Showcase Cinema I & II
136 Stonewood Street,
Downey,
CA
90241
136 Stonewood Street,
Downey,
CA
90241
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When did this theater closed?
A history of Stonewood Center says that this house opened as the single-screen Showcase Cinema for Robert L. Lippert’s Transcontinental Theatres. It was twinned in 1971.
The Showcase Cinema opened with “The Odd Couple” and “Rosemary’s Baby” on April 16th, 1969. Grand opening ad posted.
I saw “Tommy” here in 1976.
This was not my local theater, but it was where the movie was so my mother took me and dropped me off..
When the Meralta on Downey Avenue closed in 1978,This place became the place to see Disney releases old and new.
Bob, do you know what year Mervyn’s opened in Stonewood Mall? We were talking about movies and such but cannot agree on when Mervyn’s opened. It was so many years ago. I worked at the Broadway for a while. My friend says it has only been there 10 years but I remember going there when I was a kid with my mom so I think my friend is waaay off—or I’m really a third of my age! If you have this info, please let me know. Thanks a bunch!
Bob, I have pictures of old Stonewood posted at flickr.com search Downey, California
Hey Bob,
If you are around you can contact me at www.downeyhistoricalsociety.org
Bob, I would like to see the pictures of old stonewood.
The showcase Cinema was situated next to Farralls Ice cream store, in close location to the bakery, and the Sega/Timeout arcade.
I have pictures of the mall when it was open air. There was the Broadway, Thrifty, The Software Corner, sports shop, Jewelcor and the heathfood store my mom worked at. We just cannot forget the Hollander Cafeteria. Mervyns was added later. I have seen the mall since it was converted and it sucked. Well I guess it is better in the rainy season…
I saw plenty of excellent films at that cinema including ET. Shame it isn’t still there. If memory serves it was a two screen cinema, and today I still can hear the voice who recorded message of the movie times.
It was this cinema, the Bookshire Cinema on Downey Blvd (we though that was an odd name as there is a Brookshire Blvd on the next street) and the other cinema that turned into a mexican cinema on the same street, we hung out at as kids. The Downey Cinema was great for $1 shows and cheap popcorn.
The showcase was famous for its $2 thursday night specials. I think I saw starwars there too. There was another cinema near the Mcdonalds on Florence & Lakewood shopping mall (near the Sizzler) that showed the original starwars before they edited it for time.
I’ll look around for the photos and submit them. Our family was professional photographers and there should be home movies and George Redfox somewhere….
Incidentially the original poster George Redfox, I went to school at Gallatin and Downey High in the 80s with a George Redfox, and if it is you George drop me an email so we can catch up.
From what I remember back in the mid 1980’s the entrance was where the fabric store is today. It looked like it was a free standing building along with the bank.
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There is a directory of the mall. From the look of it, what would have been the theatre was once connected to to the mall section that later turned into a small food court.It looks like Fantastic Sams could be in what was once the Lobby of the theatre, the JoAnns the back of the auditoriums, and the Citibank the rear of it.
Stonewood Center is at the northeast corner of Firestone and Lakewood, about a half mile east of Downey’s old downtown. It was an open air shopping center when it was built in 1958, and became an enclosed mall when it was expanded in 1990. My Google search turned up a Lynn’s Hallmark Card and Party Shop for the address 136 Stonewood, though George Redfox says there is a fabric shop in the theatre’s old location. There is a JoAnn’s Fabrics at the center, in a building with an outside entrance, not on the mall proper, but I can’t find an exact address for it. I remember the theatre being in such a peripheral building, so that must be it. I think that addresses may have been shuffled in the expansion.
Was the Stonewood Mall itself located at Firestone & Lakewood in Downey? That’s the partial address I always had for the Showcase (also known as Showcase Cinemas I & II).
I have a copy of the Los Angeles Times theatre listings from February of 1973, and at that time the Showcase was apparently still a single screen house, as no second screen is listed. I remember Stonewood Mall itself having been built in the 1950s. I think the theatre dates from the same time.