Most photos I come across of theaters at night are taken when all the lights are blazing for a premiere or during the run of a popular movie. I suspect this is the first one I’ve found taken before the theater had even opened. It’s the Studio City Theater at 12136 Ventura Blvd in Studio City (named for its close proximity to most of the movie and TV studios) which opened in 1938. This photo was taken just prior to its opening on June 11, 1938 – but too early to know what movie they were opening with. It was MGM’s “Test Pilot” starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy, which is a heck of a good start, if you ask me.
The theater is still standing however it’s now a Barnes and Noble bookshop called Book Star. This image is from August 2022.
For years, my Sunday morning routine would be to stop at the Studio City Farmers Market, buy my vegetables, get a snack, pet the dogs at the Adoption Fair, then head over to BookStar to browse the books.
Glad to see it’s still there selling books.
When I moved to Los Angeles I first lived in Studio City and this is the first movie theater I went to. That first film I saw there was Slap Shot, which starred Paul Newman, and several of the hockey game scenes were filmed in arenas in western New York State where I had gone to college. At least one person I knew was an extra in those crowd scenes at the hockey games. Wish it was still showing films, but am glad it’s still being used as a bookstore. In fact, I’m glad some bookstores are still around!
A small bit of trivia about the Studio City Theater. One evening I was around that location and I looked at the marquee and the title on it was a movie I’d never heard of and later when I looked in the newspaper it wasn’t playing there. About a year later I discovered it was the title of a film Maggie Smith’s character was appearing in, in the film California Suite and they’d used the Studio City Theater to film that marquee with that film title. I can’t remember what that title was, though, does anyone know?