Cine Grand
Calle Loiza y Calle Jefferson,
San Juan
00911
Calle Loiza y Calle Jefferson,
San Juan
00911
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The Grand was on the corner of Loíza and Jefferson streets, if anyone wants to fix the map; there’s a pawn shop where the theatre used to stand.
My folks religiously took us every Sunday to the double feature. One flick I remember seeing at the Grand was the indescribably awful LaserBlast (later resurrected as a MST3K episode).
Speaking of religion, this theatre also dutifully screened “The Ten Commandments” and similar films during Easter week, as did many other PR theaters including the now-legendary Laguna UA150.
As far as I recall it was last owned by a family named Obrador, a son was a classmate of mine who gave me some promo materials from time to time including a Spanish ‘Guerra de las Galaxias’ (Star Wars) T-shirt. Memories!
I saw so many movies at the Grand. During summer vacations as a kid I remember seeing “Samson and Delilah”, “The Longest Day”, “The Wild Bunch” and a double feature of “Yellow Submarine” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” that remains one of my great, magical afternoons at the movies.
I don’t remember if it was a Llamas theater at one time, I knew it as a Cobian theater, part of Commonwealth Theaters. Originally named the San Jose, Commonwealth renovated it and renamed it the Grand.
El Grand did have its charm. There was always the uninteligible marquis displaying missing, reversed or simply misspelled film titles, but even those may have remained unchanged as new schedules played. The absent or reversed marquis letters were in fact quite in fashion in many a double feature house. Still today.
But in the 60’s the Grand also had this distinct lanky, sharp, spotty black/white vitilgo ticket taker who was the incarnation of the broad film spectrum features reeled from this theater. They played shorts, Movietone and Lufthansa news as well as European movies with English subtitles. As in all moviehouses then, thick smoke betrayed the otherwise transparent film projector. Everybody smoked in their unwieldy seats, regardless of the signs and the glass shaded hall at the back of the room. The lanky ticket taker doubled as usher who was never called to assist seating arrangements for anybody. The flashlit walk every half hour gave ample time for a quick cigarette duck. Many seats wouldn’t yeald and it screamed for cleaning, but it was there. it was cheap and a kids mind is not the most demanding when some freaky japanese creature fills all eyes as it suddenly jumped out up close just when you knew was his duty. Until Psycho ((Paramount Theater?), the post-climatic woman screech had little effect. But shit, Psycho gave it all a whole new depth.
An outside mosaic tiled corner sign at the Grand identified “Teatros Llamas” as the original owners. That’s worth a comment.