Part 3 of 10: Theaters of Los Angeles

Part III: Theaters Near Hollywood &Vine

Here are the movie theaters you can find within walking distance of the most famous intersection in the world.

Cinerama Dome

BELOW: According to Cinema Treasures, the Cinerama Dome opened in 1963 and its first show was It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World in 70 MM. It is one of the last remaining theaters that were built specifically for Cinerama films. Today it is part of the ArcLight Chain, and because of its curved wide screen, it shows the latest action-packed, visual effects-laden blockbusters. In 2008 I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button there. Didn't care for the movie but loved being in the Dome. Also spotted a celebrity in the audience: actor James Cromwell (Babe, LA Confidential) was there with his wife.

BELOW: This is the Sunset Vine Tower building, visible from Hollywood and Vine. Not a movie theater, but you'll always see ad banners promoting the latest movies on it. I love that puppy from Marley and Me.

---

Pantages Theater

BELOW: Opened in 1930. The first film was Marion Davies in The Floradora Girl. It seated almost 3,000 patrons! In 1949 Howard Hughes bought the theater and it was called RKO Pantages Theatre. Throughout the 1950s, it was home to the Academy Awards. Lots of history here!

Spartacus and Cleopatra premiered here in 1960 and 1963 respectively. It closed as a movie house in 1977. Today it is a live theater venue and showcases productions such as "Wicked". I've never been inside. (Source: Cinema Treasures)

---

Ricardo Montalbon Theater

BELOW: Located on Vine in between Sunset and Hollywood. It opened in 1926 as a live theater venue.

Photo: Google Images

In the 1930s it became the home of the Lux Radio Theater and other CBS radio programs (See Photo Below).

In the 1950s it was remodeled and became the Huntington Hartford Theater. Laura of Laura's Miscellaneous Musings has seen several theatrical productions here, including The First Monday in October (starring Henry Fonda and Eva Marie Saint).

In 2004, the theater was renamed again to the Ricardo Montalbon. In the Summer of 2008 my buddy and I went to see The Who's Tommy there, which was fun. On the sidewalk right outside the theater, you might be able to spot some of your favorite stars on the Walk of Fame.

Photo: Cinema Treasures

---

The Vine Theater

BELOW: Opened in 1937 as the Admiral Theater. It showed 2nd run movies through 2007, when it closed as a movie theater. Today it is used for special events and occasional movies.

---

The Vogue Theater

BELOW: Opened in 1935 on Hollywood Boulevard, just a short walk from Vine. Seated 897. For years it was a 2nd run theater until 1995. Today it is used as a live performance venue (Source: Cinema Treasures) I couldn't get a good picture because there's a big tree in front of it blocking most of the marquee.

---

Henry Fonda Theater / Music Box

BELOW: Just east of Vine...It opened in 1926 as the Carter DeHaven Music Box Theater. It was home to cinema, radio programming and live theater over the years. It went through several name changes including The Fox, where Jaws premiered in 1975. It showed movies through the '70s before it became a live theater venue and renamed the Henry Fonda. Apparently my photos are old because I heard that last year they scrapped the "Henry Fonda" name and now it's "Music Box" again.

If anyone knows for sure please let me know!

---

The Hollywood Palladium

BELOW: Located near Sunset and Vine. Opened in 1940. Not a movie theater ( it's an elegant ballroom), but worth mentioning because of it's rich history; I can't even begin to mention all the recording stars who performed here, celebrities that have been here, and movies/radio shows that have referenced it.

The exterior you see is a renovation.

---

The Vista

BELOW: Located several blocks east of Sunset & Vine (4473 Sunset Drive), this is a very interesting theater from an architectural perspective. According to Cinema Treasures, it opened in 1923 as a vaudeville house. It is still open today and showing movies.

Theaters of LA, Part 2: Hollywood and Highland

Right next to the Chinese Theater (as featured in Part 1 of this series) is the Kodak Theatre, which opened in November of 2001. This is one of the newest theaters in this series. Since 2002, this has been the site of the annual Academy Awards ceremonies that we love/hate so much.

There is a long corridor with columns featuring the names of every Oscar winning Best Picture. It's fun to walk through. There are stores in the surrounding areas inside if I remember correctly.

