De Luxe Theatre

656 S. Alvarado St. Los Angeles, CA 90057 | map |

 

Opened: 1914 or a bit earlier. It's listed in the 1914 city directory as the Theatre De Luxe. It was on the east side of the street just south of Orange St., opposite Westlake Park. Orange was renamed Wilshire Blvd. in the 1930s and the park is now known as MacArthur Park.

 

In the photo the kids are there for a for a matinee with a personal appearance by William Desmond. "The Riddle Rider" was a November 1924 release. Thanks to Dallas Movie Theaters for finding the trade magazine photo for a post on Cinema Treasures. It's on the site's page about the other Deluxe, on Jefferson Blvd. That house was called the Favorite when this photo was taken. See our page on that Deluxe Theatre. 

 

The De Luxe makes an appearance in this 1914 column of miscellaneous ads located by Ken McIntyre for a thread about the theatre on the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles.

We get all sorts of variants of the name. In the 1915 and 1917 directories it's again the Theatre De Luxe. It was the De Luxe Theatre in the 1918 directory. In 1918 and 1919 L.A. Times ads it was frequently spelled "Theater De Luxe." In the 1916, 1921 and 1922 directories it's just the De Luxe. The address is sometimes shown as 654, such as in 1914.

The theatre is seen in the center of this image as the first reddish rectangle south of Orange St. Orange became Wilshire when it was extended through the park in the 30s. That's Alvarado running vertically along the park, 7th St. across the bottom. It's a detail from Plate 15 of the 1914 Baist Real Estate Survey Map from Historic Map Works. The site was shown similarly on the 1921 Baist Map. The site had houses on it on the 1910 Baist Map.

A 1920 ad for the Theatre Deluxe. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for the find.  The venue also appears in a 1923 Paramount ad as the Deluxe Theater and is listed as the De Luxe Theatre in the 1923 city directory with a 656 S. Alvarado address.

The De Luxe is the building with the arched entrance in the center of this detail from a superb 1923 aerial view featured by John Bengtson on his Silent Locations post "Buster Keaton - Hard Luck, The Goat - Closeups At Westlake Park." John's post is about the filming in the area for the 1921 Buster Keaton films "The Goat" and "Hard Luck." He also discusses other films shot nearby. Thanks, John!

That's Alvarado St. running horizontally along the edge of the park. The building to the left of the theatre would be demolished when that adjacent street, Orange St., became an extension of Wilshire Blvd. when that was pushed through the park in 1934. The large building to the right of the theatre is a garage and the next one, set back from the street, an apartment building.

Here's the full photo from the National Archives. See a larger version on John's site where you can click on it to expand and pan around. That's 7th St. on the right. The building the Lake Theatre was in at 2118 W. 7th St. can be seen a few storefronts this side of Alvarado. In the upper right corner we get a view of the Alvarado / Park Theatre, 710 S. Alvarado St.

In an article in the February 7, 1924 issue of the Glendale Evening News that was mostly about Glendale's Alex Theatre, it was noted that the De Luxe and Alvarado theatres were being managed by C.L. Langley, whose firm at the time was called Southwest Theatres, Inc. Soon that would be rebranded as West Coast-Langley and eventually made a part of West Coast Theatres, Inc, the chain that later morphed into Fox West Coast.   

It's listed in both the 1926 and 1927 city directories. The 1927 edition had it as the "DE Luxe" and a 658 Alvarado address. It evidently ceased regular film exhibition around 1927. Perhaps it couldn't deal with the competition of the more opulent Westlake Theatre that opened in 1926 up in the next block.

The venue got rebranded as the Romola Theatre in 1927 for the purpose of running promotional films for a real estate development firm. 

 

An invitation to come see the free "Romola pictures" any afternoon. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating this as well as the two items below.  

Sales people wanted for the Romola project. It turns out they're in the grapefruit business.  

 

 

Another 1927 ad for the free two hour show from the Pacific Development Co. They had been moved to the evenings. "Get there at 7..."

 

Closing: The theatre evidently closed for good and was revamped for other uses around 1928. There's no listing for it in the 1928 and 1929 city directories.

Status: The building that once housed the Theatre De Luxe and other businesses was later a 99 cent store after several other tenants. The L.A. City Planning website lists 650, 656, 658 S. Alvarado (at Wilshire) as a structure dating from 1910. It  has been vacant and for lease since mid-2021. 

 

Christina Stroffolino advises that it was previously a Thrifty Drug store, perhaps from the early 50s onward, with a Thrifty's Restaurant around on the Wilshire side of the building. This William Reagh photo of Wilshire and Alvarado in 1957 is from the Los Angeles Public Library collection.

 

A 1958 Woolworth ad located by Ken McIntyre for his thread on the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles. He calls our attention to the listing at the very bottom of the ad for the location at 656 S. Alvarado, the former theatre building. 

 

 

A 2010 view of the Theatre De Luxe building. Parts of the 1910 structure evidently remain. On the left that's the Westlake Theatre. The store closed in 2021. Photo: Google Maps

More information: There was another early theatre farther south on the block called the Westlake Theatre at 680 S. Alvarado. It's in the 1912 and 1913 city directories. In 1914 they were advertising as being on "S. Alvarado near 7th St." The current Westlake Theatre at 638 S. Alvarado dates from 1926.

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