Park Theatre (El Sobrante)

Address: 3798 San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante CA 94803

Date Opened: September 29, 1949

Date Closed:  February 6, 1978

Circuit: Independent (E.M. Jeha Family)

Number of Screens: 1, after November 1970 2

Number of Seats:

Current Status: Church

The Park Theatre in 1953. Photo courtesy of the El Sobrante Historical Society, originally posted in their excellent website newsletter "The Leftovers".

There was lots of vacant land and not yet much retail commerce on San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante's main thoroughfare when the Park Theatre opened its doors in 1949. 

It was big news in El Sobrante when the Park Theatre opened its doors on September 29, 1949. The weekly El Sobrante Herald devoted most of it's September 29 edition to a celebration of that event.

Eddie Galli, publisher of the El Sobrante Herald welcomed the Park to the community in a front page editorial in the September 29, 1949 edition of his newspaper. Mr. Galli also served as master of ceremonies on the same date's opening night.

The Park Theatre, El Sobrante's first and only movie theater and my own neighborhood theater while I was growing up was an independently owned and operated theater that opened on September 29, 1949 with a showing of the Universal-International musical "Yes Sir That's My Baby" accompanied by short subjects. The opening day ad at left above is from the Richmond Independent and surprisingly doesn't give the name of the grand opening attraction.

The Park was built and owned by Mr. E.M. Jeha (at left in above photo) who according to the El Sobrante Herald had operated the State Theatre in Benicia since 1940. Mr. Jeha's son Dick, then only 21 years old, was appointed manager of the Park. Dick Jeha was a genuine good guy who soon became known and liked by almost everyone in El Sobrante. He demonstrated lots of patience with some the more rowdy children and teenagers but they knew that if they crossed the line he wouldn't hesitate to throw them out either.

The Jeha family would subsequently build and operate the the Hilltop Drive-in which opened near the present Hilltop Mall shopping center in 1963. That drive-in was later sold to the Syufy circuit and has been long since been demolished. Dick Jeha was subsequently a primary partner in the Walnut Creek based Festival Enterprises circuit which operated several multiplexes in the Bay Area, including one in nearby Pinole. That operation was reportedly sold to Gulf & Western in 1986 for approximately $50 million dollars! Those Festival Cinemas are also long gone, not nearly large enough to compete in the current era of 16 to 25 screen mega-plexes! I had a pleasant phone conversation with Mr. Jeha in October 2017 and am happy to report that he's still doing well at age 91, a class act then and now!

In the above photo from the El Sobrante Herald the Park's manager Dick Jeha congratulates 13 year old Eddie Johnson who had waited in line since 3:30 p.m. on opening day to become the Park's first ticketed customer. Prior to it's opening the Park signed a contract with the local projectionists union, pretty much mandatory at the time in the Richmond area unless you wanted some serious picketing at your theater. Clarence Ramme became the the Park's first main union projectionist.

These two ads from the September 29, 1949 edition of the El Sobrante Herald show the Park's entire first week of programming. 

Monthly program for the Park from June 1950, courtesy of El Sobrante Historical Society and Dick Jeha. "Francis" (the June 11-12-13 single feature) was one of the very first movies I ever saw at the Park. About a year later, along with a few other local boys I started hand delivering monthly programs like this in exchange for a free monthly pass and became a regular at the Park, attempting to see every change of program if I could. Mr. Jeha stopped the hand delivery of these programs in about 1952 and I had to start paying (a whole 25 cents!) to get my Park Theatre movie fix. By then I was most definitely addicted to movies and to the Park Theatre. 

Initially there were three program changes a week at the Park, then two and finally just one by the end of the 1950's. Except for rare major attractions all programs consisted of double features along with a newsreel, cartoon and previews reel. Saturday matinees also included a Columbia or Republic serial chapter, five cartoons and sometimes a prize drawing in addition to the regular program. A Wednesday and later Friday night Bingo game conducted by Mr. Jeha was a popular feature for several years.