There are mostly live theater events here: I'm not sure if they screen films. I've seen the inside the theater only once in December of 2008--while visiting LA, I bought a ticket for a production of A Christmas Carol starring Christopher Lloyd as Scrooge. It was a good show, and I sat close to the front. The theater seemed to be much smaller than it does on TV (for the Oscars broadcast)

Right across the street is the El Capitan.

The theater opened in 1926 with live theater, and was a live venue for years.

In 1941, the world premiere of Citizen Kane took place here.

It then became the Hollywood Paramount Theatre until the 1980s.

In 1989 Disney became the owners of the theater, renovated the inside and outside, and renamed it once again the El Capitan.

Below is a shot from the front.

The marquee is decorated with "Wall-E" paraphernalia.

I still think that robot looks just like "Johnny 5" from Short Circuit.

Every new Disney film is shown here. I'm pretty sure Cars 2 is showing there this weekend.

In case you are wondering, no, I did not see "Wally" here that summer (or ever). But when I returned to Hollywood in December of 2008, I did see "Bolt" in 3-D here. Not a bad film, but I had to sit through a whole Christmas kiddie program featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald, Goofy and all the characters as they danced on stage and faux snow was sprinkled down on everyone.

Below you can see the El Capitan lit up at night.

And just a short walk down the block is the world-famous Grauman's Egyptian Theater, which dates back to the 1920s. The theater itself is not visible from the street among the storefronts; there's a long corridor you need to walk through to get to the front doors (below).

All throughout the year this theater shows all kinds of movies especially screenings of classic films.

If you are visiting Hollywood check the schedule of events to see if they are having a movie you are interested in; it's very likely there may be a special screening with a special guest. Over the past several years I've read some great stories over at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings of special screenings and celebrity encounters at the Egyptian.

I've been inside the Egyptian twice: this is truly a Golden Age Movie Palace! In 2008 I went to a screening of Yankee Doodle Dandy and met Joan Leslie who was there in person for a Q and A. (I bought a photograph for her to sign at Larry Edmunds Book Shop). As we were walking out of the screening, my friend Mike and I bumped into the actress who plays Meredith on the TV show The Office (she's from LA). Yes, celebrities are just like us - they go to movies!

The next summer I sat in the balconey and saw the classic musical film version of 1776 ; the film's director Peter Hunt was there and did a Q and A (didn't meet him though).

This theater is also one of the host theaters of the annual Robert Osborne/TCM Classic Film Fest.

Coming Soon: Part 3 of 10

Thor and other summer blockbusters of 2011

Thor (2011)

The trailer didn't look too appealing when I saw it a few months ago, but after all the good word of mouth I checked it out and was not disappointed. I have to hand it to director Kenneth Branaugh; he does an excellent job in directing this action-fantasy film based on the Marvel comic book of the 1960s, which I never read. In the film, Thor is stripped of his powers and banished to the planet Earth (but he goes back eventually). There's drama, action, and romance in between. This may sound campy but Branaugh steers it away from that direction. There are a few "fish-out-of-water" jokes here and there but for the most part it's handled very well.

I did some research afterward and discovered that the film uses many characters that were in the original comic books and the storyline of Thor coming to earth is not some gimmick to attract 2011 audiences; it actually happened in the comics - Thor falls in love with an earthling named Jane Foster. Natalie Portman is Jane. I recommend Thor if you are looking for an entertaining fantasy/adventure/romance this summer. PG-13: Sci-fi and action violence.

This movie gets an A from me.

Green Lantern (2011)

I enjoyed it but I think it could have been better. Maybe Ryan Reynolds was too annoying for me. I enjoyed learning about the Green Lantern Corps and the origin of the superhero; I really didn't know anything about him at all, and according to what I've read, this film is faithful to the comic books. The special effects are cool and I never knew how interesting of a character Green Lantern/Hal Jordan is. The violence is mostly sci-fi battles with aliens. There is a disturbing scene where Angela Bassett gets thrown into a glass wall and apparently dies. I really like her and didn't want to see her get killed that way. There are also a fair amount of swearing and sex talk so you might want to think twice about bringing young children to this film.

This movie gets a B - from me.

