My grandmother grew up down the street from one such place. The Academy Theater, on Manchester Blvd in what is now the Morningside Park area of Los Angeles, east of Inglewood before the 110 freeway. The Academy was known for it's large spire that could be seen all up and down the block. My gran says that it had a light that said "preview" and when it was lit up you knew they were doing a preview screening.
That's a photo I took myself, with my iPhone. But yeah, definitely can be seen all up and down the block : )
Why Academy? When it was built in 1939, there was an outside chance of it becoming the host of the Academy Awards (it was still being hosted at hotels at the time). It was designed by S. Charles Lee, one of 400 some movie palaces he designed. The Los Angeles and Tower theater in the Broadway Theater district are also his handiwork, as well as the Bruin theater in Westwood.
The tower is Lee's response the automobile, the idea being that people down Crenshaw and Manchester could see when a movie was playing. In a sort of sad way, it points to the towering fast food signs that dominate suburban landscapes today.
The theater was under Fox's jurisdiction, like the Bruin Theater. Here's how the theater looked when it opened in 1939, the tower had to be toned down.
You can see how the theater lives in sort of a transition space. My grandma has told me about her dad catching the streetcar on Crenshaw to go to work downtown. She's also told me about her uncle's Model T that her brother would often drive. The car was becoming more and more a force in Los Angeles, and it won't be long until the rail lines are abandoned all together and freeways are built. We're about twenty years away from that in 1939.
We're also not too far away from the end of the studio system. In the upcoming decades, studios will no longer own theaters showing just their films, and stars will be free to contract with individual studios on a picture by picture basis. The entire concept of movie stars was a way for studios to show off the actors they had under contract. Fox had their Galaxy of Stars, Universal had theirs.
The Academy Theater stopped showing movie in 1976, when it was taken over by a church. Just like the Forum, down the street, where the Lakers used to play. Many of these old movie palaces have found a second life as specialty theaters, many owned by the Landmark chain of "indie" theaters. Time will tell if the Academy ever shows another movie.
As a capper, here's a quick video of the Academy Theater today, in color:
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