Opened: October 15, 1926 as the West Coast Ritz. It became the Fox Ritz when William Fox bought a controlling interest in the circuit in 1929. It was operated for decades by the Fox circuit and its successor companies. It was on the south side of Wilshire with the entrance just east of La Brea.
This pre-opening photo of the stage end of the building by the Dick Whittington Studio is in the USC Digital Library collection. "My Official Wife," the theatre's opening attraction, is on the marquee.
An entrance detail from the 1926 USC photo. Note the guy up on the ladder putting the milk glass letters on the marquee. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Flying Wedge who found the photo in the USC collection and included it in his Noirish post #17458.
Seating: 1,660 originally, reseated down to 1,402
When United Artists was having a feud with Fox West Coast in the early 30s they built the Four Star nearby as competition. But when the theatre opened the dispute was settled and Fox, of course, ended up running the theatre for them. Also nearby is the El Rey, later it too ended up being run by the Fox circuit.
In 1959 the house was the home to a 17 week run of a new edition of Ken Murray's "Blackouts." Scott Pitzer notes that on the February 22 episode of the radio show "Suspense" they commented:
"Miss [Marie] Wilson is appearing in Ken Murray's 'Blackouts' at the Ritz Theater in Los Angeles."
A Los Angeles Times article on Murray, part of their Hollywood Star Walk project, noted:
"In 1956, he and [Marie] Wilson restaged 'Blackouts' at the New Frontier in Las Vegas with new acts and new showgirls. It was a hit and played nightclubs and theaters throughout the country for three more years. It later ran for 17 weeks at the Ritz Theater in Los Angeles."
Thanks to Joe Vogel for locating the Times article. The show's initial multi-year run was in the 40s at the Hollywood Playhouse, a theatre at the time called the El Capitan. Bill Josephs notes that he once saw Murray at the Ritz -- but it was on film.
In 1960 the Ritz became famous for running the Mike Todd, Jr. production "Scent of Mystery" in the Smell-O-Vision process. Thanks to Roland Lataille for adding this January 25 opening day ad as a comment to a post about the show by Bruce Kimmel on the Friends of 70mm Facebook page. There's more information about the film at the bottom of the page. Bruce notes that the the theatre closed in May at the end of the run of "Scent."
The theatre was called the New Ritz when "Cin-A-Rock" played in March 1973. Thanks to Ken for locating the flyer.
Status: It was demolished in 1977 for a parking lot.
The ticket lobby of the Ritz after a 40s redecoration. The door's open -- let's take a tour. Photo: Los Angeles Public Library
A 1937 balcony view of the proscenium and grand drape. On the sides of the stage are advertising placards. "Beyond the Blue Horizon" is on the left and "True to the Army" is on the right. Photo: Los Angeles Public Library
The house right sidewall before the Skouras renovations. The whole organ grille area would get draped. Photo: Los Angeles Public Library
A balcony view that appeared in the January 22, 1927 issue of Exhibitors Herald with an article titled "Analyzing Local Conditions to Determine Building Costs." Thanks to Mike Hume for finding the photo on Internet Archive.
House right up in the balcony. Note the simplified paint job and the added Skouras swirls above the exits. New drapes on the far left cover the former organ grille area. Photo: Los Angeles Public Library
More exterior views:
1929 - A view west on Wilshire. We get a bit of the Fox Ritz signage on the left of the photo. The photo appears in the collection of the Miracle Mile Residential Association. See their Historical Photo Collection for many more views of the area. The ritz was running "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," a March release.
1929 - A great photo looking east. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Handsome Stranger for posting this eBay find on Noirish post #4301 along with other vintage L.A. views. Note the Fox Ritz roof sign in the middle of the photo.
1930 - A photo by C.C. Pierce looking east from the Tower Building west of La Brea. It's in the USC Digital Library collection from the California Historical Society. The Los Angeles Public Library also has a version of it.
1930 - A roof sign detail from the USC Digital Library photo. The sign had been redone in 1929 to get the Fox name up there.
c.1931 - A look west toward the Fox Ritz from the L.A. County Natural History Museum collection. The Four Star Theatre hadn't been built yet.
c.1931 - Another view west toward Wilshire and La Brea from the L.A. County Natural History Museum collection. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor BifRayRock for finding these two photos in the LACNHM collection and including them in his Noirish post #32327 that also features photos of the Four Star.
1931 - A look east on Wilshire Blvd. past the Fox Ritz. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo.
early 1930s - The corner of Wilshire and La Brea with the Ritz entrance on the far left. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo.
