Market Street Cinema

Last updated
Market Street Cinema
Imperial Theater
Market Street Cinema.jpg
Market Street Cinema in 2012
Market Street Cinema
Address1077 Market Street
San Francisco
Coordinates 37°46′51″N122°24′50″W / 37.780834°N 122.4139685°W / 37.780834; -122.4139685
Capacity 1,485
Construction
OpenedDecember 22, 1912
ClosedFebruary, 2013
Years active101
Architect Clifford A. Balch

Market Street Cinema was a historical theater located on Market Street in the Mid-Market district, San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1912 by David and Sid Grauman as the Imperial Theater. [1] It was converted into a movie theatre as the Premiere Theatre (1929) and the United Artists Theatre (1931).

Contents

The benefit world premiere of Dirty Harry was held here [2] on December 22, 1971. [3] [4]

In 1972 it was purchased by adult film producer Mike Weldon (Skintight, 1979), and renamed Market Street Cinema and was used through the early 2000s as an adult entertainment venue. It was one of the first adult venues that allow "lap dancing," where the club's dancers would wander the crowd looking for tips by sitting on the laps of customers. Mike Weldon was sued by the Justice Department for "pimping," but repeatedly won the lawsuits given participants remained clothed during encounters, and the 'lap dances" were not "negotiated sex-acts." [5] The role of the theater in San Francisco's sex industry in the 1980s was documented in a photo essay by photographer Leon Mostovoy. [6] In October 2015, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved a plan to demolish the theatre and replace it with an eight-story building. [7]

Market Street Cinema is considered haunted in popular culture: it features in a 2013 episode of Ghost Adventures (season 7, episode 25)[ citation needed ] and was used as a shooting location by filmmaker Charles Webb for a low-budget horror movie called G-String Horror. [8]

On August 15, 2016, Mint Minx Press published the novella Market Street Cinema by author Michele Machado, narrating the fictional account of a dancer working at the club in 1998. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Dirty Harry</i> 1971 film by Don Siegel

Dirty Harry is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first appearance as San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. The film drew upon the real-life case of the Zodiac Killer as the Callahan character seeks out a similar vicious psychopath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lap dance</span> Type of erotic dance

A lap dance is a type of erotic dance performance offered in many strip clubs in which the dancer typically has body contact with a seated patron. Lap dancing is different from table dancing, in which the dancer is close to a seated patron, but without body contact. Variant terms include couch dance, which is a lap dance where the customer is seated on a couch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grindhouse</span> Low-budget movie theater that shows mainly exploitation films

A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film-programming strategy dating back to the early 1920s which continuously showed films at cut-rate ticket prices that typically rose over the course of each day. This exhibition practice was markedly different from the era's more common practice of fewer shows per day and graduated pricing for different seating sections in large urban theatres, which were typically studio-owned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grauman's Chinese Theatre</span> Movie theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles

The TCL Chinese Theatre, commonly referred to as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Grauman</span> American theatre and film director

Walter E. Grauman was an American director of stage shows, films and television shows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of San Francisco</span>

The culture of San Francisco is major and diverse in terms of arts, music, cuisine, festivals, museums, and architecture but also is influenced heavily by Mexican culture due to its large Hispanic population, and its history as part of Spanish America and Mexico. San Francisco's diversity of cultures along with its eccentricities are so great that they have greatly influenced the country and the world at large over the years. In 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek voted San Francisco as America's Best City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sid Grauman</span> American showman and entrepreneur (1879–1950)

Sidney Patrick Grauman was an American entrepreneur and showman who established two of Hollywood's most recognizable and visited landmarks, the Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Capitan Theatre</span> Cinema in Hollywood

El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.

Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain founded in 1974 in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent and foreign films. Landmark consists of 34 theatres with 176 screens in 24 markets. It is known for both its historic and newer, more modern theatres. Helmed by its President Kevin Holloway, Landmark Theatres is part of Cohen Media Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Million Dollar Theater</span> Movie palace in Los Angeles, California

The Million Dollar Theatre at 307 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles is one of the first movie palaces built in the United States. It opened in 1917 with the premiere of William S. Hart's The Silent Man. It's the northernmost of the collection of historical movie palaces in the Broadway Theater District and stands directly across from the landmark Bradbury Building. The theater is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre</span> Former San Francisco strip club (1969–2000)

The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre was a strip club at 895 O'Farrell Street near San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. Having opened as an X-rated movie theater by Jim and Artie Mitchell on July 4, 1969, the O'Farrell was one of America's most notorious adult-entertainment establishments. By 1980, the nightspot had popularized close-contact lap dancing, which would become the norm in strip clubs nationwide. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson, a longtime friend of the Mitchells and frequent visitor at the club, went there frequently during the summer of 1985 as part of his research for a possible book on pornography. Thompson called the O'Farrell "the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America" and Playboy magazine praised it as "the place to go in San Francisco!"

The Fox Theatre was a 4,651-seat movie palace located at 1350 Market Street in San Francisco, California. The theater was designed by the noted theater architect, Thomas W. Lamb. Opened in 1929, the theater operated until 1963, when it was closed and demolished.

<i>Theme and Variations</i> (ballet) Ballet by George Balanchine

Theme and Variations is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Orchestral Suite No. 3. The ballet was made for Ballet Theatre, and premiered on November 26, 1947, at the City Center 55 Street Theater, with the two leads danced by Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway Theater District (Los Angeles)</span> United States historic place

The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.

Sarah Glendening is a former American actress. In 2009, she joined the cast as the fifth actress to portray Lucy Montgomery on the CBS soap As the World Turns. She played the role until the show's cancellation in September 2010. In October 2010, it was announced she would be joining All My Children as the second actress to portray Marissa Tasker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Playhouse</span> Non-profit theater company in California, U.S.

San Francisco Playhouse is a non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, founded in 2003 by Bill English and Susi Damilano. The theater stages nine plays yearly, including Broadway plays, musicals, and world and regional premieres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Theatre</span> Theater in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Oregon Theatre, or Oregon Theater, was an adult movie theater in the Richmond neighborhood of southeast Portland, Oregon, United States. The theater was completed in 1925 and originally housed a Wurlitzer pipe organ and vaudeville stage. It would later screen Hollywood, art-house, and Spanish-language films. The building was acquired by the Maizels family in 1967 and became an adult cinema in the 1970s. It continued to operate as the city's longest running pornographic cinema and remained owned by a member of the Maizels family until 13 February 2020, when it went into foreclosure. It closed in early March 2020.

References

  1. "Let's Break Down the History of the Market Street Cinema". Curbed SF. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  2. "1077 Market Street (Grauman's Imperial, 1912; Imperial, 1916; Premier, 1929; United Artists, 1931; Loew's, 1970; Market Street Cinema, 1972)". Upfromthedeep.com. Retrieved December 20, 2013.
  3. "KPIX-TV newsclip from the world premiere of Dirty Harry". Diva.sfsu.edu. Retrieved December 20, 2013.
  4. "download MPEG4 newsclip". Archived from the original on July 23, 2012. Retrieved December 20, 2013.
  5. "Market Street Cinema in San Francisco, CA - Cinema Treasures". cinematreasures.org. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  6. "Leon Mostovoy: Market Street Cinema | ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries". one.usc.edu. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  7. "Residential complex to replace century-old theater on Market Street - The San Francisco Examiner". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  8. Barmann, Jay. "What Will Become of the Historic, Quite Possibly Haunted, Market Street Cinema?". SFist. Archived from the original on 2015-11-01. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  9. Machado, Michele (2016). Market Street Cinema. United States: Mint Minx Press. ISBN   0692551352.