RAYLEEN HSU The Mann Bruin, built in 1937, and other
theaters such as the Mann Village are tangible reminders of the
past.
By Chris Young
Daily Bruin Staff
Visible even from the dorms on the hill, the Westwood Fox movie
spire beckons students to its box office, showing the newest flick
Hollywood has to offer.
Three landmark Westwood theaters, the Mann Village Theater
(formerly known as the Fox Westwood Theater), the Mann Bruin
Theater, and the Crest, capture elements of Westwood’s
history and the movie-going experience of an earlier era. They
offer students a glimpse of the past as they watch the latest
blockbuster.
In the 1910s, UCLA moved from its campus near present-day L.A.
City College, to its present location. The Janss Investment Company
designed Westwood Village as a community around the school.
An art jury selected an architectural style for the Village, a
colonial Spanish-Mediterranean design. Marc Wanamaker, vice
president of the Los Angeles City Historical Society, said that
Westwood’s design was unique for Los Angeles.
“It’s like being in Paris where you can clearly see
the Eiffel Tower, the opera house,” Wanamaker said. “In
Westwood you look up and can see its landmarks from different
vantage points.”
A number of Spanish and Mediterranean-inspired towers, spires,
signs and neon lights served as beacons to motorists driving on
Wilshire and Sunset Boulevards. One of those towers belonged to
what was formerly known as Fox Westwood Theater.
S. Charles Lee, a world-renowned theater architect, designed the
Fox and the Bruin theaters on the intersection of Broxton and
Weyburn Avenues.
“When you enter the Fox, you see it has a very large lobby
that gives it a feeling of luxury,” said Ted Gooding, a
director of the Theater Historical Society of America. “Also,
the projection and sound equipment is first-rate. You have to have
good equipment because this is a college area and students expect
that quality.”
The Fox was built in 1931 with a Spanish colonial revival style
with aspects of moderne ““ a combination of art deco and neon.
Art deco was a design of the 1920s and 1930s with geometric and
zigzag forms, bold outlines, and new building materials.
The Fox movie company added the distinct Fox Tower, a Westwood
landmark, after they bought it from the Janss Company.
The Bruin was constructed in 1937, using neon as a main
element.
Being built during the ’20s and ’30s, these theaters
were made in a different era of motion pictures. At the same time
in downtown Los Angeles, more than 10 large and elaborate theaters
were built on Broadway.
These “movie palaces” feature opulent interiors and
ambitious architecture. Several of the theaters still function
today, such as the Los Angeles, Orpheum and Palace Theaters.
The Los Angeles Theater, one of the biggest downtown, had a
five-story lobby, ballroom, restaurant, lavish bathrooms, crystal
fountain and two balconies. It even had a “crying room”
where mothers could take their children to avoid disturbing other
patrons. Gooding said that the nearby Orpheum Theater took 100
people a day to operate, including phalanxes of ushers.
When sound came to movies in 1927, theaters were quick to
respond. The Fox and Bruin had sound systems installed when they
were built.
From the 1970s and on, multiplexes started to replace larger
theaters. The Crest Theater, built in 1987, defied that trend with
a single large screen and exterior and interior design that paid
homage to the Fox and Bruin’s era.
Designed by Joe Musil, the Crest has an art deco interior, with
murals that line the walls illuminated by black lights. Musil, also
a theater architecture historian, said that in his murals he
replicated what Westwood and Hollywood looked like in 1939.
Located south of Wilshire on Westwood Boulevard, the Crest is
also known for its state-of-the-art sound and projection. Musil
said that for every Disney picture that opens at the Crest, a
studio technician from Disney comes and checks the equipment to
make sure it’s up to certain standards.
“Disney executives wanted a special theater in Westwood
with the same qualities their studios had,” Musil said.
“They wanted to be able to go to a theater and see and hear
movies exactly the way they were put together in the
studio.”
Musil said that the Crest preserves some of the traditions of
past movie watching.
“The movie-going experience is not as romantic as it used
to be,” Musil said. “The Crest has two working stage
curtains, colored lights and music before the show. They all used
to do that. Now a lot of theaters don’t even have a stage
crew, and show ads before the show.”
Notwithstanding the trends of many theaters, students can still
catch a glimpse of those theaters of yesteryear, and almost in
their own backyard.