Initially small one and two column ads with only text listings of titles and stars advertised the Park's programs in the Richmond Independent. Ads above are from the period 1950 to 1952. The "Big Special Event" promoted in several of the ads was the popular Friday night Bingo game. Apparently  specifically mentioning "Bingo" was taboo in advertising at the time, probably because it might be construed as gambling. At the time film distributors enforced a minimum 28 day clearance between showings at first run theaters in downtown Richmond and showings at neighborhood theaters like the Park so we had to wait at least four weeks to see the recent releases. 

Like almost every other Richmond area movie theater the Park occasionally made a few extra bucks by slipping in some adult oriented exploitation, usually for a Friday and/or Saturday night midnight show. On this program in 1951 the nudist camp themed "Elysia" had been floating around the adult film circuit since 1933 and would continue to play theaters well into the 1960's. "Battle of Burlesque" (real title "Everybody's Girl", a filmed burlesque show) was much more recent, from 1950.  I'm sort of surprised that according to the Park's newspaper ad above children 12 and up could see this show (at midnight too!) not accompanied by a parent! Even the under 12 kiddies could see it if mom or/and dad took them? That may have a misprint since no children under 18 would have been the norm for this type of material in that era. Even though extremely tame by today's standards this was "hot stuff" back in the puritanical 1950's...not that I ever had a chance to see any of it back then! When I finally caught up with it as years later I found out I hadn't missed very much!

By 1953 television had become almost a universal appliance in American homes. Movie theater attendance was way, way down. To combat their small screen competition movie producers and exhibitors  came up with new film processes that gave patrons what they couldn't get at home...large wide screens, stereophonic sound and for a very brief time 3-D. In 1953 the Park became the first theater in the Richmond area to install a wide screen. It was a big wide, curtain less screen which was simply mounted in front of the original and much more appealing and traditional movie theater style stage, screen and curtain. All movies were then projected with new short focal length lenses in a width to height aspect ratio of roughly 1.85:1, in other words just blown up and cropped to fill the Park's new wide screen. Hollywood was rapidly adopting that aspect ratio or something close to it in shooting all their new non-CinemaScope films but those that were made before that transition ("Shane" for instance) suffered greatly with chopped off tops and bottoms of the frame. 

CinemaScope involved squeezing the image with anamorphic lenses in photography and un-squeezing those images with similar lenses in projection and used an even wider aspect ratio than the process described above, a width to height ratio of initially 2.55:1 and later 2:35:1. It also provided a brighter, sharper image since the entire film frame was used. When CinemaScope arrived at the Park in 1954 the 'Scope films were shown "letterboxed", that is filling only about two thirds of the non-masked screen making some Park patrons wonder what the big deal was about CinemaScope.  Unfortunately the Park opted out of four track magnetic stereophonic sound just as they had opted out of dual projector 3-D. The latter was a big disappointment for me (I wanted "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "House of Wax" in 3-D!) but a wise business decision by the Park's management. The complicated and problematic synchronized dual projector 3-D process was for all practical purposes dead by the end of 1954. To enjoy 3-D films and hear stereophonic sound we had to go to downtown Richmond where it remained exclusive to the Fox and United Artists. 

By the mid 1950's ad mats like the ones below had replaced the Park's text ads in the Richmond Independent. That made the ads more appealing but mostly still small in size compared to those of the downtown Richmond theaters and area drive-ins. Ads above are from the years 1956 and 1957.

Starting in the mid 1950's the Park offered a series of weekday children's matinees during the summer school break. The ad above appeared in the Richmond Independent in June 1958. Here there were two separate series, each requiring a $2.00 season ticket or 25 cents admission for each individual program. In prior years the Tuesday season ticket was sold only at cooperating local schools for $1.00 and the Thursday shows were free, providing you got a new ticket each week from one of the many El Sobrante merchants sponsoring this series. In those years there were some pretty good films (as there are in both series above) at the paid Tuesday shows but on Thursday the free features were not announced and we older kids sometimes groaned when an old Durango Kid or Gene Autry western hit the screen after the cartoons and Three Stooges comedy. There were a few pleasant main feature surprises even on Thursdays though and after all it was free and a nice way to spend a weekday summer afternoon.

