Excerpted from the history of the LA Theater
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The Los Angeles Theatre, built in 1931, is a National Register landmark located in the heart of the Los Angeles Broadway Historic Theatre District. When it opened in January of 1931 it was advertised as "The Theatre Unusual" because of its many unique features. Designed by S. Charles Lee with a French Baroque-inspired décor, its majestic six-story main lobby and 2,000 seat auditorium of carved plaster ornamentation, mirrors, and cove-lit murals recall the glamorous days of 1930s Hollywood.
The Los Angeles Theatre was designed by architect S. Charles Lee in the Baroque style. Lee filled the theatre with glamour, glitz, technical innovations and sumptuous audience conveniences. With a construction cost of over $1.5 million, the Los Angeles was the most expensive theatre built up to that time on a per seat basis.
No expense was spared in the decor of the Los Angeles, which included crystal chandeliers, marble, gold leaf, silk damask wall coverings, walnut paneling and an extraordinary fountain of marble and crystal in the upper lobby. The main lobby of the theatre, with its soaring 50 foot ceiling, chandeliers and grand staircase, was a welcome departure from earlier cramped theatre lobbies. It was Lee's plan that the main lobby and basement lounges together could accommodate a group of 2,000 people waiting for the next showing.
All draperies and carpets were custom-made for the theatre by the B. F. Shearer Company in shades of royal blue, deep red and gold. The main stage drape is an incredible three-dimensional scene rendered in silk, depicting events in the life of Louis XIV. It is said to be one of the two most expensive drapes ever made for a movie palace. Figures depicted on the curtain include Louis XIV, his wife, his mistress, and the French army and navy. The center of the curtain is dominated by a large triumphal arch surrounded by clouds and the rays of the sun, done in metallic gold and silver thread.
Lee designed the theatre with many special features for the comfort and delight of patrons, including a children's playroom; a refreshment room with a soda fountain; two 'crying rooms' on the mezzanine level: where mothers and their infants could watch the show in a glassed-in booth with its own speaker, air conditioning controls and a rest room; a large cosmetics room next to the ladies toilet with individual vanities and a three-sided full length mirror; a three-chair shoeshine stand in the men's room; eight aisles on the main floor so that there were no more than six seats in each row; and separate loge sections on the main floor separated and elevated above the other seats.
Besides the incredible decor, the Los Angeles was also the most technically advanced theatre of its day. The lighting was controlled by a special Westinghouse dimming system as flexible as any available today. Each circuit of lights could be preset to five different levels of illumination and then all circuits could be activated at once to their own particular level. A large wheel on the dimming board allowed cross-fading between one preset level and another. The preset board was disconnected in the 1940's, but the dimmers themselves are still in use today.
The sound system was also the most modern available. Not only was the film sound state-of-the art, the theatre also had an extensive public address system with banks of amplifiers in the projection booth powering speakers and microphones throughout the theatre. Announcements could be made to patrons in the various lobbies and lounges, and the film sound could be piped to the waiting areas and to the outside lobby to entice patrons inside. Large speakers were also installed above the proscenium and in the organ chambers for live shows, and the auditorium was one of the first to be 'tuned' for amplified sound. In contrast, most movies palaces of the twenties had to undergo architectural and decorative changes when amplified sound came into use.
The projection equipment was ultra-modern and the large booth was able to hold extra projectors in case of a breakdown, as well as two large spotlights and a Brenograph the machine that projected song slides and announcements on the screen. The movie screen measured almost 60 feet wide by 30 feet high, one of the largest in the city. It was built to accommodate the early Magnascope wide-screen process, which unfortunately never really caught on. A unique periscope system designed by an engineer from the California Institute of Technology used a prism and a series of large mirrors to project the film image from the booth down to the basement lounge.
The use of neon lighting was another early innovation. In 1931 neon lighting was only a few years old and had not yet been used extensively in theatres. Lee used neon not only on the exterior vertical marquee, but also as aisle lighting in the main auditorium. Blue neon tubes were imbedded under strips of 2 inch thick glass on each side of the main aisles, providing a gentle glow in the darkened theatre. Again Lee was well ahead of his time - similar strip lighting is now used in the aisles of most modern multiplexes.
The Los Angeles flourished as the heart of the Broadway Entertainment District into the 1960s. As the fortunes of Downtown declined, the interest and attendance of the Los Angeles Theatre waned until it closed its doors to regular screenings in the 1990s.