ORINDA — Movies are flickering at the Orinda Theatre, after months of no lights, camera or action amid the darkness of a pandemic.
Crews used the shuttering as a time to clean the movie house’s carpets, touch up paintings and restore all the neon lights, some up to 80 years old, doing their best to make the theater as it was in 1941, when film fans first lined up outside, seeking entertainment and an escape from news about war overseas.
Back then, they could watch “Suspicion” with Cary Grant, “Citizen Kane” with Orson Welles and “The Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, all released that year.
Step inside the Orinda Theatre now and you can catch “Minari” or “Nomadland,” the movie that just won best picture, best director and best actress Academy Awards.
Seating remains limited at the Orinda because of health safety restrictions. The main theater is also the only one of the three screens in the building showing films.
The limited screenings are a small step toward fully reopening the 750-seat theater, owner Derek Zemrak said. Still, they’re welcome ones.
“Movie theaters are a declining business, even before the pandemic,” Zemrak said in an interview about the movie house, an iconic spot in Contra Costa County, when asked why he wanted to keep it going. “I think most people recognize that.”
“But this is a labor of love,” he added. “It’s not about the money.”
While the projectors were turned off over the past 13 months, Zemrak and a few others got the Orinda ready for the next screening, despite not knowing when that might happen, scrubbing tiles, polishing the lobby’s chandelier and installing new LED lighting in the women’s restroom.
The old building, in turn, like an aging Hollywood star penning an autobiography, surrendered some secrets.
Inside the lobby, where employees are usually taking tickets and serving popcorn in the film house — a towering structure that drivers on nearby Highway 24 cannot miss — cleaning crews discovered that what everyone considered a storage closet was actually an old phone booth for patrons.
It even featured Art Deco lettering on its door.
There was also a white panel that turned out to be an interior marquee — apparently meant to showcase upcoming attractions as movie-goers were inside the theater — that covered up blue and gold neon lighting.
That’s being restored.
Perhaps the most intriguing discovery emerged within the murals by Anthony Heinsbergen, a Dutch immigrant who painted hundreds of movie theater interiors. His work can be seen at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and Oakland’s Paramount’s Theatre, plus other places.
The Orinda’s murals feature themes of earth, wind, fire and water.
Neon light expert Greg King was brought in to look at the art and thought their paint might reflect black light, Zemrak said. He was right.
“They really popped,” Zemrak said. “The glow that came up really brought them to life.”
Not just movie fans are missing the theater. So, too, those who worked there. About 18 people found themselves out of a job as COVID-19.
“They are on unemployment,” Zemrak said. He said he hopes to bring them back to work.
This is not the first time the movie place has faced tough times. It began from the start.
The Orinda Theatre was set to open on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II. The opening was postponed for two weeks.
The theater also was set to be torn down in 1984. But preservationists and residents rallied and it reopened five years later as part of an effort to revitalize Orinda.
Meanwhile, work to bring back the Park Theater in nearby Lafayette continues, also built in 1941, including on Wednesday, when workers were testing its vintage neon signs.
“Apparently, these tubes are a rare form of glass that influences the gas in a particular way,” theater supporter Tracey Karsten Farrell said via an email Wednesday, adding: “Bringing back the neon marquee to its original beauty is part of the overall restoration plans for the theater.”
On April 7, an agreement was struck between property owner Lafayette Venture Group and a local, all-volunteer nonprofit organization working to reopen the Park Theater.
The aim is to close escrow by Aug. 31. The goal is to have the theater up and running by December of next year.
"Movies" - Google News
May 09, 2021 at 09:30PM
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Lights, camera, action: Orinda Theatre is back showing movies - East Bay Times
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