It's a long and tangled web. West Coast Theatres, Inc. dated from 1920 when it was formed from the holdings of the Gore Brothers, Sol Lesser, Adolf Ramish and others. This "Big Merger" article appeared in the January 11, 1921 issue of the L.A. Times:
Joe Vogel notes that the formation of the company was also reported in the January 19, 1921 issue of The Film Daily.
An affiliated company in the 20s, West Coast-Langley, started when C.L. Langley teamed up with the Bay Area chain Turner & Dahnken to form Turner, Dahnken & Langley, or T.D. & L. See the page about the Palace Grand Theatre in Glendale for some data about that evolution. At the bottom of the page is a January 25, 1923 L.A. Times article about West Coast buying out the T&D interests.
Before it became West Coast-Langley, there was a short period in 1924 when the company was called Southwest Theatres, Inc. At the bottom of the main page about the Alex Theatre see an article from the February 7, 1924 issue of the Glendale Evening News that discusses the structure of the company and their holdings.
It was persistent rumor in mid-December 1928, then by 22nd December 1928 Harold Franklin was reported as having been in conference with William Fox in New York about building new theatres (I wonder what else was discussed?), and by 12th January 1929 a solid deal was being reported.
And finally, as a bonus, there are bios written about Fox and Franklin in the Motion Picture News Booking Guide of 1929.
Thanks, Mike!
Fox in receivership: Times were tough in 1932 and 1933 with the company in bankruptcy. The holding company for the theatres was called National Theatres, a subsidiary at that time of Fox Film.
The 1940s and 1950s construction spree:
New construction in the L.A. market included:
1946 - Loyola Theatre
1947 - Crest Theatre, Long Beach
1947 - Culver Theatre
1949 - Fox Inglewood
Major Skouras-style remodels included:
1940 - Alex, Glendale
1940s - date not known: California, Huntington Park
1940s - date not known: Boulevard, Washington at Vermont
1949 - Fox Uptown
1950 - El Portal, North Hollywood
1951 - Fox Westwood Village
Fox West Coast and the Consent Decrees: National Theatres, the subsidiary of what became
20th Century Fox was headed at the time by Charles Skouras. In addition to Fox West Coast, there were other regional theatre circuits such as
Fox Intermountain and Fox Evergreen. As a result of the consent decrees,
starting in 1949 the United Artists Theatre circuit began
operating a number of theatres formerly managed by Fox in the L.A. area,
many of these being locations they already owned, but also including
other major houses such as the Egyptian and Loew's State
National was spun off as a separate corporation in 1951 with Charles
Skouras remaining as the CEO. Part of the deal with the Feds was that
they would sell off a number of their theatres to other operators,
reducing their number of theatres by 50% within six years. In some cases
they were required to divest specific theatres. In 1951 the Fox circuit
still had 550 theatres. In 1957 they were down to 275. Skouras died in
1954 and was succeeded by Elmer C. Rhoden, the mastermind who was later
behind the circuit's Cinemiracle fiasco of 1958. By 1960 the holding
company was known as National Theatres & Television.
Fox West Coast becomes National General: By 1963, National
Theatres had been absorbed into National General Corporation, a holding
company run by Eugene Klein. The top of the circuit's directory ads
still said "Fox West Coast Theatres" but National General was added.
Klein had been an investor in National Theatres and stepped in to
organize a restructuring when the company was in difficulty. The other
interests of NGC and Klein included insurance, sports teams and
thoroughbred racing. By 1968 some theatre marquees began appearing with
the NGC logo, such as at the remodeled Fox on Hollywood Blvd.
Ted Mann comes west: He had previously run a circuit based in Minneapolis. In 1973 National General sold their theatre division to Mann for
$67.5 million. At the time there were 240 theatres in the circuit.
WF Cinema Holdings for the final chapter: The
Mann circuit got seriously over extended in the 80s and 90s and, after a
reorganization, was acquired by WF Cinema Holdings, a joint venture of
Warner Bros. and Paramount/Viacom. After the initial enthusiasm of the
new partners subsided, the circuit, later called Cinemerica, gradually began disposing of
properties as buyers emerged or leases expired. For the public, the theatres were still branded with the Mann name. By 2012 the once mighty circuit was no more.
For
a run-down on the declining fortunes of the Fox West Coast /
National General / Mann Theatres empire see the 2009 posts on Cinelog by
Christopher Crouch: "End Credits," "Rise and Fall" and "National General's Chinese."
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