The Movies Go to the Movies: Fade to Black

As I mentioned in my review of Fade to Black, one of the enjoyments of watching the film as a Los Angeles resident is to see how familiar locations looked thirty years ago. Including, nay especially, movie theatres.

Here are some screenshots of the many theatres (some of which are no longer with us) from Fade to Black featuring a large contingency of films released and playing in 1980:

The Mann Westwood 4 (now a Whole Foods)


The Village


The Bruin

The Avco Center



The Mann Plaza--which was torn down to build, you guessed it, condos in 2005.

The Chinese Theatre--the setting for the film's final sequence. Notice that Little Darlings is opening there soon!



Some other Easter eggs that I thought people who live or have lived in LA might get a kick out of:

Ships Diner--this Googie style diner chain was long gone by the time I moved here in 2002, but I remember that a sign for the La Cienega/Olympic Blvd location still stood for years after the restaurant itself was demolished.


The Brown Derby

New Beverly Calendar--of course, as any respected film geek, Eric Binford has a calendar for the premiere Los Angeles repertory theatre on his bedroom wall. The second picture reveals some of the programming, including Rock N Roll High School and The Last Waltz

Left foreground, next to Marilyn Monroe poster.



To the extreme right