TheCarthay Circle Theatre was one of the most famousmovie palaces ofHollywood's Golden Age. Located onSan Vicente Boulevard inLos Angeles,California, it opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1969.
The auditorium itself was shaped in the form of a perfect circle, extended vertically into a cylinder, set inside a square that fleshed out the remainder of the building. It seated 1,150. Initially developed byFox, it was called the Fox Carthay Circle Theater for its unique floorplan.
The Carthay Circle Theater opened at 6316San Vicente Boulevard on May 18, 1926, with a showing ofThe Volga Boatman (1926),[1] and was considered developer J. Harvey McCarthy's most successful monument, a stroke of shrewd thinking that made a famous name of the newly developedCarthay Center neighborhood[2][3] inLos Angeles, California.[4] (McCarthy's development was called Carthay Center—ananglicized version of his last name.) The Carthay Circle Theater became the focal point of Carthay Center, and Carthay Circle became the neighborhood's official name.[5]
The exterior design was in theSpanish Colonial Revival style, with whitewashed concrete trimmed in blue, with a highbell tower andneon sign visible for miles.[4] The architects wereCarleton Winslow and Dwight Gibbs.[6] The iconicoctagonal tower was placed in the front cornerspandrel space left between the circle and the square. The auditorium'scylinder-shaped wall was raised up above the roof line, to create aparapet visible from the outside that resembled a circus tent. "Simple, massive and dignified, the building stands out for its intrinsic beauty," ravedThe Architect and Engineer.Pacific Coast Architect wrote that it was a theatre "masked as a cathedral".[4]
There was a drop curtain that featured an homage to the pioneerDonner Party that perished crossing theSierra Nevada Mountains.Bronzebusts ofNative American leaders and photographs ofEdwin Booth,Herbert Beerbohm Tree,Sarah Bernhardt,Eleanora Duse,Ellen Terry,Lillie Langtry, and other 19th century actors adorned the lounges and lobbies. Murals of historic scenes 40 feet tall graced the walls, painted by Pasadena artistAlson S. Clark.[4]
The theatre hosted the officialpremieres ofThe Life of Emile Zola (1937),Romeo and Juliet (1936),[7]Walt Disney's first animated feature-length filmSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)[8] andGone with the Wind (1939), among many other notable films. For Disney'sFantasia (1940), the most elaborateaudio system in use at the time,Fantasound, a pioneeringstereophonic process, was installed at this theatre.[4]
For the glamorous world premiere ofMGM'sMarie Antoinette (1938), withNorma Shearer andTyrone Power, the gardens around the theater were restructured and enhanced to resemble the landscaping of thePalace of Versailles. In the 1930s and '40s, props from the sets of such premiered films asThe Great Ziegfeld (1936),The Good Earth (1937),Captains Courageous (1937) andGone with the Wind (1939) were displayed on the grassymedian of McCarthy Vista, from Wilshire Boulevard south to San Vicente Boulevard. The premieres were red-carpet events, with the stars of the motion picture arriving in limousines at the entrance to the covered walkway to the theater south from San Vicente and cheered by hundreds of fans in bleachers there, accompanied by searchlights scanning the sky. OnlyGrauman's Chinese Theatre inHollywood also had such elaborate premieres in that era.
In 1951 the firstPATSY Award ceremony was held at the Carthay Circle. Presented by theAmerican Humane Association, the event was hosted byRonald Reagan, and honoredFrancis the Talking Mule as the first recipient of the award that honored animal actors.
Although the Carthay Circle Theater had hosted the first-run "roadshow", reserved-seat engagements of a great many aesthetically- and economically important films, by the 1960s the "roadshow" concept, and, indeed, the Carthay Circle Theater itself, was considered ananachronism, overshadowed by modern multi-screen cinemas.
Its customer base had also been sapped bysuburbanization, and many other economic factors, as film print runs increased almost exponentially from a few, high-quality, high-resolution prints (often "wide gauge"), to literally thousands, or even several thousands of average-quality, lower-resolution prints (usually "standard gauge").
The theater was demolished in 1969 by its owner,NAFI Corporation, which erected its headquarters and main computer operations center in its place; today, two low-rise office buildings and a city park occupy its former site.
In July 1994, a smaller-scale pastiche of the facade of the theatre (primarily the octagonal tower) was opened as the "Once Upon a Time" gift shop on theSunset Boulevard section inDisney's Hollywood Studios atWalt Disney World Resort in Florida. The store now sells clothing items for men and women.[9]
In June 2012, a fanciful larger-scale replica of the theater building was opened in theBuena Vista Street section ofDisney California Adventure Park at theDisneyland Resort inAnaheim, California. Although this replica is larger than the Orlando version, it is still slightly smaller than the 1926 original, and has a modified exterior footprint and interior floorplan. While there is no actual theatre inside, the building houses the "Carthay Circle Lounge" and the members-only "Club 1901" on the first floor, with the "Carthay Circle Restaurant" on the second floor.[10] The original's signature circular floorplan is absent from the replica building, and the circular parapet is squared off from the outside.
The beautiful princess, Snow White, her prince charming, the gruff queen and even the seven dwarfs have learned to speak Spanish, in a way. This is taking place every Sunday afternoon—5 o'clock to be exact—at the Carathay Circle Theatre....
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