Jerry Lewis Cinema (later Moeser Lane Cinemas, El Cerrito Cinemas) (El Cerrito)

Address: 10624 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito CA

Date Opened: August 2, 1972

Date Closed: June 19, 1982

Circuit/Owner: Network Cinema/Jerry Lewis Cinemas, Transcontinental Theatres, Associated Theaters, one other unknown operator.

Number of Screens: 2 

Number of Seats: 800 (400 in each auditorium, approximate)

Current Status: Closed

A franchised two screen Jerry Lewis Cinema was opened on August 2, 1972 in a relatively small shopping center anchored by Safeway Grocery and Payless Drugs at San Pablo Avenue and Moeser Lane in El Cerrito. 

1981 photo of this theater, then known as El Cerrito Cinemas from the Jack Tillmany Collection, used with permission.

This ad in the Oakland Tribune on August 1, 1972 announced the  next day's grand opening of El Cerrito's Jerry Lewis Cinemas. Apparently Mr. Lewis was too busy elsewhere to make a promotional appearance as he had done at the openings of several other of his franchised theaters. That may be just as well since another franchisee reported that Lewis showed up hours late and drunk for his theater's opening ceremony and cussed at a kid! Way to go Jerry!

"Hannie Caulder" (spelled wrong as "Coulter" in the Oakland Tribune ad) with Raquel Welch and "Fuzz" with Burt Reynolds were the two main features in the Jerry Lewis Cinemas grand opening double feature programs. 

The Jerry Lewis Cinema name didn't last long. Only a little more than a month later, on September  13,1972 the theater's name was changed to  El Cerrito Cinema I & II. According to Boxoffice magazine Robert L. Lippert's Transcontinental Theatres under the supervision of Chuck Boening then ran it as a non Jerry Lewis theater for another nine months before closing it in June of 1973. By then the entire Jerry Lewis circuit had shut down, leaving most of it's franchisee's frustrated, angry and broke`

On August 27, 1975 the former Jerry Lewis Cinemas and El Cerrito Cinema I & II was reborn with a new name, as the Moeser Lane I & II Cinemas. Rudy Ray Moore, the star of one of the theater's main feature attractions "Dolemite" made an in person appearance on opening night.     

Ads for the Moeser Lane Cinemas from the Richmond Independent from July 1976, just a couple of months before the theater closed once again. That event happened on September 30, 1976, just 13 months after the grand re-opening.

 

After being dark for almost five years and after some substantial renovation from Associated Theaters Inc. which included larger screens and Dolby Stereo this theater came back to life for a forth time on June 26, 1981 and was once again known as the El Cerrito Cinemas. "Excalibur" and a re-issue of Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" were the grand opening feature attractions. Photo above is from the Cinema Treasures website, as posted  by"dallasmovietheaters".

Sadly the Associated Theaters venture was also doomed to failure. A few days short of just one year after the re-opening, on June 19, 1982 the theater closed again, this time for good. "Death Trap" and "Wrong Is Right" in Cinema I and "Some Kind of Hero" and "Fighting Back" in Cinema II were the forgettable closing double feature programs. The former theater space in the shopping plaza was divided into two retail spaces. On their website the groups Friends of the Cerrito Theatre says a laundromat and and an H & R Block Tax Service are are (at the time of this writing) in the space formerly operated by the theater.

Many thanks to "dallasmovietheaters" for much of the information and reopening and closing dates on the after Jerry Lewis Cinemas operation of this theater, based on his posts on the Cinema Treasures website. 

Click HERE to read an interesting essay on the ill fated Jerry Lewis Cinema scheme. "If you have as little as $15,000 to (initially) invest and can push a button you can operate a theatre!" they told their prospective mostly small time investors! It was supposed to be a viable operation with as little as two participants, a mom and pop operation for instance. Projection was via reconditioned equipment with xenon lamps and 6000' (one hour capacity) reels which usually meant only one automatic changeover per feature. The initial programming policy was family friendly with R rated films prohibited although that restriction seemed to fall by the wayside later on. It turned out that the whole scheme wasn't nearly as easy or lucrative as it sounded though and bankruptcy for the corporate parent Network Cinema Corporation, Jerry Lewis himself and many now disgruntled former show business wannabees in just a few years was inevitable. By 1980 it was all over! For all concerned I guess it sounded like a good idea at the time!