New Beverly Cinema
Kill Bill at the New Beverly.
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| Address | 7165 Beverly Blvd |
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| Location | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Coordinates | 34°4′34.42″N 118°20′44.73″W / 34.0762278°N 118.3457583°WCoordinates: 34°4′34.42″N 118°20′44.73″W / 34.0762278°N 118.3457583°W |
| Owner | Quentin Tarantino |
| Type | Movie theater |
| Capacity | 228 |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1920s |
| Renovated | 1978 |
| Website | |
| www.thenewbev.com | |
The New Beverly Cinema is a historic movie theater located in Los Angeles, California, United States. Housed in a building which dates to the 1920s, it is one of the oldest revival houses in the region.
The 300-seat New Beverly Cinema was designed by architects John P. Edwards and Warren Frazier Overpeck and opened in 1929, apparently, as a candy store. Over the years its name and purpose changed quite a lot.
The building began life as a vaudeville theater, hosting acts such as Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, and others. Later, the theater was converted into a nightclub called Slapsy Maxie's, named after the boxer and film actor Maxie Rosenbloom. In the late 1950s, the space was converted into a movie theater, with several incarnations. These include: The New Yorker Theater, the Europa (specializing in foreign films), the Eros (pornographic films) and finally the Beverly Cinema.
The theater was closed in September 1977, and changed management months later. On May 5, 1978, The New Beverly Cinema debuted a new programming format with a double feature of A Streetcar Named Desire and Last Tango in Paris. This double feature format continues to this day. The theater's then new owner, Sherman Torgan, noted, "I've always felt that this neighborhood, which is middle class and predominantly Jewish, should have a theater that is responsive to the community. It wasn't right that a porno theater was here. People in the area have come by and written letters offering congratulations on the changeover." Since that time, the theater has run a continuous series of double features, comprising modern and classic films in a wide variety of genres. It is the last continuous repertory revival house in Los Angeles. Most other American cities and towns closed their last repertory cinemas in the 1980s and 1990s.
Sherman Torgan did all of the programming for the theater throughout these years, with the assistance of his son Michael. In 2002, the theater became the permanent venue of the Grindhouse Film Festival, a monthly event programmed by film memorabilia vendors and cult film experts Eric Caidin and Brian J. Quinn. In March 2007, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino curated a month of double and triple bills from his personal print collection to promote the release of Grindhouse.
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