Pussycat Guild Theatre

what’s so odd about it?

This became the Pussycat on January 18th, 1973. Ad in photo section.

Max and Louis Graf opened the twin theaters of the Aztec and Egyptian in 1925 thinking that having two smaller first-run theatres might be better than going all in on a single palace. They soon added the similarly-themed Pompeii Theatre as the start of their theatre circuit. All were architected by Oliver M. Rousseau and Arthur Rousseau of the Rousseau & Rousseau architectural firm.

But within months, the Grafs struggled and they closed their theaters. The business model was in the wrong era and Max Graf would continue his successful movie production career and Louis Graf would go into movie theater management. The Egyptian and Pompeii theaters would continue operation under new operators and immediately became sub-run grind houses. The Aztec would be partially dismantled though would reopen as a grindhouse much later.

Cool Ads.

In the 1980s, peeling paint on the side of the office block over this theatre’s entrance and above the shorter facade of the Market Street Cinema next door revealed, however faintly, shadows of a painted sign, “Egyptian Theatre.” That wall has been painted over at least twice since then. Recent removal of some later remodeling around the former entrances of the Guild and Centre has uncovered original Gothic/Baroque cast ornament original to the building. It has some damage, but based on the look of it, these details had been covered over since at least the 40s.
A number of years ago, my friend, the late theatre historian Steve Levin, told me that he either owned or had seen a photo of this theatre’s lobby taken when it was the Egyptian. He said it was obviously a decorating job done on the cheap, with lotus or papyrus patterns done on the walls with stenciling. Certainly it was not a comparatively deluxe Egyptian job like San Francisco’s Alexandria.

New book-length Pussycat Theatre history from the San Diego Reader:
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Syufy sold Century Theaters to Cinemark & mow operate West Wind Drive-Ins & Public Markets. (Kind of ironic, since Syufy was demolishing drive-ins for years in order to build megaplexes. Now they are trying to revive drive-ins in California. Maybe they saw the light.)

It’s spelled Syufy. I think it became Century Theatres.

In its final days, Walnut/Pussycat ran both theatres (Guild/Centre) using one projectionist. The projection booth doors of both houses opened into the hallway of the office building above. I explored that whole place all the way down to the basement.

He sure did. He’s the man who started it all as far as the Lippert business is concerned. The address (or better yet, edress) below will take you to a text page that tells about him. You’ll have to type the entire edress into your browser as I don’t know how to make it a hpyerlink at this website.

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I took care of all the projection equipment in this house for Walnut Properties/Pussycat Theatres from 1982 until it closed. It was an interesting old building. The fifth floor used to be the offices for Lippert Theatrtes. They took over the Centre immediately next door about a year ot two before they both shut down.

Some of the entrance area can be seen in the 1964 film “The Erotic Mr Rose” (along with the Centre next door).

Prior to its full conversion to porn in 1972, the Guild did show I Am Curious (Yellow) in a moveover engagement from the Presidio theater and Without a Stitch, also moved over from the Presidio.