Cinedome Theatres

CHINATOWN opened here fifty years ago today.

Full page ad: Cinedome 20 & 21 opening 17 Jun 1969, Tue Santa Ana Register (Santa Ana, California) Newspapers.com

Thanks for the tips on clickable links, Michael. I’ll try & remember the process.

I’d like to “strongly encourage” Cinema Treasures to make links clickable once you copy them, as most other websites do. Members shouldn’t have to write “code” every time they add a link.

Happy New Year!

Here’s a new 4-page 50th anniversary FIDDLER ON THE ROOF retrospective featuring a roadshow playdate chronology and historian Q&A. Cinedome’s year-plus (and venue record) run is mentioned in the piece.

Film historian Michael Coate has just published an exhaustive Raiders of the Lost Ark 40th anniversary retrospective at https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/history-legacy-showmanship/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-40th

Great job as usual, Michael.

Please update, theatre closed January 6, 1999. It the later years it was discount theatre. Final display ad posted. It became a discount theatre November 21, 1997 when the Stadium 25 opened by Angels Stadium.

1977 and 1992 grand opening ads posted.

I loved this theatre. I saw Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, just to name of few. You had to see those kinds of movies at the Dome. I was heartbroken it was closed down and it was really hard to watch it be demolished.

Seeing Raiders @ the Cinedome was pretty memorable for me, too. My parents had divorced a few years earlier and my dad took me to see it that first Sunday of release. We rarely saw movies together (my mom and I generally went Saturdays) so it was kind of cool seeing a big action flick sitting next my old man.

Just a wonderful, enveloping cinematic experience from start to finish. I remember lifting my feet off the dark ground during the Well of the Souls sequence because I was freaked by all the snakes.

Easily one of my best memories of spending time with my dad.

I was the manager of the theater that started the last set of movies ever run at the Cinedome. The last movie (played to an audience) was “The Siege” and played in theater 11. As I was started each film I would recall each film I saw in each theater before starting the film. All the prints that night were being moved over to The New Century 25. If not I had to break them down (take them apart) and they were going over to the The Block (AMC) or back to the studio. I would run a film as background noise as I was working so the very last film EVER run at the Cinedome was the re-issue of “The Wizard of Oz.”

I have great fond memory’s of the theater. I was also the manager who did all of the promotions for the theater in it’s final years. Yes I was the one who ran the Star Wars Special Edition promotion and even “The 11 Screen’s Of Scream’s.” Which we ran classic horror film’s on the big screen like Alien, Alien’s, Creepshow, Dead Alive, Cujo, Christine and more in 1998.

Just can’t believe that theater I grew up with is gone. The theatres were all big… The smallest screen was almost the size of most Mid-sized theaters now (290 seats.) One of the reasons it closed was they needed to do about 3 million is repairs and to add two more theaters. But they opted to build the Century 25 theaters and the area around it for 25 million. It’s sad they didn’t keep the Domes.

Well I ended up with about 200 seats from the theater, the Phone “recording” machine that gave the showtimes, several things from the concession stand, a few poster frames and posters of “Welcome to the Cinedome Theaters” and many more items. DAMN I MISS THE THEATER!

I got to experience near the end-run of this awesome theatre during my college days. I remember on my days off or driving home from class, I would enter through the business complex in the back and park in the rear lot next to the dome where employees would park and leave/enter for their meal breaks. Occasionally, I could sneak into the theatre through the rear exit doors which were either left jarred open or the lock was still broken.

Some of my most favorite movies were seen during these times…Thelma & Louise, Terminator 2, People Under the Stairs, Star Trek VI…all of which were in 1991. Most of the movies I saw were during the same visit when one could still hop from screen to screen. The theatre more than made up for it from my constant visits to the concession stands and arcade games while waiting for the next feature to start. I truly miss this theatre. There will probably never be another one like it in OC thanks to the mega-scum small screen complexes that they keep building to please the masses and pack them in like sardines.

I, too, remember hearing the playful little blonde girl laughing and running around in the back of the theatre. She still haunts me to this day…

Good stories, Imissoldanaheim. I hear you, going to the movies just isn’t the same as when we were kids. The Cinedome, Big Newport, South Coast Plaza, they were palaces that made the great flicks even better. At least we have our memories.

I actually tear up when I think of my beloved Cinedome. I went to Loara High and I have nothing but the fondest memories of my friends and I watching THE GREATEST movies there. There was a time when going to the movies was an EXPERIENCE. Every movie seemed packed which made going to the theater this really incredible shared experience. People cried, laughed, shrieked and clapped together. We seemed strangers going in and acquaintances coming out.

Does anyone remember seeing E.T. there? People were sitting in the isles so you couldn’t go to the bathroom!!!!!!! That’s not allowed anymore. Neither is “theater-skipping”. It was so easy to pay for one movie and see 6 if you wanted to. Nobody cared.

Some of the best times I had happened while I was waiting in the super long lines for a movie. When my friends and I were waiting to see Aliens, some guy next to us said he was hungry and was going to Burger King. He said he’d bring us back hamburgers and fries if we saved his place for him. Free Burger King and Aliens. It didn’t get anymore kick-ass than that! It also seemed like only cinephiles went to the Cinedome because everyone we talked always knew a lot about film and were just as passionate about going to the movies as I was.

After high school I went to Chapman College (now University) and would always catch a movie in between classes. I was in complete shock and overwhelmed with anger when I drove past the Cinedome and saw it boarded up. God, did that suck!

In an ironic twist, perhaps not so surprising, I later got an MFA in Film Production from Chapman. I was the first graduating class of the MFA program. I owe my love of film and career choice to the Cinedome. The theater-going experience for me now pales in comparison to what I had known in my youth but I feel lucky to have experienced it at all.