Los Angeles Theatres: Fuji Kan / Linda Lea / Kinema Theatre

324 E. 1st St. Los Angeles, CA 90013 | map |

Opened: 1925 as the Fuji Kan Theatre. The location was on the south side of 1st, east of San Pedro St. This July 29, 1941 photo looking west on 1st is in the Herald Examiner collection at the Los Angeles Public Library.

The building next door at 320 E. 1st that's seen here as Lem's Chop Suey was once the Progressive / Tivoli Theatre. The Tokyo Grill was in a building using a 318 address. The single-story Tomio Co. building, which still survives, is at 316.

Seating: 354

The theatre closed during World War II with the evacuation of the Japanese population to camps. The owner was arrested in January 1942 for spreading propaganda. He'd been running Japanese newsreels. During the war the neighborhood became predominately African-American when that population working the war plants in the area started looking for housing and filled up the vacancies.

The theatre was taken over by a Chinese businessman and reopened as the Linda Lea on February 10, 1945 with films plus a stage show. The story is that it was named for his wife. In the ad for the opening note the programming designed to appeal to the neighborhood's African-American residents. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding the ad, posted as a comment on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.

A typical booking advertised in the Times in August 1946: "Blondie's Lucky Day" and "Two Fisted Stranger." They seemed to book a lot of westerns. Two playing one week in February 1947 were "Vengeance of the West" and "Blazing Six Shooters."

By 1948 they were playing Japanese films again at least part time. This L.A. Times listing was from May 1948.

A jungle movie and another western in a June 1948 L.A. Times listing: "White Pongo" and "Border Badman."

Japanese films were featured again beginning in 1949. This was a May L.A. Times listing that year. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating the newspaper items.

July 24, 1955 was the last ad for this location using the Linda Lea name. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for the research. That operation, and the name itself, then moved to the theatre at 251 S. Main, a house that had been running as a burlesque theatre called the Aztec. See the page on the Linda Lea / Downtown Independent for information on that location.

This theatre on E. 1st was re-acquired by the Japanese family who had operated it as the Fuji Kan before the war. It was renamed the Kinema and reopened August 13, 1955. Sometimes Japanese movie stars were brought over for film premieres, often in conjunction with the annual Nisei Week parade. It was also known as the Nichibei Kinema.

Gerald Sato comments: "There used to be many Japanese language movie theaters around town. It seems the Japanese studios were exempt for several years from the antitrust rules which prohibited the studios from owning the theaters, Fox and Paramount could not limit their releases to Fox and Paramount theaters, but Toho could restrict its releases to Toho La Brea, Toei to the Kinema, similar 'tie ins' for the Kabuki on Adams and Kokusai on Crenshaw. But once the Japanese studios couldn't do that any more, the Japanese theaters including Linda Lea started to disappear."

Closing: The Kinema was was running as late as 1963. The operators were evicted when the property was acquired for redevelopment.

Status: The theatre has been demolished. The building currently on the site housing a Citibank branch dates from 1964.

The Meralta Theatre, seventeen blocks farther east on 1st St., was later running as the Kinema East.

1939 - A view of the Fuji Kan from the Los Angeles Public Library collection. The photo was taken by Burton O. Burt for the Works Progress Administration.

c.1940 - A look west that was located by Ken McIntyre for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group. Kevin Walsh comments: "Given the license plate colors, it could be 1937 or 1941."

1944 - The theatre appears about half way through three minutes of footage shot in October that appears on the site Critical Past. There are views of the Sumitomo bank, several hotels along 1st St. and City Hall in the distance. Thanks to Chris Nichols for locating it. He's a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine and the author of the Taschen book "Walt Disney's Disneyland."

1944 - A detail from another shot that appears in the Critical Past footage.

late 1940s - A Toyo Miyatake photo looking west with the theatre, here renamed the Linda Lea, in the distance on the left, beside the telephone pole. Chinese or Japanese characters are on the marquee. The photo appears with the 2020 N.Y. Times story about the Ueyama family "After Internment, a Store Was Born. It's Still an L.A. Staple" by Bradford Pearson. The store is Bunkado, seen on the left, which opened in 1946. Thanks to Gerald Sato for spotting the story for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group.

