Canyon Theatre
165 San Dimas Canyon Road,
San Dimas,
CA
91773
165 San Dimas Canyon Road,
San Dimas,
CA
91773
3 people
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The Canyon Theatre was opened in June 1966, and operated into the 1990’s
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
It was open in July 1969, according to the LA Times.
This theater’s interior was similar to that of The Americana in Panorama City (/theaters/7863/). Like The Americana, this venue hosted The Rocky Horror Picture Show for a time during the early 1990s; and reportedly had another/earlier RHPS run in the ‘80s.
The Canyon Theatre opened in June, 1966, according to an article in Boxoffice Magazine’s June 13th issue that year. It had 700 seats, and was one of the first theaters in the Robert Lippert chain’s major expansion into Southern California.
I drove by The Canyon Theatre last month and was very shocked to see the entire shopping center has been completely destroyed. Even the paved ground has been removed and there’s only dirt and weeds. I wonder why they would go to the trouble to remove the pavement parking lot? There’s a chain-link fence surrounding the entire perimeter of the ex-shopping center. It’s been a number of years since I’ve been by there and that fence looks to have been there for quite some time.
I remember when they were showing old b&w movies on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, which I thought was a neat idea. But, they weren’t old movies that I’d heard of. It would’ve been great to have themed days or weekends. Even midnight movies like was done in the 70’s and 80’s and those pulp fiction and grindhouse concepts. I think that kind of thing along with horror nights has a lot of potential to save the few remaining nostalgic movie houses that are left. Now that some of the 80’s are beginning to come back, there were many cool horror movies that would do very well in these old theaters. So many are gone and it makes me very sad.
Saw GOODFELLAS and DEAD CALM here twenty years ago, and a revival of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Also, a double feature of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS/GET SHORTY. For a short while in the 90s, they were running THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Occasionally, the owner’s red Jaguar XKE coupe could be seen parked out front.
Big write up in BOXOFFICE Nov.1995,Color pictures,Long story,Gene and Judy Harvey were the owners in 1995.They are interviewed in the BOXOFFICE article.
As state in Bansheee,s post of June 25,2009 Google maps show the entire shopping center and parking lot gone down to bare dirt,strange.
Was this really only a one screen theater. I believe I saw a couple movies here when I was a kid.
Wow thanks, I wish I could remember it better. The only one I can really remember well from the area was the Mann Glendora 6 theater. It’s too bad that all these theaters are virtually all gone, I hope someone posts some pics of this theater, other than the closed down remains seen at cinematour.com
I remember going at least twice, back in the early-to-mid seventies. My friend’s mom took him and me to it, but I can’t remember the movie. I think the only other time I went, it was to see King Kong in 1976. The place only had one screen which was probably partially responsible for its eventual decline.