100 years ago next month, San Francisco’s Nasser family opened the Castro Theatre: an event that came to define an era and a neighborhood. A century on, it is the longest continually family-owned movie palace in the U.S. To mark the occasion, the Nasser Family in partnership with Another Planet Entertainment is scheduling a week of film screenings featuring iconic movies from each decade of the Castro’s history, June 3–12, some family and children’s programming, and a “Happy Birthday” special event on June 22—the actual date of the Castro’s opening day in 1922—with movies filmed in San Francisco. Concurrent with the centennial celebrations, the LGBTQ Frameline Film Festival will return after a two-year hiatus.
“It continues to be my family’s honor and privilege to own the Castro Theatre,” said Steve Nasser, of Bay Properties, Inc. “After two years of COVID-forced closures, it is such a joy and a pleasure to reopen and to work with the very best, and most sensitive local producers around, Another Planet Entertainment.” Steve and Elaine Nasser Padian are the third generation of this family to lead the company, founded by their grandfather Abraham and his sons having conceived and constructed the Castro Theatre in 1922.
“The Castro is much more than a theatre,” said Mary Conde, Senior Vice President for Another Planet who oversees the overall Castro Theatre Project. “An LGBTQ touchstone, a film-lovers icon, a community landmark and an architectural gem, the Castro is unique. Another Planet is honored to restore, renovate, and revitalize the Castro as a home to everything we’ve come to love about the Castro, and expand its audience.”
Tickets for the special week of screenings are $16 weekdays and $18 weekend with the morning youth programming at $10/adult $6/youth up to age 12 and may be purchased online at https://tinyurl.com/3denv6uv
While there are no vaccine or masking requirements for entry, all attendees are encouraged to have been fully vaccinated and boosted. Masking and adherence to social distancing and proper hygiene protocols are strongly encouraged.
Another Planet Entertainment is partnering with Bay Properties, Inc., owners of the Castro Theatre, on an evolution and preservation of San Francisco’s world-renowned entertainment and LGBTQ community landmark. With a long-standing history of working to preserve and improve historic buildings such as the Fox Theater in Oakland, the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Another Planet seeks to enhance the Castro Theatre by implementing significant improvements to the sound, lighting, production, HVAC, ADA access, and the theatre’s trademark marquee, among other facets of the building.
The Nasser brothers got their start with a nickelodeon in 1908 in the Castro neighborhood. The Castro was designed by then-unknown architect Timothy Pflueger, who later designed the Paramount Theatre, the Pacific Cost Stock Exchange, the Pacific Telephone Building, and the Top of the Mark on Nob Hill. Pflueger chose an exterior design reminiscent of a Mexican cathedral. The large windows, the shape of the roof line of the front wall of the building, and the plaster wall decorations all combine to convey a look of grandeur in keeping with the large scale of many theatres built in the 1920s. Sound was installed in 1928. The marquee and the vertical neon sign are additions from the late 1930s, but the glazed tile street foyer, ornate tent-like box office, and the wooden doors are all from the early 1922.
The Castro’s interior is very diverse. One can sense Spanish, Asian, and Italian influences. The auditorium seats over 1400 in a fantasy setting that is both lavish and intimate. Both side walls of the auditorium are covered with classic motif murals that were created in a wet plaster process called scrafitto. This type of wall decoration is rare. On either side of the stage and screen (the small original screen has long ago been replaced with a large screen) are large organ grills. The Art Deco chandelier dates from 1937 when a small electrical fire destroyed the original parchment fixture. It is one of the few remaining movie palaces from the 1920s that has been in continuous operation under same family ownership.
Below is the schedule of Castro Theatre 100th Special Film Screenings
Friday, June 3: Decade of the 1920s
• Oh Doctor (2:45 pm) Reginald Denny & Mary Astor
• The Mark of Zoro (4:30 pm) Douglas Fairbanks, Noah Beery, Marguerite De La Motte, Robert McKim
• Across to Singapore (6 pm) Joan Crawford, Ramon Navarro, Ernst Torrence
• The Lodger (7:45 pm) Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen, Ivor Novello
• Sunrise (9:45 pm) Janet Gaynor, George O’Brian, Margaret Livingston, Harold Schuster, Bodil Rosing
Saturday, June 4: Decade of the 1930s
• Bright Eyes (10:30 am) Shirley Temple
• Pardon Us (1 pm) Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy
• Thin Man (2:45 pm) William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Nat Pendleton
• The Adventures of Robinhood (4:45 pm) Errol Flynn; Olivia de Havilland; Basil Rathbone; Claude Rains; Una O’Connor
• The Women (7 pm) Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard
• Night at the Opera (9:30 pm) Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle
Sunday, June 5: Decade of the 1940s & Special Family Feature
• Lion King (10:30 am) The Disney children’s classic, not 1940s
• Philadelphia Story (2:30 pm) Cary Grant; Katharine Hepburn; James Stewart; Ruth Hussey
• The Lady from Shanghai (5 pm) Orson Wells, Rita Hayworth, Everette Sloan, Glen Anders, Erskine Sanford
• Mildred Pierce (7 pm) Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Eve Arden, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth
• Casablanca (9:30 pm) Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorrie, Paul Henreid, Madeleine LeBeau
Monday, June 6: Decade of the 1950s
• From Here to Eternity (4 pm) Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra
• Some Like it Hot (6:30 pm) Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon
• All About Eve (9:15 pm) Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Marilyn Monroe, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Thelma Ritter, Hugh Marlow
Tuesday, June 7: Decade of the 1960s
• Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid (2 pm) Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katherine Ross
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (4:30 pm) John Wayne, James Steward, Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, Vera Miles
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s (7 pm) Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney
• The Magnificent 7 (9:30 pm) Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson
Wednesday, June 8: Decade of the 1970s
• Star Wars: A New Hope (4 pm) Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guiness
• Chinatown (6:30 pm) Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Diane Ladd
• The Godfather (9:20 pm) Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Diane Keaton
Thursday, June 9: Decade of the 1980s
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (4 pm) Harrison Ford; Karen Allen; Paul Freeman; Ronald Lacey; John Rhys-Davies; Denholm Elliott
• Amadeus (6:30 pm) F. Murray Abraham, Tom Huice, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Ry Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay
• Blade Runner (9:20 pm) Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
Friday, June 10: Decade of the 1990s
• Casino (1 pm) Robert De Niro; Sharon Stone; Joe Pesci; Don Rickles; Kevin Pollak; James Woods
• Rush Hour (4:30 pm) Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Julia Hsu, Elizabeth Pena, Ken Leung, Clifton Powell
• American Beauty (6:45 pm) Kevin Spacey; Annette Benning; Thora Birch; Mena Suvari; Wes Bentley; Allison Janney; Peter Gallagher; Chris Cooper
• The Bird Cage (9:30 pm) Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, Dianne Wiest
Saturday, June 11: Decade of the 2000s
• Ironman (1 pm) Robert Downey Jr. Terrence Howard; Jeff Bridges; Shaun Toub; Gwyneth Paltrow
• The Royal Tenenbaums (4 pm) Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelica Huston
• No Country for Old Men (7 pm) Tommy Lee Jones; Javier Bardem; Josh Brolin
Sunday, June 12: Decade of 2010s
• Black Panther (1 pm) Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman
• A Star is Born (3:50 pm) Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Anthony Ramos
• Bohemian Rhapsody (6:30 pm) Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (9:15 pm) Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley
Wednesday June 22: Actual Opening Date in 1922, Movies Filmed in San Francisco
https://apeconcerts.com/venues/castro-theatre/
Published on May 19, 2022
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