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

...is the first Pirates movie I've ever seen. I didn't feel like I missed much from the other movies. From what I've heard this is a better movie than the other two sequels. I thought the movie was worth it. There are some great costumes and sets and some great action sequences. Johnny Depp the pirate is joined by Penelope Cruz, who plays a former lover. The plot of the movie involves the pirates (joined by Blackbeard) in a race to the Fountain of Youth. I liked this movie but it's a bit dark and violent. I wouldn't recommend for small children.

PG-13: Sword battles and deaths, vicious mermaid attacks, sexual innuendo, voodoo dolls and magic spells, Russian roulette, hangings, stabbings, people getting slapped in the face, etc. From the good people at Disney.

This movie gets a C from me.

Super 8 (Don't read this if you don't want spoilers!)

Yes there is an alien in it. An alien! It comes out of the train that crashes and a bunch of 12-year olds see it all happen while they are shooting an amateur zombie film. The train crash is pretty cool and the best part of the film. The rest was a snoozer for me. This felt like ET, Close Encounters, Stand By Me, Bad News Bears, Breaking Away, and Goonies were thrown in a blender and this came out. There's an actor from Gremlins in the film who plays an important part but I won't tell you who. This movie could have been better but let me down at the end. It got too melodramatic...too much crying and drama. I didn't think the film needed that, really. Some of the kids are annoying; the most annoying is a kid with braces. Did you see Poltergeist II? Remember the kid with braces? I REALLY wanted to see what happened to that kid happen to this one in Super 8.

PG-13: Swearing by the kids throughout and some scenes where you think dogs and people die (but they don't).

This movie gets a C- from me.

Did the book have poo and crotch jokes?

Mr Poppins Penguins

I only watched about 15 minutes of the film before I walked out and left the theater in disgust; I couldn't stand this film (which should have been called Mr POOPER's Penguins) any longer, even with a cameo by Angela Lansbury. In the first 15 minutes there are two scenes of penguins crapping on someone (including one penguin sticking its butt in a guy's face and crapping on him), a man getting kicked in the crotch, and a penguin in a toilet. What a stupid film. Why does every so-called "kids movie" involving animals have either pee, crap, and/or crotch attacks? This was the case in last summer's Marmaduke (which I also walked out of). In that film, there's pee, crap, fart, and crotch jokes and one guy even drinks a glass of pee after a dog urinates in it.

I'm just old fashioned. I prefer animal films like Benji, Babe or The Adventures of Milo and Otis.

Rated PG: (some harsher words were obviously dubbed, such as when a guy says, "I don't give a rat's butt"), crap and crotch jokes.

This movie gets an F from me (from what I've seen).

PS I'm not the only one who didn't like this film. Read this review from someone who knows the book:

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

Jason Robards as Al Capone, about to slug a couple of mugs

A rare big-budget, big-studio (20th Century Fox) classic directed by Roger Corman, where we learn almost everything we ever wanted to know with the main characters associated with the infamous shootout from 1929, including south side gangster Al Capone (Jason Robards) and his rival, north side gangster Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker).

To prepare for this movie, I booked a tour on Chicago's Untouchables Tour Bus, a popular attraction in the city. It takes visitors to famous gangster sites, including the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (SVDM). According to the guides, the Corman film gets almost all the facts right, right down to the German Shepard dog who was left behind in the garage.

The title card says it all

The SMC Cartage Company storefront is recreated.

I love the sets in the film, and there's some great period music to set the mood. I wonder if Corman ever had the idea to shoot this in black-and-white; I'm sure the studio pushed for color.

An old fashioned motor coach on Clark Street (where the SVDM took place)

Corman does a great job of staging the numerous shootouts in the movie: windows shattering, glass flying everywhere. Just when we think the gunfire is over, there's more. George Segal, his first film after Virginia Woolf, plays one of the Bugs Moran's henchman "Goosey" Peter Gusenberg; you can tell he's having fun with that tommy gun.

Some of the scenes are violent, including the gun-down of Polish gangster Hymie Weiss in his "flower shop", which was just a front for his bootlegging business. . As I learned on the tour bus, Hymie's flower shop was right across the street from the most well-known and one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in the city: Holy Name Cathedral, which is still an active congregation (photo below)

Sidenote: If you visit Chicago and go to the cathedral today, you can still see a bullet hole from one of the shootouts that took place right outside. (photo below)

Jason Robards is excellent as Capone and is intense as he erupts in a fit of rage after discovering one of his associates was bumped off. In another scene, we see Capone about give gangster Joe Aiello a "Sicilian necktie", which is what someone gets when their necks are sliced open and their tongue is pulled through the neck.

