Carthay Circle Theatre
The Carthay Circle Theatre was one of the most famous movie palaces of Hollywood's Golden Age. Located on San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, it opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1969.
The auditorium itself was shaped in the form of a perfect circle, extended vertically into a cylinder, set inside a square that fleshed out the remainder of the building. It seated 1,150. Initially developed by Fox, it was called the Fox Carthay Circle Theater for its unique floorplan.
Location[edit]
The Carthay Circle Theater opened at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard on May 18, 1926, with a showing of The Volga Boatman (1926),[1] and was considered developer J. Harvey McCarthy's most successful monument, a stroke of shrewd thinking that made a famous name of the newly developed Carthay Center neighborhood[2][3] in Los Angeles, California.[4] (McCarthy's development was called Carthay Center—an anglicized version of his last name.) The Carthay Circle Theater became the focal point of Carthay Center, and Carthay Circle became the neighborhood's official name.[5]
Design[edit]
The exterior design was in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, with whitewashed concrete trimmed in blue, with a high bell tower and neon sign visible for miles.[4] The architects were Carleton Winslow and Dwight Gibbs.[6] The iconic octagonal tower was placed in the front corner spandrel space left between the circle and the square. The auditorium's cylinder-shaped wall was raised up above the roof line, to create a parapet visible from the outside that resembled a circus tent. "Simple, massive and dignified, the building stands out for its intrinsic beauty," raved The Architect and Engineer. Pacific Coast Architect wrote that it was a theatre "masked as a cathedral".[4]
There was a drop curtain that featured an homage to the pioneer Donner Party that perished crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Bronze busts of Native American leaders and photographs of Edwin Booth, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanora Duse, Ellen Terry, Lillie Langtry, and other 19th century actors adorned the lounges and lobbies. Murals of historic scenes 40 feet tall graced the walls, painted by Pasadena artist Alson S. Clark.[4]
Decline[edit]
Although the Carthay Circle Theater had hosted the first-run "roadshow", reserved-seat engagements of a great many aesthetically- and economically important films, by the 1960s the "roadshow" concept, and, indeed, the Carthay Circle Theater itself, was considered an anachronism, overshadowed by modern multi-screen cinemas.
Its customer base had also been sapped by suburbanization, and many other economic factors, as film print runs increased almost exponentially from a few, high-quality, high-resolution prints (often "wide gauge"), to literally thousands, or even several thousands of average-quality, lower-resolution prints (usually "standard gauge").
The theater was demolished in 1969 by its owner, NAFI Corporation, which erected its headquarters and main computer operations center in its place; today, two low-rise office buildings and a city park occupy its former site.