Tower Theatre (Los Angeles)
| Tower Theatre | |
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Exterior of Los Angeles' Tower Theatre, 2008
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| Location | 800 S. Broadway, Los Angeles |
| Architect | S. Charles Lee |
| Architectural style(s) | Baroque Revival |
| Reference no. | 450 |
The Tower Theatre, at 802 S. Broadway, is a historic movie theater that opened in 1927 in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles.
The Tower Theatre, at S. Broadway and W. 8th Street, was commissioned by H.L. Gumbiner. He would also build the Los Angeles Theatre in 1931.
The Tower was the first theater designed by architect S. Charles Lee. Seating 900 on a tiny site, it was designed in powerful Baroque Revival style with innovative French, Spanish, Moorish, and Italian elements all executed in terra-cotta. Its interior was modeled after the Paris Opera House. Its exterior features a prominent clock tower, the very top of which was removed after an earthquake.
The Tower was the first filmhouse in Los Angeles to be wired for talking pictures, and it was the location of the sneak preview and Los Angeles premiere of Warner Bros.' revolutionary part-talking The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson.
The theater was the first in Los Angeles to be air conditioned.
It opened in 1927 with the silent film The Gingham Girl starring Lois Wilson and George K. Arthur.
For a while during the early 1950s, the name was changed to the Newsreel Theater.
The Tower Theater's exterior and/or interior can be seen in the following films:
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