1932 - A shot of the facade while running a Greta Garbo feature, "As You Desire Me." Plus you got a Mickey Mouse cartoon and "Dream House," a short with Bing Crosby and Ann Christie. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo.
1932 - A photo looking east on Wilshire toward La Brea with the Ritz on the right. It was taken for the Automobile Club of Southern California and is now in the USC Digital Library collection. They were surveying the traffic situation on Wilshire Blvd. The Four Star Theatre is visible just down the street from the Ritz.
The large building at Wilshire and La Brea opened c.1930 as the E. Clem Wilson Building. Major tenants later were General of America Insurance and Mutual of Omaha. It's still there -- now with a big Samsung Mobile sign on the top.
1932 - A view from the USC Digital Library collection. There's a a slice of the Ritz vertical down on the next block on the right as well as a bit of the roof sign. It's a photo from the California Historical Society. There's also another shot taken a bit closer.
Also in the USC collection: looking east 1929 - zoom in for the Ritz down the street | looking east 1939 - a glimpse of the Ritz sign on the right, El Rey on the left | 1940 aerial view - Ritz on the lower right.
late 1930s - A shot for Life looking east toward the theatre. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor BifRayRock for the find. It's on his Noirish post #40300 with a number of other great Wilshire views.
c.1940 - Looking west toward the back of the stagehouse. Martin Turnbull found the shot by an unknown photographer for his Noirish Los Angeles post #49487. A version of it also made an appearance in a post about the theatre from Alison Martino on her Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page.
1950 - A look west on Wilshire toward the Four Star and the Fox Ritz. The photo is from the Los Angeles Public Library Blackstock Negative Collection. Thanks to BifRayRock for including the photo on his Noirish Los Angeles post #19498.
c.1950 - We get a look east in this postcard from the huge Elizabeth Fuller Los Angeles Postcards collection on Flickr. The El Rey Theatre sign is poking out at the left. Down the street in the middle of the image there's the roof sign for the Fox Ritz. Thanks, Elizabeth! Also see: Wilshire at night | Prudential Building | 1947 Miracle mile night view |
1952 - Thanks to Sean Ault for sharing this photo from his collection, acquired from an Australian collector. They're running "Phone Call From a Stranger" with Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill and Bette Davis.
c.1955 - "Don't Scare - Prepare." Norris Poulson was mayor from 1953 until 1961. Thanks to Phillip Cutler for locating the photo.
1955 - The building got a re-do. This photo of the streamlined facade is in the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
1955 - "Home of CinemaScope Pictures." A marquee view from the Los Angeles Public Library.
1956 - Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee driving by the theatre while campaigning. He suffered a devastating loss in the California primary and withdrew from the race. The Ritz was running "Song of the South," a November 1946 release. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor BifRayRock for the find in the Life collection. It's on his Noirish post #40300.
1959 - An August view east with the Ritz's signage hiding down there behind a lamp post to the left of a billboard for L&M cigarettes. Note the new streetlight installation. Thanks to Sean Ault for spotting the photo on eBay. He notes that the famous darkroom storefront can be seen on the right.
1959 - A detail from the previous photo.
1960 - Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Hoss C for finding this "For Rent" view of the Ritz and posting it on his Noirish post #25218. We're looking west on Wilshire toward La Brea. The photo also appears in the Historical Photos Collection on the website of the Miracle Mile Residential Association.
Sean Ault had also spotted the photo on eBay. He comments: "The photo is definitely 1960 as the new bus does not have the skirts painted and that was only when they came in new in Jan-Feb 1960 hence the name LAMTA dubbed them 'Dreamliner 60.'" The photo must have been taken early in the year as beginning January 25 the theatre ran a reserved seat engagement of the Mike Todd, Jr. production of "Scent of Mystery."
1967 - It's a great 4 minute drive along the Miracle Mile in "Wilshire Blvd. Miracle Mile December 1967" on YouTube. In this shot from the Producers Library footage the Ritz, then called the Lindy Opera House, is on the right with the the vertical saying "Opera." We also get a drive by of the Four Star (with 4 flashing stars atop the tower) and the El Rey.
1975 - A look east on Wilshire posted by Ken McIntyre on the Facebook page Photos of Los Angeles. The sharp eyes of Steven Otto spotted the vertical sign saying "Opera" on the right. The photo was taken when the Ritz was called the Lindy Opera House and used for legit shows. Demolition was in 1977.
Smell-O-Vision at the Ritz: In 1960 the Ritz ran the Mike Todd Jr. 70mm production "Scent of Mystery" in Smell-O-Vision. It was with 6 channel stereo sound and all the smells.