Corman regular Dick Miller and Little Shop of Horrors co-star Jack Nicholson have bit parts as Capone gangsters posing as cops and only appear toward the end of the film during the SVDM sequence. Bruce Dern has a small part as Johnny May, family man who gets messed up in the Moran gang (and is killed in the SVDM).

As each character makes his first appearance, a voice over biography is given by narrator Paul Frees, who is famous for all of his cartoon narrations such as George of the Jungle and many others.

Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker)
avoids the bloodshed
intended for him

As the day of the SVDM unfolds, our narrator tells us what every one of the victims was doing "on the last morning of his life..." Which is really satisfying and makes us feel like we have gotten a taste of each of these gangster's lives.

The final ten minutes of the movie leading up to the massacre are exciting, even though we know what will happen. We see Bugs Moran go into a cafe for some coffee; while he's in there, the SVDM takes place. Al Capone is not happy that Bugs got away, let me tell you; I'll just say he whips out a baseball bat and starts swinging.

I recommend this film especially if you want to learn more about these gangsters.

If you have time check out this 5-minute video I took from the bus tour; the guide gives a good overview of the entire ordeal, which pretty much is how the movie plays out. Way to go! You can also get a chance to see the neighborhood where the massacre took place.

The SMC Cartage Building was torn down right around the time this movie came out. The old Mayor Daley didn't want Chicago associated with gangsters. But it still is no matter what. Bricks from the building were saved by some collectors; a few bricks can be seen at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.

Today the actual site is a parking lot. Across the street, the “look-out” stations where Jack McGurn stayed are still there.

2122 N. Clark Street, Chicago

Nearby buildings give a taste of the era

Check out the gray building below in the 2011 photo and again in the 1929 photo. This was right next door to the SMC Cartage building.

2122 N. Clark St - Source: Google Maps

Here is another review of this movie from Cinemachine

==================================================================

This post is part of the Roger Corman Blogathon hosted by
Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear

Theaters of LA, Part 1: Grauman's Chinese Theater

The most famous movie theater in the world

A photo from July 2, 2008 at the premiere of Hancock starring Will Smith

Owner Sid Grauman opened the theater in 1927; the first movie to be shown was The King of Kings

Movie premeires are held here year round, and the theater shows first run blockbusters.

I've seen it from the outside, but not the inside.

Over the years hundreds of celebrities have placed their hands and feet in the cement out in front.

Here's Jimmy Stewart!

Photo was taken at night; sorry for the bad quality

Here's the cast of Giant from 1956

Here's a video I took from outside the theater (Duration: 1 minute)

In July of 2008 I was on vacation here and on the afternoon of July 2 I was walking down Hollywood Blvd when I stumbled across the premiere of Hancock, the 2008 sci-fi thriller starring Will Smith.

The entire block was sectioned off from traffic for the premiere. Only limos were allowed. In the middle of the street were promotional set pieces to set the mood for the film. They had all these cars piled up and smoke blowing from them as if they just crashed; I guess that was a big scene in the movie but I never saw it.

Huge jumbo-trons were placed all over so everyone could get a good view of all the stars.

I didn't even realize there was going to be a premiere here. I stood outside the theater for about 2 hours with the huge throng of spectators gathered outside

Here's Will Smith from the jumbo tron

I think that's Virginia Madsen

That's the director Peter Berg. I think he was in ER or some TV show but I can't remember. He walked across the street to sign some autographs.

I zoomed in on Peter and Will as they talked to reporters.

I didn't even know who these girls were until I asked someone in front of me and he said The Cheetah Girls. I guess they were popular once. They all came to sign autographs and greet screaming fanboys and girls. Also Tina Mowjry was there.

There's Sinbad. I also saw Jason Bateman and Valeri Bertenelli.

And last but not least - Charlize Theron on the red carpet!

She's being interviewed outside the Chinese Theater.

It's fun to be out here during a big blockbuster premiere.

Here are a couple more videos.