The Richelieu Cinema

1075 Geary St. | map |

Opening: The Richelieu Cinema opened as a venue for foreign films and other specialized product  on March 13, 1963. It was on the Geary St. side of the Richelieu Hotel, located on the southeast corner Geary and Van Ness. The 1963 photo from the Jack Tillmany collection appears on the website of the San Francisco Public Library.

The theatre was in basement space formerly used by the Richelieu Casino nightclub. Here in this 1942 ad from the Jack Tillmany collection we see that they were riding the popular Latin American wave of the mid-1940s.

Jack comments: 

 

"In the early 1950s and 1960s interest in imported films reached its peak, and the most popular favorites achieved unbelievably long runs at the established venues resulting in an ever increasing backlog of titles on the distributors' shelves, so new exhibition sites had to be established. 

"Maury Schwarz, operator of the enormously successful Bridge, as well as the Rio and Bella Union, chose to expand yet further and convert the then vacant Richelieu Casino into the Richelieu Cinema, planning to launch his new venue with Fernandel in 'The Cow and I' on Friday 1 March 1963. But construction delays intervened, and it did not finally open until Wednesday 13 March 1963, even though lobby carpets had not yet been installed. Next up came a Bolshoi Ballet film, followed by Orson Welles' 'The Trial.' Obviously, diversity was to be the name of the game."

Seating: 198 as a film house. 

Projection: The theatre used 35mm rear projection. Later 16mm capability was added. Jack Tillmany comments: 

"With no space in the rear of the auditorium to house the projection booth, Schwarz chose rear view projection, with the projector located behind a translucent screen, aimed at a mirror, at a 45 degree angle to the rear of the screen. Such a system originated in New York City at the Trans-Lux Theatre which opened in December 1938, and had also been successful in San Francisco since 1946 at the original Nob Hill Theatre, located in the Fairmont Hotel on California St."

Projectionist Donald Johanson comments: 

 

"A rear projection nightmare place to work. I had to turn on a light to fix the projector and someone from the audience screamed 'turn off the fu*&%$ing light!'"

New operators:

Ed Landberg of the Cinema Guild, long time operator of art houses in Berkeley, took over the operation om June 30, 1966 noting that the decor had been upgraded and the picture would be brighter. Thanks to Matías Antonio Bombal for sharing this image of the cover of the Summer 1966 program on the BAHT Facebook page.

An inside page of the program giving the Richelieu's schedule into October 1966. Matías notes that he has a run of the Cinema Guild programs up to December 1968 but there's no further mention of the Richelieu after its appearance here.

A story about Landberg and the history of his operation appeared on page 46 of the July 4, 1966 Chronicle. It's on Newsbank. In the article he sounded optimistic but Cinema Guild didn't even survive at the Richelieu into the fall. The Chronicle's Movie Guide listings seem to follow the announced schedule, but only up until August 9, 1966 when a one paragraph item in the paper announced that Landberg's "connection with the theatre is now severed." 

Maury Schwarz seems to have taken it back, with his typical mixed bag of Russian imports, such as "Don Quixote" in Sovscope and Sovcolor and revivals of MGM evergreens, such as "Lust for Life" and "King Solomon's Mines" bridged by "Moderato Cantabile."

An April 1973 flyer. Thanks to Gary Meyer for sharing this from his collection. He was booking the house at the time for Maury Schwarz while he also worked for UATC.

Gary comments about some of his bookings: 

"My big hits were 'Betty Boop For President,' a collection of Boop cartoons, plus a 'Budd and Stoonagle' and I think the un-PC 'Kid From Borneo' with Our Gang (again) that was very funny. James Ivory's 'Savages' was a surprise hit in 1972 or 1973. I think it was the only good engagement anywhere but has a long run. A lot of great talent and I hustled rave reviews and press coverage. 'Reefer Madness.' The first week did something like $15,000 but before I could call the distributor to say we would hold, Maury insisted that I tell them 'it will hold for $250 flat rental' instead of 35%. He reluctantly agreed but later told me it was worth it because he was able to hustle bookings everywhere else."