Thanks to Bruce Kimmel for adding this January 6, 1960 Variety ad as a comment to his 2021 post about the show on the Friends of 70mm Facebook page.
A flyer for the run of the show at the Ritz with a coupon to mail in for your tickets. Thanks to Bruce Kimmel for sharing this from his collection. He comments: "The Ritz was a great theater and this film looked and smelled amazing there."
A view of the Smell-O-Vision apparatus with Michael Todd, Jr. on the left and Hans Lube, the inventor of the gear, on the right. Thanks to Scott Marshall for sharing this photo, added as a comment to the thread about the show on the Friends of 70mm Facebook page. The photo made an appearance with a Boxoffice article that Roland Lataille has on a page of his InCinerama site.
The film was later re-cut as "Holiday in Spain" and went out in both
70mm and 3 strip Cinerama and Cinemiracle versions. See the "Holiday in Spain" listing on Roland's InCinerama website for all the details. There's also a page about the film on the site In70mm.
Bruce Kimmel comments:
"Oh
how I loved the Ritz, despite only being there a handful of times. The
first movie I remember seeing there was 'The Adventures of Haji Baba,'
but of course I'm the one and only person I know (and no one has ever
stepped forward to dispute this) that actually
saw 'Scent of Mystery' in Smell-O-Vision there during its very brief run.
I loved every second of that movie - I thought it was so clever and
fun, the 70mm was so clear and astonishing, the sound was amazing, and I
have to tell you by that time they'd figured out the smell problems and
fixed them and they worked really well.
"I have tons of memorabilia
from the film, issued its soundtrack on CD (the booklet is in
Smell-O-Vision), and do the commentary track on the Blu-ray. Unfortunately, they haven't found and probably never will find the
original cut - so when people see the Blu of 'Holiday in Spain,' they can
sort of kind of get an inkling, but it's been shorn of over twenty
minutes, there's stupid added narration, the intermission point was
moved earlier (the original intermission point was something no one who
worked on restoring the film had a clue about - when they originally
showed me the faded 70mm version of 'Holiday in Spain,' I told them
exactly where it was - it was one of the best lead ups to an
intermission ever), and I think you can't ever make a proper
reassessment of the film.
"The other interesting Ritz story was: My
mother used to regale me with her tale of going there, having her chair
break (in the balcony) and suing them (they settled for some small
amount of money). I was always afraid to go there for fear of my chair
breaking, but I never sat in the balcony anyway."
Thanks, Bruce!
The Belknap collection's Hollywood Ballyhoo section has a page on Smell-O-Vision. They note:
"Todd,
Jr. invested his inheritance in the development of Smell-O-Vision, a
process in which evocative smells were pumped to the cinema audience
through pipes leading to individual seats in the auditorium. Bottles of
scent were held on a rotating drum and the process was triggered by a
signal on the film itself.
The Ritz in the Movies:
We get a look at the theatre near the end of its life when it was called the American in I. Robert Levy's "Can I Do It 'Till I Need Glasses?" (National American Films, 1977). The film is a collection of sexually suggestive skits featuring Jeff Doucette, Vic Dunlop, Patrick Wright and Walter Olkewicz.
We spend a lot of time at the Ritz in the John Cassavetes film "Opening Night" (Faces Distribution, 1977). The Ritz is supposed to be a tryout house called the Orpheum in New Haven. Featured performers include Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart and Zohra Lampert. Thanks to Brendan Lucas and Henry Stanny for spotting the Ritz in the film.
A view downstage right from "Opening Night." When the show moves to New York the Arcade Theatre is used for exteriors and the Pasadena Civic for interior scenes. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for twenty additional shots from the film.
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Fox Ritz. Also see their list of theatres by Lewis Smith. The L.A. Conservancy has a page on the Ritz.
The Motion Picture News issue of December 28, 1929 had a small photo of the Ritz in their second section, the "Theatre Building & Buyers Guide." It was pictured along with other theatres in the article "Harold B. Franklin Analyzes Theatre Personality."
The Facebook page Vintage Los Angeles has a Miracle Mile photo album with more views of the area. There's also a Facebook page called I Heart Miracle Mile.
| back to top | Westside theatres | Hollywood | Westwood and Brentwood | Along the Coast | Westside theatres: alphabetical list | Westside theatres: by street address | Downtown theatres | [more] Los Angeles movie palaces | Los Angeles theatres - the main alphabetical list | theatre history resources | film and theatre tech resources | contact info | welcome and site navigation guide |
No comments:
Post a Comment