A high point for me at the Park during those summer shows was going up to the projection room a few times. The regular projectionist at the time was a gruff but good hearted middle aged guy named Lee. When we asked him if we could come up he would usually say "You're not supposed to…but come on up!" We were in awe of those two giant 35mm. carbon arc lamp projectors. That would have been a dream job for me, running those projectors! 

The Park's policy remained pretty much the same in the 1960's as it did in the 1950's. Weekday shows started at 7:00 PM, weekends and holidays continuous shows from 12 noon. Children's shows continued to be offered on Saturday afternoon, sometimes with kid friendly replacement features if part or all of the regular program was considered too mature. The Park had a nice remodeling job in the early 1960's which included among other things a greatly expanded concessions area. 

In April of 1965 Park Theatre's management issued via a newspaper ad a gentle request to parents urging them to enforce a dress code for their children when they attended the Park in the evening. Mr. Jeha told me that he indeed did notice an improvement in young people's attire after this ad ran. 

In October 1970 the Park temporarily closed and newspaper ads announced that after remodeling it would re-open in early November as a brand new twin screen theatre. That re-opening took place on Wednesday November 11, 1970 but as with most single screen theaters that were divided at the time and afterwards the "re-modeling" turned out to be more of a ruining. The Park's formerly large auditorium was simply cut in half resulting in two new deep but narrow auditoriums, each with a much smaller screen. For the Park it was considered an absolute necessity to compete in the movie exhibition business at the time and indeed this sort of theater dividing was happening with single screen theaters all over the country. That and a new generation of no-frills multiple screen theaters  with very small auditoriums made going to the movies much less a special experience I think.  I made one final trip to the Park in 1972 or 1973 to see a double feature of "The French Connection" and "Vanishing Point". Needless to say I was not impressed at what was left of my  fondly remembered neighborhood theater!

By the mid 1970's Mr. Jeha had leased the Park to two former Festival Cinemas employees who continued to operate it until it's closing in 1978. 

According to newspaper ads the Park's days as a movie theater came to an end after the evening showings on February 6, 1978. "Kentucky Fried Movie", "Sex With a Smile", "The Spy Who Loved Me' and "Logan's Run" were the last four films to play the two screens at the Park. It was almost a 30 year continuous run for the Park, not bad at all for a Richmond area movie theater, but I'm sure the closing was a major disappointment to El Sobrante's residents. At a 25 year high school reunion in 1984 was pleased to find out that many of my classmates had many fond memories of the Park, just as I did. I'm reasonably sure that sentiment would apply to almost all of us who grew up in El Sobrante, particularly those of us who did so in the 1950's and 1960's.

Not long after it's closing as a movie theater the Park was leased to the first of  several churches. Currently in 2017 it's the Peniel Baptist Church. 

A plaque has been placed on the sidewalk directly in front of the former Park Theatre by the El Sobrante Historical Society. The plaque reads: "Opened in 1949, the Park Theatre was was the only commercial movie theater in El Sobrante. It was owned and built by Dick Jeha, member of a prominent local family active in the business community. More than just a movie house, the Park served for years as a site for live shows and civic and charitable events. Throughout the 1950s and '60s it was, in many ways, the heart of the town." Well said!  Photo courtesy of El Sobrante Historical Society, as shown on their website. 

Still frame from YouTube video "El Sobrante Circa 1958" which although shaky is highly recommended for those who like myself grew up in El Sobrante in the 1950's and 1960's. Click HERE to see it.

The former Park Theatre as Christian Life Center in the 1980's. At the time the Park still looked pretty much as it did as did as a theater with it's marquee and one sheet poster cases intact on the left and right sides. There originally was a box office between the far left poster case and the left set of entrance doors. Photo by John Rice.

Date unknown. The Park's exterior is looking pretty shabby in this photo but the then current owner, Peniel Baptist Church, would eventually give it a complete facelift. This photo originally was posted on Cinema Treasures by "Granola".

The former Park Theatre after the very nice exterior facelift by the current occupant, the Peniel Baptist Church. The "Park" sign above the marquee has been removed, a new paint job has been applied and a number of cosmetic changes have been made to the front of the structure. 2013 photos by John Rice.