In November 1975 Jack Tillmany, who had been enjoying success with revival film programing at the Gateway, was seeking a second venue and he took over the operation. Tillmany's intention was to use the smaller space as an alternate venue where he could offer a greater variety of vintage films, particularly pre-code and film noir obscurities, which were only available in 16mm, as well as test audience interest in newly struck 35mm prints of relatively less well known and/or foreign titles. Jack comments:

 

"'Just Imagine' (1930), a strange futuristic musical comedy, which takes place 50 years ahead of its time, i.e. in 1980, proved to be the perfect choice to dust off, yes in 1980 of course, and, coupled with Cecil B. DeMille's 'Madam Satan' (1930), which involved a wild pre-code costume party aboard a moored zeppelin during a lightning and thunder storm, resulted in lines of eager customers wrapped around the block, anxious to get a peek at the weird world of a half century earlier, which only actually existed in the wild minds of Hollywood producers. Needless to say, this was a happily record breaking event.

"On the other side of the spectrum, 'The Red Shoes' (1948), presented in 35mm 3-Strip Technicolor, also turned out a popular, frequently repeated favorite, and the obscure, nearly forgotten, original non-musical version of 'Cabaret,' 'I Am a Camera' (1955), coupled with its illustrious remake, also attracted turn-away crowds."

 

Jack recounts a visit from Ina Claire: 

 

"Legendary actress of the stage, Ina Claire, who had also done a few films, was living at the Park Lane Apartments on Sacramento Street on Nob Hill. Peter Mintun knew her quite well when he played the piano at one of the Nob Hill bistros. I arranged with Norman Dorn for a Sunday article in the January 1979 Datebook Section of the SF Chronicle, and scheduled two of her films at the Richelieu, 'The Royal Family of Broadway' (1930) which is one of her best, and '3 Broadway Girls' (1932), which is also quite good. Beforehand I asked Peter to see if she would like a private screening of either of them ahead of time and she said no, she hated Hollywood, and hated her films.

"Then, on Monday night, she showed up, now age 85, with some younger guy who I didn't know, who just bought the tickets and didn't say who she was but I recognized her. She only stayed for '3 Broadway Girls.' When she left, I simply asked her if she enjoyed the film and all she said was 'Embarrassing!' She was very High Society San Francisco, and was a mover and shaker in opening the Stage Door Canteen on Mason Street during WWII, which became the Stage Door Theatre afterwards. The photos of Ms. Claire are as she looked about 1913, age 20, and another as she appeared at age 50 in 'Claudia' (1943), her final motion picture appearance." 

 

The January 7, 1979 Datebook article can be viewed on Newsbank.

The "Birth of a Nation" fracas: 

 

Near-capacity audiences turned out for a run of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915). The rest, as they say, is history. The newspaper article below tells the whole sad story.

A June 12, 1980 SF Examiner article covering the "incident" at the Richelieu triggered by a showing of "The Birth of a Nation." Jack notes that the story made it to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Examiner and other far flung newspapers. Lillian Gish even sent Jack a letter in response to the controversy.

Closing: By the spring of 1981, Tillmany had sold out his interest in the Gateway and was planning to continue at the Richelieu, which still attracted a healthy sized audience comfortable with the venue, and interested in the offbeat pre-code programming, as well as in freshly discovered Film Noir, which have since become so popular with mainstream vintage film buffs, but aging architecture intervened.

Serious architectural issues unaddressed by the landlord resulted in problems which made the physical operation unacceptable and even impossible on a day to day basis, so Tillmany chose to shut down permanently June 23, 1981 and the site never reopened. 

Status: The building is still there but now minus its Cinema. The hotel is now called The Opal San Francisco.

A photo by Jack Tillmany that was taken in April 1966.

A photo by Tom Gray taken sometime between 1975 and 1980 that's in the Jack Tillmany collection. 

 

 

A c.1980 photo taken by Tom Gray that's in the Jack Tillmany collection.  

The doorway that had once been the entrance to the theatre. It was a post by William David French Jr. on the BAHT Facebook page.

More Information: Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.

See the Cinema Treasures page on the Richelieu for a few comments.

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