1949 - Looking east on 1st from San Pedro. A bit of the vertical sign for the Linda Lea is seen behind the trolley. Thanks to Paul Ayers for finding the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group. He notes at the center it's LATL PCC No. 3150 inbound on the "P" line.

early 1950s? - A view of the theatre as the Linda Lea. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group. The Toyo Miyatake Photo Studio seen on the right was at 318 E. 1st.

1951 - A Nisei Week parade photo by Toyo Miyatake Studios with the theatre in the background. The photo appeared with the 2006 Ed Fuentes "Where Joy Meets Soy" post on his [View] From a Loft blog. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Godzilla for spotting the photo and including it on his Noirish post #24554, mostly about the other Linda Lea on Main St.

early 1950s - A Toyo Miyatake photo looking west with the Linda Lea in the distance. The photo appears with the 2020 N.Y. Times story "After Internment, a Store Was Born. It's Still an L.A. Staple" by Bradford Pearson. The store is Bunkado, seen in the second storefront.

early 1950s - A detail from the Toyo Miyatake photo. On the marquee: "Nippom Picture."

1955 - The reopening of the theatre as the Kinema on August 13. The vertical sign says Kinema in Katakana. It's a photo by the Toyo Miyatake Studio from the Rafu Shinpo Collection at the Japanese American National Museum that appeared on the JANM Facebook page. Thanks to John Lee for spotting it for a comment on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group.

1957 - Looking east along the south side of the street toward the Kinema. The banners were out for the 17th annual Nisei Week Festival. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group.

late 1950s? - A busy night at the Kinema. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group.

1975 - A view west with the L.A. Times and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the distance. The skinny building beyond the "INGS" vertical sign is the 1964 construction on the Kinema site. At this time the ground floor was occupied by Merit Savings & Loan with some city offices on the upper floors. The single-story building beyond at 320 was at this time a restaurant called Sapporo Ya.

It's a shot from "Friday Foster," a film directed by Arthur Marks starring Pan Grier, Yaphet Kotto and Godfrey Cambridge. Thanks to Sean Ault for noticing the buildings in the movie and getting the screenshot.

2019 - It's now a Citibank branch at 324 E. 1st. That's the Miyako Hotel on the left. The Progressive / Tivoli Theatre was once on the lot on the right. Photo: Bill Counter

More information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Fuji Kan Theatre.

Cinema Treasures contributor Rkmovg4wd discusses the theatre on the site's page about the 251 S. Main location:

"My Father, Toshiyuki, and G'Father, Shinsuke, owned the Linda Lea. The first Linda Lea was at 322 E. First St.. Originally, it was the Fuji-kan when my G'Father bought it. He operated it, and the Chinese restaurant next door as well. When the war broke out, he was arrested by the FBI, January 1942, as a propagandist, for showing Japanese newsreels. Newsreels, as you may recall were the only way you could get visual news in those days, so this was not a valid reason for imprisonment. During that time, Little Tokyo came to be called Bronzeville, and a Chinese businessman from Chinatown, bought the theater and named it, the Linda Lea, I believe after his wife. After the war, my G'Father reacquired it based on his previous ownership.

"The Chinese businessman then opened the Linda Lea on Main St.. My G'Father bought it about 1957-1968. It was my Father’s voice that was on the theater schedule recordings. We sold the theater back to the Chinese businessman, who began showing Kung Fu movies. Of interesting note, an article in the Los Angeles Times in 2007, mentioned that while remodeling the theater for an office space conversion, they discovered a second wall was hiding the original. It still had the window boxes and the Japanese movie posters that my G'Father had left there when he sold the theater!

"In regards to the Fuji-kan theater on First St., G'Father renamed it Kinema (Later the Nichibei Kinema) in 1955. The theater was a success, and this allowed my G'Father to bring over Japanese movie stars for their premieres, and often tied their visits to the Nisei Week Parade, of which my G'Father was one of the founders. In 1968, ThriftyMart, who had purchased the property with cooperation of the City of LA and Mayor Bradley, evicted my Father (who had taken over the business) to create the present Little Tokyo Plaza. He moved the theater to East LA, Boyle Heights, and named it Kinema East, leasing the old Meralta Theater. The location failed to draw enough of the Japanese-American market, so he filed for bankruptcy in 1972. During the late 1950’s through the 1960’s, in their hey-day, they owned or leased nine movie theaters, including the NuArt Theater in Santa Monica."

Fuji Kan / Linda Lea / Kinema Theatre

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