The location was on the north side of the street just east of Rosemead Blvd. We had a bit of street renumbering in 1950. The original address was 1611 Las Tunas and it was still listed with that as late as the 1951 city directory. It's given the 9015 Las Tunas address in the 1953 and later directories. To the west in Alhambra this street is called Main St., it again becomes Main east of Temple City when it reaches El Monte.
Seating: 750
Architect: S. Charles Lee. It was his peculiar mix of a moderne building with various colonial elements thrown in. We see similar combinations at the Vogue in Hollywood and the Bruin in Westwood.
Lee's rendering for the project. Thanks to Elmorovivo for locating it for a post on Cinema Treasures. It appeared in a trade magazine with this copy:
"The community of Temple, a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, will soon be able to boast of one of the most unique theatres in the United States. Choosing a modified Cape Cod architecture and fitting it to the attractive surroundings of this rural community, S. Charles Lee, West Coast theatre architect, has devised a most novel structure for James Edwards, Jr., a progressive showman."
Joe Vogel comments: "It...was designed by Lee in a style similar to that he used for Edwards' Tumbleweed Theater at Five Points in nearby El Monte the year before. The Temple was a bit smaller, but both theaters featured two-aisle auditoriums with open beamed ceilings, and, in lieu of the usual walled entrance foyer, had roofed, open sided walkways leading from the box office to the lobby entrance. These unusual entryways featured low wooden fences, rather like farm fences, painted white. In addition, the Temple, whose auditorium ran parallel to Las Tunas Drive, had a covered walkway along its street side, which was set back some fifty feet. This walk gave access to and from the parking lot located to the east of the building."
Joe also noted: "The building was an interesting combination of styles, and the auditorium roof featured king post trusses, which I don't recall ever seeing in any other theater."
Closing: 1982.
Status: It was demolished in 1982 for construction of a four-plex. That building was demolished in 2006.
c.1970 - A photo from the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
1982 - Thanks to the now-vanished American Classic Images website for this view that was taken in April.
1982 - A look at the boxoffice from American Classic Images.
2003 - The 4 screen complex that replaced the original theatre on the site. It was demolished in 2006. Thanks to Adam Martin for his photo appearing on Cinema Tour.
2019 - The theatre once was where we see the red tile-roofed building in the center of the image. On the left we're looking north on Rosemead Blvd. To the right it's a view east on Las Tunas. Photo: Google Maps
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures pages on the Temple Theatre and on the 1983 multiplex, called the Temple City Cinemas. The Cinema Tour page has five 2003 photos of the replacement complex, which they're calling the Temple 4 Cinemas.
There was also an earlier Temple Theatre in Alhambra that was built by Walter Paul Temple. It was later called the El Rey Theatre.
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