Paramount / Loma Theatre

5528 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90046  | map |

Opened: 1921 as the Paramount Theatre. The location was on the south side of the street just a bit west of Western Ave. In this Los Angeles Public Library photo we're looking east. The theatre is over on the right showing "The Humming Bird," a Paramount release with Gloria Swanson from 1924.

A detail from the 1924 photo. 

 

Architect: Frank Rasche. The original operator was Turner, Dahnken & Langley, a firm that later became part of West Coast Theatres.
 

Seating: 900

The project was announced in this April 30, 1920 article in the Hollywood Daily Citizen. Initially it was to be the Sterling Theatre, a venture of J.B. Zeller, briefly an owner of the Iris Theatre in Hollywood. He had unloaded that house to J.E. Johnson, owner of the Liberty Theatre in Long Beach. Thanks to Jim Lewis for locating the article.

Perhaps Zeller was to only be the lessee of the new building. In any case, he was soon gone from the project. Thanks to Joe Vogel for locating an item in the May 20, 1921 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor that again listed the architect as Rasche but had James C. Allen and Edward Helt as the owners and Turner, Dahnken and Langley as the operators. 

 

 

 

A July 8, 1921 report in the Hollywood Citizen discussed the work in progress "Near Wertern." Thanks to Jim Lewis for locating the article.  Evidently they meant to say that it was a 900 seat house, not a "900 foot auditorium."  

 

 

Love Davis gets a job as the theatre's organist. Thanks to Jim Lewis for sharing this item he found in the April 13, 1922 issue of the Hollywood Citizen. Turner, Dahnken & Langley's southern California locations had been acquired by West Coast Theatres and Hollywood Theatres Corporation was a subsidiary of West Coast.

 

A June 8, 1922 ad from the Hollywood Citizen. Thanks to Jim Lewis for locating it. 

The theatre is listed as the Paramount in the 1923 and 1929 city directories.   

 

 

In this 1934 ad it's listed under "Hollywood" and still named the Paramount. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for the post for the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles.

Bill Gabel notes that at some point Cabart Theatres Corp. was involved as an operator but then subleased to Fox West Coast, the successor company to West Coast Theatres. Fox was operating when it was renamed the Loma Theatre in 1941. 

 

A February 27, 1941 listing as the Loma. Thanks to Mike Rivest for locating this, the earliest he could find with the theatre's new name. Visit Mike's site: Movie-Theatre.org. The theatre was still listed as the Paramount in the 1942 city directory.

Closing: The end came with a fire in 1952.  

 

The December 8, 1952 L.A. Times account of the fire. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for adding the article as a comment on a thread about the theatre on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.

Status: It's been demolished. After closing as a theatre, it became a furniture store and then a thrift store. It burned in the 80s and there's now a strip mall on the site.

Thanks to Matt Spero for this photo he took after the thrift store fire. Lettering at the top of the facade still said "Paramount Theatre." Thanks, Matt.  

 

The Paramount/Loma in the Movies:

 

The Paramount appears in this shot from Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr." (Metro Pictures, 1924). We're looking west across the intersection of Santa Monica Blvd. and Western Ave. That's the theatre over toward the left. The sign on the side of the building says "Paramount Theatre."

Thanks to John Bengtson, "the great detective of silent film locations," for identifying the theatre in the film. See his Silent Locations blog for several great posts about "Sherlock Jr." He also discusses additional locations on the Blu-Ray edition of the film.  Keaton plays a projectionist in the film. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for shots of the sets used for the theatre where Keaton works.

More information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Loma Theatre for research by Joe Vogel and others.

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