Studio Theatre (later Crest)

Address: 811 Macdonald Avenue, Richmond CA 94801

Date Opened: June 13, 1942

Reopened as the Crest: September 1, 1950

Closed: June 12 or 13, 1952

Circuit: Robert L Lippert

Number of Screens: 1

Number of Seats: 465 (newspaper article on opening) or 500 (other sources)

Current Status: Demolished

A "Three Mesquiteers" B western featuring John Wayne was one of the two features at the Studio the day this picture was taken in 1944. Photo from the Jack Tillmany Collection, used with permission.

The Studio, Robert L. Lippert's second theatre in the Richmond area opened on June 13, 1942 with a first run double feature from Columbia Pictures, "Honolulu Lu" and "Secrets of the Lone Wolf".

The Studio was converted from a Safeway grocery store and located right next to the Fox (formerly the T & D and California and future United Artists) near 9th and Macdonald Avenue. The Richmond Independent reported the conversion from grocery store to theatre took only three weeks and two days, a record for this type of work.  Like Lippert's first Richmond theatre the Grand, the Studio was designed to serve Richmond's wartime related population explosion.  Like the neighboring State and future neighbor  Rio the Studio initially operated on a "grind house" policy with daily changes of programs and continuous showings from 10 AM to 5 AM the next morning. This was to appeal to the tens of thousands of shift workers at the Kaiser Shipyards and other wartime related industries. 

The Studio initially advertised itself as a combination newsreel and regular theatre, a rather unusual policy I believe. You got a full hour of news and shorts (what you normally got in a separate newsreel theatre in the bigger cities) as well as a double feature. Although opening day featured two first run Richmond showings second run and even older product would be the normal fare most of the time from then on. While Lippert also operated the Grand and Times, one of those two theaters occasionally played the same program as the Studio at the same time. 

Opening day at the less than impressive looking Studio Theatre, June 13, 1942. Photo from the Richmond Independent. 

Ads for the Studio from the Richmond Independent from July 7, 1942 and January 1, 1943. Note that by the beginning of 1943 the additional one hour of newsreels had been dropped and the Studio was strictly a double feature grind house with a daily change of program policy.


I'm fascinated by some of the exploitation schlock that crept into the Studio during it's tenure on Macdonald Avenue. How could anybody (well most males anyway!) looking for some wartime escapism not resist this three unit show which featured an ape boy, a cannibal girl and some strange nudists? Now that's entertainment! The program advertised above played for one day only, Monday April 26, 1943. The photo at right illustrates how the same program was promoted at a theater in Florida. Similar promotional material probably accompanied it at the Studio.

June 6, 1943 the same day the nearby Rio opened on Macdonald Avenue the Studio advertised itself as "The NEW STUDIO", somehow enlarged with capacity for 250 more people. I have no idea how they accomplished this in a relatively small space and in a structure not high enough for a balcony! Two years later the Film Daily yearbook shows the Studio's number of seats at 500, roughly the same as the day they opened (465 or 500 according to two different sources) so the mystery remains. Note also the other major upgrades: air conditioning, new screen, new seats, new carpet, new projection equipment (again!)…and MIRRORPHONIC SOUND (whatever that was!)

More Studio grind house/open all night/daily change of programming fare from January and March of 1944 and July of 1945. Ah if I was only born a few years earlier! As a boy I could have lived at the Studio in those days!

Wild Bill Elliott, Mandrake the Magician and Walt Shrum and his Colorado Hill Billies were among the celebrities who made personal appearances at the Studio during the war years.

Lippert would sometimes shuffle his in person celebrities around between several of his Richmond area theaters during a one or two day period. This was done with cowboy sidekick Smiley Burnette (above) as well as Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell of the East Side Kids among others. At right is an ad for a Lippert sponsored War Bond drive Fiesta in the heart of downtown Richmond.

Still more ads from the Richmond Independent the Studio from 1944 and 1945. The Studio obviously didn't program many major studio "A" attractions. Lots of "B" films from Universal, Republic and poverty row distributors like Monogram and PRC as well as lots of reissues were the primary fare, all available at inexpensive rental rates. I suppose that's all in took to get entertainment hungry patrons in the doors day and night during the war years. At least there was a new show every day, the theater was open all night and the admission price was right! 

The Studio kept on grinding out films around the clock after the war ended and eventually became the last Richmond theater to feature an open all night policy. Programming remained mostly "B" films with lots of westerns as illustrated in the ads above from 1946 and 1947. In the ad at right "The Professor Creeps" in the ad on the right features the great Mantan Moreland an "all star colored cast" and was obviously booked to appeal to Richmond's by then large African American population, many of whom had come to Richmond from other states to work in the shipyards and other defense industries and elected to stay in Richmond after the war. 

