Address: 10070 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito CA 94530
Architect: William B. David
Date Opened: December 25, 1937
Date Closed (as single screen theatre): March 31, 1963
Date Reopened (with 2 screens) as Cerrito Speakeasy: November 1, 2006
Date Closed as Cerrito Speakeasy: May 2009
Date Reopened as Rialto Cinemas Cerrito: July 15, 2009
Circuit: Blumenfeld, Independent, Catherine & Kyle Fisher, Rialto Cinemas
Number of Screens: 1, later 2
Number of Seats: 644 (single screen), later 237 (2 screens)
Current Status: Open
Website: http://www.rialtocinemas.com/index.php?location=cerrito
Phone: 510-273-9102
The CerritoTheatre, a joint venture between Harry Goldenberg and Blumenfeld Theatres originally opened on Christmas Day 1937. Boxoffice magazine said it was built for a cost of $150,000. The Cerrito had 644 seats and included an extra charge loge section in the rear of the auditorium. Opening attractions were "Thin Ice" with Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power and "Hoosier School Boy" with Anne Nagel and Mickey Rooney. Illustration and ad above as published in the Richmond Independent on December 24, 1937.
Fox's musical "Thin Ice" and Monogram's depression era drama "Hoosier Schoolboy" was the inaugural double feature program at the New Cerrito Theatre.
Ads from the Richmond Independent from March and December of 1942 showing examples of the Cerrito's double feature programming during the World War II years.
This early 1944 flyer shows weekly programs at both the Cerrito and Blumenfeld's sister El Cerrito theater the Vista which was opened in November 1943. People went to the movies often during these pre-television years so three program changes a week were common in small to medium sized city theaters as well as neighborhood houses in the larger cities.
Sample programs from the Cerrito from July 1948, as advertised in the Richmond Independent. "Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) and the "Texas"/"Arizona" (1941/1940) combination were reissues, the other three features being more recent product.
More ads for the Cerrito from the Richmond Independent from 1949 and 1951. By 1951 (right ad) competition from television was causing many theaters to reduce admission prices and come up with other gimmicks (prize drawings, free dishes, etc.) to drag people away from their TV's.
Blumenfeld Theatres apparently sold or leased the Cerrito to an independent operator in 1956. The "New Cerrito" advertised itself as being under new management as did the nearby formerly Blumenfeld drive-in, El Cerrito Motor Movies. Movies were now shown weekends only, Friday through Sunday.
In September 1962 the Cerrito was once again open seven days a week and calling itself "Cerrito Fine Arts" in ads and was featuring sex oriented foreign and domestic adult films. The theater's name was soon changed to "Cerrito Art" but the adults only policy remained the same. As you can see by the ad on the far right at weekend matinees there were children's shows featuring Walt Disney and other family features as well as Three Stooges shorts and cartoons, all approved by the Berkeley Motion Picture Council. Hopefully the projectionist never got the reels for the adult & children's films mixed up at these matinees, not that the kids would have minded if he did!
The Cerrito Art's operators dug into the vaults for some of the "adult entertainment" programs mentioned above. "One Summer of Happiness" was a 1951 Swedish import with a famous nude bathing scene which had been floating around both adult and mainstream theaters for years. I remember both Richmond's UA & El Sobrante's Park playing it around 1954. The nudist documentary co-feature "Isle of Levant" ("in Glorious Sun-tanned Color") was originally released in 1956. This wasn't unusual policy for theaters that played adult films. Some sex oriented exploitation films had lives that lasted from the 1930's well into the 1960's and beyond.
Apparently there weren't that many "art" lovers in El Cerrito in 1962 (or did some of the local "blue noses" complain?) so the Cerrito's experiment with adult entertainment came to an end only a couple of months after it began. The ad above from the Richmond Independent is from November 9, 1962, two days after the Cerrito's return to a mainstream films policy.
By January 1963 the Cerrito was obviously struggling to get patrons in the doors, evidenced by a back to weekends only operation and a one dollar admission price for the entire family on Friday nights. The children's shows on Saturdays and Sundays continued, usually with family friendly replacement features for the more mature evening attractions.
Based on the Cerrito's newspaper ads in The Independent it appears that the last films to be shown at the Cerrito before closing as a single screen theater were Walt Disney's "Big Red" (1962) and a reissue of the 1950 Bob Hope-Lucille Ball comedy "Fancy Pants". This program played the Cerrito Friday to Sunday, March 29 to 31, 1963.
In 1966 Harry Goldenberg (the Cerrito's original partner with Blumenfeld
Theatres) sold the Cerrito to the Keifer family who used the former
theater as a furniture store and furniture warehouse for several
decades. The above photo is from the 1960's or 1970's.
A sad looking former Cerrito stands vacant in 2002 but help was on the way thanks to the City of El Cerrito Redevelopment District and guidance from the Friends of the Cerrito Theatre. Photo credit: Friends of the Cerrito Theatre website.
When the Cerrito building came back on the market in the early 2000's the City of El Cerrito Redevelopment District working with the Friends of the Cerrito Theatre were able to purchase the building and bring it back to it's former use as a movie theatre. After being dark as a movie theatre for over 40 years the Cerrito reopened as the Cerrito Speakeasy Theatre on November 1, 2006 featuring food and beverage service as well as movies. Catherine and Kyle Fisher became the first operators of the revived Cerrito. The Fishers who also ran the Parkway Speakeasy Theatre in Oakland with the same food/drink/movies policy had financial problems with both theaters and were unable to make rent payments to the City of El Cerrito so the theatre closed once again in May of 2009.
Fortunately this time it was a brief closing for the Cerrito and on July 15, 2009 it opened it's doors once again, this time as Rialto Cinemas Cerrito, operated by Rialto Cinemas, a small chain with theaters in Berkeley and Santa Rosa California. It appears to be a very successful operation.
Three above 2014 photos above by John Rice
Some of this information in this post and the 2002 photo of the boarded up Cerrito are from the Friends of the Cerrito website which you can visit RIGHT HERE. You can also visit the Rialto Cerrito Cinema's own website HERE
First of all, thanks for a great site.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I grew up in El Cerrito -
wife on Elm Street ECHS - 1964 and
me on Santa Fe Ave and Colusa Ave.
ECHS - 1962. (my sister was ECHS
class of 1958)
My wife and I for some reason, were
talking about movie theaters that have
come and gone. We started the talk with
those we used to go to in Fremont - moved
there in 1969.
I only knew the Oaks and Albany theaters -
but my wife said she used to go to a theater
called the Castro - which she thought was
on San Pablo Avenue near The Plaza -
which was built on the Castro Adobe land.
Do you recall a Castro Theater?
Again, thanks for a great walk down memory
lane. My "Nana" (and my grandpa that I was
named after who died before I was born) owned
all the land on the northeast corner of Portland
in Albany - Flying A gas station, Contact Club,
their home, some houses on Kaines, etc.
UPDATE
Mystery solved. Looking through your site I found info on
the Cerrito Theater. Asked the wife if that may be what she
remembers as the "Castro Theater?"
She said yes, that was probably what I was thinking.
Take care - Domenic