The Nob Hill Theatre

950 California St. | map |

 

Opened: October 1944. The theatre's entrance was between Mason and Powell on the south side of the Fairmont Hotel. The 1949 photo from the Open SF History Project has the theatre running an interesting double feature: "Every Girl Should Be Married" and "Don't Trust Your Husband." Jack Tillmany comments: "Too bad the movies were not as much fun as the titles!"

 

The October 20, 1944 opening day ad. Thanks to Mike Rivest for locating it.

Seating: 250. Jack notes that the theatre was "intimate and luxurious. But not a good location. Parking impossible."

Projection: It was a rear projection setup with a properly proportioned CinemaScope screen. 

Architects: It's unknown who designed the build-out of the theatre space. Gary Parks comments:

 

"It's appropriate that the Fairmont, originally designed by the Reid Bros., who would soon become the Bay Area's most prolific movie theatre architects, would eventually get a movie theatre added inside--though not designed by the Reids."

Closing: October 1964. This part of the building was later used as restaurant space as Canlis and then Mason's.

The Nob Hill in the Movies:

A shot from Don Siegel's 1958 Columbia Pictures film "The Lineup" with Richard Jaeckel in his souped-up 1957 Plymouth Belvedere. The film also features a walk through the lobby of the War Memorial Opera House. The filming was done in September 1957 when the theatre was running "An Affair to Remember" with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant along with "12 Angry Men" starring Henry Fonda. Thanks to Enzo Rossi for the photo he posted on a now-vanished Facebook page. Jack Tillmany comments: 

"The Nob Hill usually offered excellent programming, this being a fine example. Both still highly regarded and well known today, 60+ years later! This program was so popular it ran for a phenomenal six weeks, from the last week of September thru the first week of November 1957."

In Howard Hawks' 1964 Universal film "Man's Favorite Sport?" Jack Tillmany notes that Rock Hudson drives by in his sports car and makes the same "mean left turn" down the Mason St. precipice as Jaeckel did in "The Lineup" seven years earlier. Because of its picturesque location, the theatre appeared in many films.

 

An interior view: 

An interior view from the Jack Tillmany collection.  

More exterior views:

 

A card located by Jack Tillmany showing the theatre's marquee just to the right of the corner. He notes: "It's not black and white but also not quite color. But this postcard I came across shows exactly the location of the theatre in relation to the hotel itself."  

 

Gary Parks adds: "There's something appealing about this little theatre tucked away in a bigger building…. Indeed, that was the charm I found in the Embarcadero Cinema. You felt like you were right in the middle of all these Downtown high-rises—yet, here was a place for a screen respite."

A c.1950 photo from the Jack Tillmany collection. The awning at the rear of the cable car is the Tonga Room entrance. A version of the photo (without Jack's Ticket stubs) has made appearances on the San Francisco Public Library website as well as on the Lost San Francisco  and Vintage San Francisco Facebook pages. On the Vintage SF page Dean Curtis noted that the hotel's Cirque Room was designed by Timothy Pflueger and was the first bar opened in the city after Prohibition. It's still there but only open for private events.

 

A September 1950 photo from the Jack Tillmany collection show the theatre running "Night and the City."

 

Running "Lydia Bailey" with Anne Francis along with "Let's Make it Legal" with Marilyn Monroe in 1952. Thanks to TJ Fisher for deciphering the marquee copy. Kim Weatherby posted the photo on the Facebook page San Francisco Remembered but it seems to have vanished from that site.

A December 1953 photo with the theatre running "Mogambo." It's on the Open SF History Project website from the Emiliano Echeverria collection. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for spotting it and doing some work on the image. 

A February 1954 shot of the theatre running "Return to Paradise" and "Decameron Nights" from the Jack Tillmany collection. He comments: "'Decameron Nights' opened at the Stage Door in November 1953, bombed so badly, only three months later it was on the bottom half of the bill at the Nob Hill (only 4 blocks away) with 'Return to Paradise.'" A smaller version of the photo can be seen on the San Francisco Public Library website.

A detail from the 1954 photo. 

 
 

A c.1956 view. Thanks to David Rogoway for sharing it on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. He notes that at one time his family operated the hotel.

 

Thanks to Cezar Del Valle for this January 1956 photo from his collection. We're looking west on California toward the theatre's entrance and Mason St. beyond. They're running "Summertime" with Ms. Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi along with "The View From Pompey's Head." The photo was a post on the BAHT Facebook page.  

 

 

The theatre playing "Say One For Me" in 1959. Thanks to Bill Eaton for sharing the photo on San Francisco Remembered. He credits it to Kodachrome Forever.

The theatre in March 1960. It's a photo by an unknown photographer appearing on the Open SF History Project website. 

Also at the Fairmont Hotel: Elizabeth Holloway opened the Fairmont Hotel Playhouse in some space at the hotel in 1933 and staged productions at least until 1936. It's unknown if this was using the same space as the later Nob Hill Theatre. From about 1938 until 1946 she also operated a drama school at the hotel. See the page on the Fairmont Hotel Playhouse for a bit more data. Jack Tillmany comments:

"I was talking to Peter Mintun, who entertained on piano at Mason's which is the restaurant that took over the Nob Hill Theatre space. I asked him about whether the Fairmont 'Theatre' might have used the same space as the later Nob Hill. He said the Fairmont Hotel is so huge, it had/has many areas which, over the years, have been constantly changed and redesigned for whatever uses are prevalent or needed at the time, especially entertainment and dining, and they all use the generic Fairmont addresses of 950 Mason or 950 California, so it's impossible to tell which was where. By the time Peter was working there (1980s/1990s) nobody he talked to even remembered it had previously been a movie theatre and there was no evidence of it anywhere. He didn't know about the rear projection until I told him about it."

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. The Nob Hill Theatre appears on page 68.

The Cinema Treasures site has a page about the Nob Hill Theatre.

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