://www.sdreader.com/ed/cover/

Somewhere, I have a photo of a marquee pitching a double feature of “Blue Thunder” and “Purple Rain” – at least the names are a perfect pairing!

Enjoyed your 7/24 post, Jay, well worth the read. You’ll earn the Cameron Crowe “Almost Famous” Award yet.:)

You wrote, “Sometimes, the feature bills were totally unplanned, just randomly matched movies that by rights should never have been run back to back – "The Muppet Movie” with Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” comes to mind as one odd pairing."

Nice to know occurrences such as this happened here on the “left” coast as well. Saw a few mismatched beauts back east, but the capper had to be Howard Keel’s God-awful ‘62 musical, “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers,” coupled with “Play Misty For Me” ('72). After sweating bullets and shuddering through the first, I relaxed and was taken in by the suspense of Director Eastwood’s efforts.

As I recall, Eastwood added a song by Roberta Flack at some point in the movie. Her version of “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was not bad at all, but was totally unacceptable to one old geezer up in the balcony near me. He was not impressed in the least with her style, so he threw Flack some flak. Whenever she sang “your face” toward the end of the song, he croaked out his own sarcastic imitation. Each and every time. Longer and louder. She jazzed it up and he razzed it up. She crooned. He groaned. Ya hadda be there! What a duet! What an afternoon delight for the benefit of us half dozen denizens of that local popcorn palace.

[BrooklynJim shivers at this point]

Grammy material, I swear…

I did read the Battle of the Peeps article, which is excellent. I do want to make one notable comment. According to Pussycat Theaters co-founder David Friedman, there were approximately 750 Pussycat Theaters in the US at one point. Vince Miranda only owned 47 of these theaters, which were in California. (According to an article called “Empire of the Pussycat”, Miranda failed to register a copyright for the Pussycat Theaters name outside of California. Theaters outside of California were not controlled by Miranda nor was he able to get a share of the revenues.)

I worked for Walnut Properties at the Cabrillo and Pussycat (just Pussycat, not Pink Pussycat) theatres from 1972 to 1974. I went to work for Mr. Wesley Andrews at the Aztec from 1974 to 1978. In the summer of 1978 I went back to work for Walnut Properties as their chief projectionist for the San Diego district (and later for the whole state) and held that position until 1989 which is when Walnut quit running most of their theatres. In 1989 I went to work for Mr. Terry Wiggins, who leased several of Walnut’s theatres including the Aztec, Casino and Bijou (listed at this website as the Roxy), as his chief projectionist. I held that position until April of 1994 which is when Terry went out of business.

While the lengthly article above is interesting there are some corrections that need to be made.

Paragraph 2: “Up in Smoke” ran several times, but hardly what one would call endlessly.
Paragraph 3: Prints could not just be casually changed from one theatre to another. Express permission had to be granted by the booker. The first booker for Walnut was a Mr. Ben Ohre (spelling?). After he died the firm of Jannopoulis-McCallum took over the job. No movie could ever be shown or moved withour their permission.
Paragraph 4: None of Walnut’s downtown projection booths really had any nooks and/or crannies; for the most part, they were too small.
Paragraph 6: While Walnuts early projection equipment was indeed Simplex, we changed over to Century in the late 70s and early 80s.
Paragraphs 8&9: As noted above, prints could not be moved without the express permission of the booker(s).
Paragraph 10: None of Walnut’s houses ran cult-type films. The Strand in Ocean Beach ran “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for many years but was owned at that time by Great Western. The only time I remember running “Phantom of the Paradise” was when it was a relatively new movie at the Cabrillo. Mr. Miranda didn’t like running cult movies as the “cultists” were too hard on the theatre and our houses didn’t need any more wear and tear than they already had.
Paragrahp 11 The Cabrillo and Aztec used to run as what were then called “Grind Houses”. The admission was cheap, we ran 3 features and changed twice a week. We used to open at 9:30A and close at 5:30A and the janitors had 4 hours to clean up and then we were back on screen. The Cabrillo dropped that type of operation during the late late 70s and the Aztec dropped it in the early 80s. We also changed the hours of operation in that we began opening at 12:00P instead of 9:30A and closed at 5:00A instead of 5:30A. The Pussycat always opened at 12P and also changed their exit time from 5:30A to 5:00A.
Paragraph 14: If the Aztec shut down at 4:00A to throw out an unruly customer then there was only one hour of business time left and the management would most likely have just gone ahead and closed down for the night. Mr. Miranda and Mr. Tate did not like over time. As time went by, we started closing the theatres at midnight and the “grind house” hours were forever gone.
Paragraph 16: I did my smoking on the roof of the Casino. There was a little window in the projection booth that opened directly onto the roof. The smoke dissipated much faster and the cops were happier.
Paragraph 17: The Aztec never ran “Pink Flamingos” or “Polyester”. Those movies ran at Landmark’s Guild theatre on 5th Avenue up in Hillcrtest.
Paragraph 19: The Russo family and their Eldorado Enterprises ran the Balboa until Mr. Tate purchased a lease from them in the mid 70s. The Russos also owned the Aztec, the Casino and the Campus Drive-In. Fox Theatres went out of business in the very late 60s or the very early 70s. The Russos/Eldorado Enterpirses ran the above mentioned theatres for many years. Their manager was a Mr. Sorenson. Aslo, the waterfalls in the Balboa were strictly ornamental and had nothing at all to do with the air conditioning.
Paragraph 20: As mentioned above, the Pussycat on 4th Avenue was never called the “Pink” Pussycat; just the Pussycat. A very early manager was Mr. Greg Vasic of the “F” Street bookstore corporation. He later became the longest lasting of Walnut’s district managers. He quit in the very late 70s or the very early 80s to concentrate on his own business which later made him a very rich man.
Paragreaph 21: When Mr. Wesley Andrews bought the Aztec in 1973, the Russos completely emptied the basement out. All of those one-sheets (which is what they’re called, not posters) started collecting on January 23, 1974 which is when Mr. Andrews reopened the Aztec. Others were added to the pile when the Cabrillo and Pussycat were torn down and also when Mr. Tate brought down a huge truck load from the Los Angeles area theatres after Walnut bought the Aztec from Mr. Andrews. As far as I know, the Aztec basement was never used a lunch area for the employees as it was just too filthy. The last person to operate the Aztec was Terry Wiggins and all those one-sheets were still there when we walked out for the last time in April of 1994.