The History of the Movie Theatre in Sacramento, California
Jack: Sacramento may have been a great place to make a movie but that wasn’t the only role or even the most important role that the movies played in Sacramento in the early 20th century.
Male: Sacramento has always been a big moviegoing town. When I offered to the Crest Theater and placed that phrase above the entryway when you pass through this portal you leave all your cares behind. That is the essence of what going to the movies is about. Sacramento did it in phenomenal numbers at beautiful theaters throughout the area.
Jack: One of the first grand movie palaces build in Sacramento was the Hippodrome on K Street which opened way back in 1918. It breaks your heart to think that in the 1940s a fire gutted the stunning interior but you can’t keep a good theater down and within a few years it had been rebuilt and reopened as a theater that still stands today, the Crest.
The very name implied the pinnacle of the moviegoing experience in the city and they market with a gallop premiere. Governor Warren himself put in the appearance and the new drills were there to capture it all.
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Just a few blocks down K Street the Esquire Grill today shares a site with the ultra-modern IMAX Theater. But back in 1940 the Esquire Theater opened in this location with a whole evening’s worth of cinematic entertainment. In fact for decades you couldn’t throw a stick along K Street without hitting a movie theater.
Male: The movies were a tremendous business and most of the theaters were along K and J Street at one time in 1946 which was the top producing year of the movie industry more films were made that year than any other year. We had 26 theaters within nine blocks of each other in downtown Sacramento 26 and all of them with a thousand seats or more, it’s hard to believe.
Jack: Like the Fox Senator at 9th and K, built way back in 1924, it even had its own weekly newsletter to let its patrons know what was coming to town. And so many other great movie palaces have come and gone in Sacramento. The Capital, the Capri, the Del Paso, and The Grand but there’s one theater whose very name has become a lament to Sacramento’s sometimes cavalier altitude towards its landmarks.
Male: The Alhambra of course was really a neighborhood theater at the opposite end of town where the street car line ended. You get on the street car downtown get all the Alhambra Theater on Alhambra Boulevard. That opened in September 1927 and it had been 31st Street but the city fathers allowed for the changing of the name of the street to reflect the beautiful new Alhambra Theater. It was architecturally one of the most unique theaters ever built in this country. And had one of the most fantastic garden and grounds surrounding the theater that you would find anywhere in the world based of course on the classic Alhambra Garden in Spain.
Jack: So, what happened to this seventh wonder of Sacramento? Most folks simply think it was another victim of ramp and corporate development but the truth is a little more complicated. The theater had been doing poorly for years when Safe Way acquired the property in the early 70s.
Male: And Safe Way hearing that there was concern from the public and this great love of the theater said, “Well, heck we don’t want to take away something that’s so valuable to community. We will be happy too give it back, to whom ever wants it some angel in the city of Sacramento for exactly what we paid for the property.” And they waited and waited.
Jack: But no one stepped up. A Save the Alhambra Association was form but it could only raise half the money needed. A handful of residents even staged to sit in for a week to no avail. Finally, with the Alhambra’s time drawing short, the city government got involved.
Male: There was a bond measure election to raise a tax and specifically to buy the Alhambra Theater from the Safe Way Company so that the city could use it as a performing arts venue.
Jack: But on April 17, 1973, 55% of Sacramento residents voted against the bond measure and the Alhambra’s fate was sealed.
Male: They gave Sacramento every opportunity to save the Alhambra Theater and the people in the community did not do it and then now of course we’re all complaining about it but I think it’s because of the myth that has been furthered by folks who have said “Well, yeah, Safe Way tore down the Alhambra Theater.” Safe Way did everything they could to give it back and we just shouldn’t step up to the plate.
Jack: I still found it surprising that Sacramento was such a big movie town in the 20’s and 30’s. I heard there was a guy in old Sacramento who knew a lot about the period and not necessarily the official story. Hi, are you Mike?
Mike: Yes I am. You must be Jack.
Jack: Yeah.
Mike: Pull up a chair Jack.
Jack: Well I heard you might be a good guy to talk too about why there were so many movie palaces in Sacramento.
Mike: Well during the golden age of movie making in the 20’s and 30’s which is also the era of prohibition and Sacramento being a very wet town in other words, it’s easy to get a drink here in Sacramento, probably one of the easiest in the nation. And many of the movie crews, stars, starlets, directors, producers whatever, would come up in Sacramento, shoot a movie and they would stay at a place like this.
Presently this is a wine cellar that is part of Discover California, one of our shops down here in Sacramento but in 1927 it was the Hotel Espanol and the stars and Hollywood celebrities would be able to stay upstairs and then wouldn’t even have to leave the building. After a movie shoot they would come here and relax, have a bottle of wine or whatever they wanted and—
Jake: So this was a speak easy?
Mike: Probation took effect pretty much everything went below street level.
Jake: Were there others in this area?
Mike: For a concentrated area there were a lot of speak easy in this area of Sacramento. A three block here and they were probably six or eight speak easy.
Jake: Wow, so if there were that many in this concentrated area there are other examples of that in different parts of the state?
Mike: Certainly were. As a matter of fact, the central downtown district, they have many—down there and you may want to talk to my buddy Shawn about that, I bet you know him.
Jake: Yeah. I will do that. Thanks mate.
Mike: All right.
Jake: All right.
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