Opened: 1926 as Chotiner's La Brea. The location is two blocks south of Wilshire Blvd. The 1926 photo from the USC Digital Library collection was taken by the Dick Whittington Studio. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Godzilla for finding the set of photos in the USC collection and including this one on his Noirish post #17461.
Architect: Richard D. King designed the building for A.C. Blumenthal. The project was announced in a March 15, 1925 L.A. Times article:
Thanks to Ken McIntyre for including this as a comment in a thread about the theatre for the Ken's Movie Page Facebook group. That other deal of Blumenthal's involving the Nortons and William Fox on Hill St. ended up being the William Fox Building, designed by family member Samuel Tilden Norton. It was on the lot right behind S. Charles Lee's Los Angeles Theatre, a project that used Mr. Norton as associate architect.
Seating: 1,200 was the capacity initially advertised. It was 900 later and down to 640 after re-seating with rockers in 1959.
At the time, the Chotiner Brothers also had the Hawthorn Theatre in Hawthorne, the Ravenna on Vermont south of Beverly Blvd. and the Roosevelt at 8th and Vermont, a house later renamed the Parisian. They were scheduled to be the first tenant of the Plaza in Hawthorne when it opened in 1927 and later added the Lomita and the Melrose.
In the 1926 L.A. city directory Max C. Chotiner (1886-1969) was listed
as the company president, Jay Chotiner as the secretary, Harry W.
Chotiner was the treasurer. H.W. Woodin was the circuit's general
manager. Max and Harry also did business as the Chotiner Investment Co.
Jay Chotiner, an attorney, later left and was in business with Nat C.
Recht as Chotiner and Recht. Albert J. Chotiner later joined that law
firm, making it Chotiner, Recht & Chotiner.
Fox West Coast was a later lessee of the La Brea, sometimes advertising it as the
Fox La Brea. They also picked up most of the other Chotiner locations.
A 1954 church rental. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for spotting it.
A 1955 ad located by Ken McIntyre for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group. The ad mistakenly gave the address for the La Brea as 4th and La Brea.
Another 1955 ad located by Ken.
A June 7, 1957 ad. Thanks to Gerald A. DeLuca for locating it for a Cinema Treasures post.
The theatre closed in 1957 or 1958. In 1959 Robert Kronerberg of Manhattan Films and Dan Sonney of Sonney
Amusement Enterprises rescued the boarded up theatre and did a full
remodel including redecorating, new screen and drapes, new seats and new
booth gear. They called it the Art La Brea and reopened with Ingmar
Bergman's "Brink of Life" on December 25.
A December 25, 1959 ad. Thanks to Mike Rivest for researching the date of the opening and locating the ad. Visit his site: Movie-Theatre.org
The theatre's remodel was profiled in the June 6, 1960 issue of Boxoffice:
Thanks to Moviejs1944 for scanning the Boxoffice article and posting it on Cinema Treasures.
A June 1960 ad that was located by Ken McIntyre.
In August 1960 it became the Toho La Brea Theatre, running Japanese films. This article appeared in the August 1 issue of Boxoffice. Thanks to Ron Strong for locating it. Visit his Bijou Memories site for research he's done on many theatres in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere.
The reopening date as the Toho was August 5 according to research by Mike Rivest. This August 6, 1960 L.A. Times article was located by Ken McIntyre.
An August 1960 ad for the initial program as the Toho La Brea. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page. Darrell Kunitomi commented:
"I
am of the humble opinion that movies and music had a lot to do with the
easing of hate for us after WW ll -- movies like 'Sayonara,' 'Bridge to
the Sun,' 'Geisha Boy,' 'Seven Samurai' and others -- even 'Godzilla'
and 'Rodan' helped. And in the mid Sixties, two decades after the war
ended, it was amazing that a Japanese language song made it to #1.
'Sukiyaki.' Which oh, by the way, has nothing to do with the delicious
dinner, it's a song about 'holding one's head up, even as the tears
fall.' *How could I leave out our greatest hero story, 1951's 'Go For
Broke'! A bare six years from 1945."
A February 1961 ad for "Dangerous Kiss." It's one of many ads from the Toho era that Ken McIntyre includes in a thread about the theatre for the Ken's Movie Page Facebook group.
A 1964 ad for "Yearning."
A 1965 trade magazine ad that Ken located.
A January 21, 1971 ad for "Sanjuro" that was located by Ken McIntyre.
A November 24, 1973 ad. Thanks to Christopher Crouch for posting it on Cinema Treasures.
A 1975 Samurai Festival at the Toho. It's the back page of the March 14 issue of the magazine World Cinema. Thanks to Dave Hunter for sharing this from his collection in a Facebook post.
Closing: The Toho management lasted at least until 1975.
Status: It's now a Korean church.
A few more exterior views:
A detail from the 1926 Dick Whittington photo at the top of the page. "The Pleasure Garden" was a 1925 film by Alfred Hitchcock.
A 1932 photo appearing on page 50 in the Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres in Los Angeles" by Suzanne Tarbell Cooper, Amy Ronnebeck Hall and Marc Wanamaker. Most of the rare photos in the book come from Mr. Wanamaker's Bison Archives. There's a preview to browse on Google Books.
Thanks to Bill Gabel for this photo he added to the Cinema Treasures page on the Toho LaBrea.
A detail from the above shot appearing on the Noirish Los Angeles forum thanks to Scotty B. reveals that it's two 1951 titles: "Show Boat" and "Warpath." Contributor Noir Noir hit the newspapers and found out that this program played the theatre the third week of September.
We get a bit of the roof sign and marquee in this photo of Senator Estes Kefauver driving north on La Brea while campaigning in 1956. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor BifRayRock for the find in the Life collection. It's on his Noirish post #40300.
The theatre as a church. They're now using the former exits at the rear of the auditorium, over on the left, as their entrance. Photo: Bill Counter - 2010
A closer look at the former entrance. Photo: Bill Counter - 2021
The La Brea in the Movies:
Lupino Lane plays around in front of the theatre in the 15 minute short "Only Me" (Educational Film Exchanges,
1929). In the film they're calling the house the Palace, as seen
on the marquee in this shot. The tale revolves around an inebriated
gentleman, a young guy in a box seat who likes playing practical jokes
and the beleaguered performers onstage. Lupino played about 24 characters and also directed.
An "Only Me" shot in front of the boxoffice. The interiors were done elsewhere.
Thanks to John Bengtson for spotting the theatre in the film and
providing the screenshots. Visit his Silent Locations blog to keep up with his latest investigations. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for eight more shots from the film as well as data on where to find it online.
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Toho La Brea Theatre for all sorts of interesting data from various researchers. There are also links to many exterior photos of the La Brea.
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