Corbin Theatre
19620 Ventura Boulevard,
Tarzana,
CA
91356
19620 Ventura Boulevard,
Tarzana,
CA
91356
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Grand opening ads posted.
I was going to update the dead link to the Boxoffice article I cited in my earlier comment, but discovered that the magazine is in the process of changing formats for its online archive again. That means that Cinema Treasures is going to be hit by another epidemic of linkrot. I’m not sure it will even be possible to link to pages in the new archive yet, as the new format appears to be set up only for “sharing” pages by embedding them in other sites.
If anybody wants to check out the new Boxoffice archive (they only have the four most recent issues available so far) it’s right here.
The caption of the rendering OCRon mentioned says that the Corbin Theatre was actually designed by Gale Santocono (though it misspells his first name as Gail.) That opens the possibility that the Buena Park theater I mentioned in my comment of January 21, 2010, was also designed by Santocono, and Overpeck merely signed the plans for both houses as Santocono was not yet a licensed architect (this comment by Carol Santocono, Gale Santocono’s granddaughter, on our Raven Performing Arts Center page, says that Santocono was first licensed to practice architecture in California in the early 1960s.)
If anyone has any stories about going to/ working at this threatre in its adult days, I would love to hear them. I am chronicling the histories of adult theatres in the US. Please contact me at Thanks!
The Corbin was built for Robert Lippert Theatres and was opened in 1959. It was a near twin to the Buena Park Theatre opened the same year and which was the subject of this Boxoffice feature of October 19 that year. You can see the resemblance to the 1984 photo, though it looks like the Corbin had a traditional marquee added later, judging from the way it’s mounted on columns rather than attached to the building itself. The Corbin was probably designed by the architect of the Buena Park, Warren F. Overpeck.
Here is an August 1975 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/qrkcqy
Here is a 1984 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cgpqo2
Been There – Done That
The Corbin was advertised as an EVC Electrovision Theater in the LA Times back in January 1960. The karate studio has some interior photos on its website:
http://www.tarzanakarate.com/
Now a Mosonic Temple
Here is the ad:
http://tinyurl.com/3bv99v
There is a February 1968 ad in the Van Nuys News for a double feature – “Jungle Book” and “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar”. If you’re talking about nostalgia, it doesn’t get any better than that for me. Apart from a few films at the drive-in where I was stuffed in the back of the Rambler, these were the first two films I saw in a theater. My mother took to me to the same double feature in Atlantic City, possibly in late 1967. I’d better log off before I start weeping on my keyboard.
Here is a February 1975 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/3yu6ka
No more Doris Day films in September 1974. Features were “Behind the Green Door” and “Resurrection of Eve”.
An ad in the Valley News dated 10/30/70 promised “PTA mother supervision” for a showing of the Doris Day film “With 6 You Get Egg Roll” at the Corbin. Meanwhile, the Action Theater at 4704 Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks was promising “Mind Blowing Adult Features in Throbbing Sound and Color”. The times they were a changing…
Another in the Robert Lippert chain of theatres.
The Corbin Theatre was located at 19620 Ventura Blvd..