This photo depicts what appears to be a 1947 4th of July parade in downtown Richmond. The Studio's new marquee is advertising a fairly rare for this theatre first run attraction, even if it is just another routine Randolph Scott western. That's of course the Fox on the right where the musical "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" is playing. Thanks to Anthony Golden for posting this picture on Bill Counter's "Bay Area Historic Theatres" Facebook page.

Lippert's Studio and Times theaters were fortunate to have obtained the very popular "Red River" for it's first Richmond engagement in 1949. The Times played quite a bit of first run product at the time but it was rather unusual for the Studio which concentrated on older and lesser fare. Note also that "Red River" was one of the rare films that didn't need an accompanying  second feature, even at the Studio. That was also the case with a reissue of 1939's "Gone With The Wind" which also played the Studio in 1949 accompanied only by short subjects.

The 1948 exploitation film "Street Corner" which dealt with unwanted teenage pregnancy, abortion and VD slipped into the Studio in 1949. According to the ad and poster above this film was apparently so hot that it had to be shown to segregated women and men audiences. Actually that was just an exploitation gimmick and common ploy for some of these sex education films of that era. The "On Stage - In Person" guest "Curtis Hayes" was in reality one of several "Curtis Hayes"'s who traveled with the film and appeared on stage during a built in intermission in the film or after the film to give a brief lecture and attempt to hustle a cheap sex education pamphlet for sale in the lobby. The "nurses in attendance at all shows" were supposedly there in case somebody fainted during the graphic birth of a baby or horrors of VD segments of the film…or more likely just another gimmick to sell a few more tickets! There were several films that used this method of hype, the most famous being "America's Fearless Showman" Kroger Babb's "Mom and Dad" from 1945.

By April of 1949 the Studio was definitely feeling the pinch from Richmond's post-war economy and the steadily increasing popularity of television. The already low admission prices were reduced even further in an attempt to draw patrons to their grind house programming, still consisting mostly of oldies and low budget "B" films, anything that could be booked for a cheap flat rental.

The Studio with it's much more modern front than it originally opened with can (barely) be seen to the left of the Fox where "Two Years Before the Mast" is playing in 1946. I'm not sure when the more modern sign and marquee replaced lackluster front the Studio opened with.

I wish I had a better picture here but in 1951 you can again see the marquee of the former Studio, now renamed Crest just to the left of the former Fox, now renamed United Artists (UA).

On September 1, 1950 after being closed for more remodeling the former Studio Theatre reopened as the Crest and continued to operate as a grind house for a couple more years. The handwriting was on the wall for the Crest and some of it's Macdonald Avenue neighbors though. Richmond's population had been reduced significantly since the war ended in 1945 and by the early 1950's television was steadily becoming a commodity for the masses. The Liberty had already closed due to lack of business in 1949 and the Crest's along with the State's and Times's days were indeed also numbered.

Ads from the Richmond Independent for the Crest in June of 1951 showing examples of it's grind house programming consisting on weekends of three features and a serial chapter, supplemented by a cash drawing on Saturday night and a free dish for the ladies on Sunday night. That's lots of entertainment for a very low admission price! Judging from the ads in the Richmond Independent the Crest operated much of it's less than two years of existence on a weekends only policy.

The Crest closed on the weekend of June 12-13, 1952, exactly ten years after the theater opened as the Studio. The final program consisted of a couple of teenage boy favorites "Man From Planet X" and "Day the Earth Stood Still"both from the prior year 1951. A "Kiddee Kartoon Karnival" accompanied the features at the Saturday matinee.

Today a parking garage for a Kaiser Permanente Medical Center occupies the entire block of Macdonald Avenue between 8th Street and 9th Street. The Studio/Crest Theatre was at the approximate location of the red arrow in this 2015 image from Google Maps. 

As it was with the Rio I was unfortunately never in the Studio or the Crest. I have only vague memories as a 10-11 year old walking by the theater, looking at the posters for cowboy and comedy movies and wishing I could go inside and see those movies. My parents unfortunately always had other ideas and before I had a chance to go on my own to Saturday matinees that mysterious little theater next to the Fox (later UA) was gone and it's structure converted into a Sav-Mor drug store. All of the structures on the block have long since been demolished. A Kaiser medical facility parking garage now stands in their place