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. 

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."

Closing: It ran until 1955 with a Mr. Stanley Steck operating it. 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.

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.

| back to top | South, South Central and Southeast theatres | Downtown theatres | Westside theatres | Hollywood | Westwood and Brentwood | Along the Coast | [more] Los Angeles movie palaces | Los Angeles theatres - the main alphabetical list | Los Angeles theatres - list by address | theatre history resources | film and theatre tech resources | contact info | welcome and site navigation guide |