La Salle / Adams Theatre

1898 W. Adams Blvd. West Adams (Los Angeles), CA 90018 | map | 

Opened: 1914 as the La Salle Theatre. The building is a half block west of La Salle Ave. and two and a half blocks east of Western Ave. It's in the 1914 city directory with an address of 1896 W. Adams. It's in the 1916 through 1919 and 1921 and 1923 directories as at 1898 W. Adams. 

The image is from Curtis Hanson's 1990 film "Bad Influence." Head to the bottom of the page for more about the film. Sad to say that the marquee is no longer on the building. The shots from the film offer the only views of it that have surfaced so far. 

Seating: 496 was the capacity listed in the 1952 Film Daily Yearbook, according to Ken Roe.

Architect: A.C. Martin. Thanks to Joe Vogel for the research. He located an item in the May 3, 1913 issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer advising that Martin was preparing plans for the 50 x 150 foot brick theatre building between Harvard Blvd. and La Salle Ave.

This was evidently a replacement for the first La Salle Theatre that had been operating earlier in 1914 at 1625 W. Adams.

A November 1914 ad. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it.

The theatre can be seen in this detail from Plate 18 of the 1914 Baist Real Estate Survey Map from Historic Map Works. That's Adams Blvd. running horizontally across the center. The vertical street with the green line on the left is Western Ave. The theatre is the farthest right of the red rectangles, on the alley between Harvard and La Salle. The other one nearby was a garage.  

 

 

An April 1915 item about Frederick J. Whiffen making an appearance at the LaSalle. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating this for a Facebook thread about the theatre on Ken's Movie Page. 

In 1918 or 1919 A.L. Sanborn and a partner took over the La Salle. This was the first L.A. theatre for Sanborn. Before coming west Sanborn had worked in theatres in Iowa. Decades later the family still operates theatres from its offices in Newport Beach. They had been known as SoCal Cinemas and are now branded as The Movie Experience. They claim to be the oldest theatre operating company in the western United States. From a history of the company on the website for their The Movie Experience location in San Luis Obispo:

"In 1915, the lure of Hollywood called young Sanborn so he returned to southern California, where he had lived as a youngster, finding production work at Paramount with the W.H. Clune Film Producing Co. on Melrose Ave. (occupied the same building as the former Zukor's Famous Players studios). Then, as assistant director with business manager duties, he worked for Stuart Paton at Universal Studios. Mr. Sanborn worked on Clune's 1916 'Ramona' and then Paton's 1916 '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea' and Paton's 1917 fifteen chapter action serial 'The Voice On The Wire.'

"However, sometime around the end of 1918 or 1919, Mr. Sanborn acquired a playhouse in Los Angeles on West Adams at LaSalle Street, and with a partner, invested. On July 31, 1920 the 'new and better' LaSalle Theatre held a grand reopening featuring Mary Pickford's 'The Hoodlum' on the screen and a 'mighty pipe organ' in the remodeled auditorium. A.L. Sanborn was now well on his way to directing theatres, rather than movies, as his life's work. In 1921, the second theatre was opened named the Rivoli..." 

 

The Rivoli Theatre mentioned in the article was located at 4521 S. Western Ave.

The La Salle became the Adams Theatre sometime prior to 1936. 

The front and back of a March 1938 "programette" for the Adams. Thanks to Sean Ault for locating this.

The inside pages. Shows included "Love and Hisses," "Rosalie" and "Tovarich."

 

 

A June 1942 listing at the top of a Daily Independent Theatre Guide. 

 

 

An October 1952 L.A. Mirror ad for Just For You" that was located by Ken Mcintyre. One little problem: the film was playing at the Adams, not at the "Bard's Adams," the competitor at 4409 W. Adams, 1.7 miles to the west. That theatre was usually just advertised in this period as "Bards" to help keep them straight. 

 

The Adams was operated until 1955 by Stanley B. Steck. He may have been running it since as early as 1928. Joe Vogel found an item in the February 26, 1955 issue of Boxoffice that noted Steck was closing the theatre. 

 

 

Either Steck changed his mind about closing the place or someone else took it over. Ken KcIntyre located these October 1955 listings.  

 

 

Listings that Ken located for April 1957.  

 

After running sub-run films and advertising a low price, there was an experiment with Japanese films. Later two other theatres nearby had success with Japanese product. Bard's West Adams became the Kabuki Theatre and the Crenshaw became the Kokusai Theatre. 

 

 

An April 1958 listing for "Women in Prison," a 1956 film originally titled "Jôshû to tomo ni." 

A May 30, 1958 listing for the theatre that Ken located.   

 

 

Advertising the Japanese films "Ugetsu" and "The Wanderer" in the Hollywood Citizen-News in April 1958. 

 

 

 

"New program starts Friday" -- meaning they were just running three days a week by this time. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating the August 1959 listing in the Times. 

 

 

 

The end was near. Advertising "Theatre Open Week Ends Only" in this mid-week September 22, 1959 Times ad.  

Closing: Evidently September 1959 was the end. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for all his research on Ken's Movie Page on Facebook. He notes that there were no ads in October 1959. 

 

 

An October 1959 listing from the Times. Note both the La Tosca and the Empire running German films. 

Status: There have been additions and remodels but the theatre building is still there. It's been used by various retail and wholesale tenants. Since around 2012 it's been an antique firm called Jan's & Company.

2007 - A photo by Ken McIntyre.

2015 - Looking west on Adams. Photo: Google Maps

2015 - The rear of the building. Photo: Google Maps

 

 

The La Salle / Adams Theatre in the Movies:

 

 

An entrance view of the long-closed theatre when it was used as the facade of a nightclub in Curtis Hanson's "Bad Influence" (Triumph Releasing Corporation, 1990). Note "La Salle" in the entrance tile. Presumably that had been carpeted over for decades. The theatre got renamed the Adams in the 30s.

 

The film stars Rob Lowe, James Spader, Rosalyn Landor, Tony Maggio, Kathleen Wilhoite and Palmer Lee Todd. Karina Longworth has noted that this film, like another with Spader released the same year, involves sex, lies and videotapes. And the presence of Lowe is ironic given his problems with the sex tape issue. 

 

 

The exterior was used for a club called the Kabal Cabaret. And they advertised in the Los Angeles Reader. Quite a rarity in movie data: they actually gave us an accurate location for where the theatre is located. But you need one more bit of data: the password to get in. It was in the ad right above: "Fun Loving Couple."

 

 

 

The club interiors were shot elsewhere. This is one of many views we get showing the look of the place, a room with a higher ceiling than the auditorium of the Adams. 

 

 

 

Rob Lowe under the marquee. He had been inside with a date and suddenly came out for a look around after realizing that he had been under surveillance by an unknown party. On IMDb: "Bad Influence"

More information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Adams for some nice research by Joe Vogel.

Also see the page for another Adams Theatre, Bard's West Adams Theatre, also known as the Fox Adams. There's also a page for the first La Salle Theatre, nearby at 1625 W. Adams.

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