Deja Vu Showgirls

On September 3rd, 2011 during a trip that included Los Angeles, I stood waiting at a bus stop in front of a former business with an aging mustard yellow marquee. A folding gate blocked the doorway, where discarded soda cans and fast food wrappers had accumulated in the space between. Some other signage made statements such as “Girls, Girls, Girls” (reminding me of the Motley Crue song)… I thought, “Oh, it’s a defunct movie theater that is now a defunct strip club!”.

For a while as I waited for the bus, two women in their early 20’s stood silently under the marquee holding a handmade cardboard sign that said “Hungry Hobos” and a request for money. Occasionally some people would offer assistance and chat with them, but I got the impression this was possibly a sort of performance/experiment to see how people would respond.

A year or so later I thought it would be fun to try to find the place on Cinema Treasures, but couldn’t remember what it was called or where in L.A. I had been.

Then on February 12th, 2016, I was watching the documentary “David Bowie – Five Years” that was airing on PBS. During a segment describing Bowie’s time in Los Angeles in the 1970’s, an interviewee’s voice says Bowie felt he needed to leave L.A. because the culture was getting too crazy and therefore unhealthy for him, while for a moment the image on the screen is a lit up marquee of a theater called The Cave taken from a passing car. …. I wrote down the name and looked it up on Cinema Treasures: Ha – it just happened to be the theater that I had stood in front of back in 2011! (Apparently with a remodeled exterior and reopened as a strip club.)

The Cave is featured in the 1984 movie “Angel”. In addition to showing the exterior, two scenes take place inside; when the killer attempts to hide among seated patrons/is confronted by the manager and in a follow-up scene when he is discovered by police/flees. The giveaway that they actually shot the scenes inside the Cave is a faux stalactite visible to the left of the screen, framing an exit door, when they briefly flash to the movie being played (the 1983 adult film “Sweet Alice”). At the time of filming, the auditorium looked to be small (under 100 seats) and had a red/black color scheme. The exterior entrance was wood paneled, with slats arranged in a diagonal pattern, and the carpeting was brown.

The Deja Vu completed a remodel and reopened sometime over the past couple of months.

Thy used the place in the new film shot in Hollywood ‘MaXXXine’ You can also see the Vine Theatre next door in the film with the marquee letters up from a movie in 1985.

It’s amazing how often this hole in the wall theatre has popped up as a location in films. “Angel”, “Sweet Alice”, “Candy Goes To Hollywood”, “What Would Your Mother Say”, “Don’t Answer The Phone”, “10 to Midnight”, “Armed & Dangerous”, “Jack’s Back”, “Where The Day Takes You”, “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”, “MaXXXine”, W.A.S.P.’s “I Wanna Be Somebody” music video. I’m sure I’ve missed a few with this list too.

On a trivia side note: The Cave’s use in “Angel” is somewhat of a cameo within a cameo, with a shared thread. In “Angel”, there is a scene where a character is watching “Sweet Alice” at the Cave and “Sweet Alice” contains a scene in which a character is watching a film at the Cave (a storyline film starring the namesake Sweet Alice character). So, at one point, a film’s fictional Cave patron would be watching another film’s fictional Cave patron; both ultimately watching films involving the fictional Sweet Alice character.