Screen Mirror (Jun 1930 - Mar 1931)

SAN DIEGO SECTION States Cafe 1016 Third Street Opposite U. S. Grant Hotel — a Distinctive Eating Place Noonday Lunch — 40c Evening Dinners — 50c and 75c Counter Service OR Private Booths CHANGE IN FOX WEST COAST ORGANIZATION IN SAN DIEGO Under a new plan worked out by Harry L. Hartman, southern division manager of Fox West Coast Theatres, the Fox Theatres in San Diego are to operate as separate entities. This means that each of the Fox Theatres is under individual management, free to work on their own, and responsible only to Harry Hartman. In order to effect this arrangement, C. C. Chellew was brought to San Diego from Long Beach to take over the new Fox Theatre at Seventh and B. This theatre is the biggest and finest in San Diego and in the Southland. It is considered one of the key entertainment theatres in the country. Therefore, the individual management of the playhouse calls for an experienced and enterprising showman. Chellew has been associated with the theatre business all his life and has lately come to the West Coast after a long association with Fox Theatres in the East. Robert C. Cannom now has the managership of the Fox Orpheum, coming there from the Fox California. He has been in San Diego for little over a year now and is experienced in the theatre business. In addition to his duties as manager of the Fox Orpheum he also has control of all the radio activities of the San Diego Fox theatres. J. Lawton Kendrick came to San Diego to take charge of the Fox California. Under his managership the theatre has entered a three changes a week policy with vaudeville on Saturday and Sunday. The weekly price is twenty-five cents. On week ends it is thirty-five cents. The suburban theatres are also listed as independent theatres. Under this idea, the Fox North Park remains under the direct management of Fred McSpadden, who has been in charge there for a little less than a year. The Fox Egyptian is under the management of Franklin Ellidge, formerly connected with the Fox California and whose work merited the promotion to managership. The Fox Fairmount remains under the management of Gilmon Cass who has been in charge of this Fox theatre since the new Fox was opened. The Fox Balboa is under the managership of J. D. L’Esperance, who has enjoyed success in the handling of this playhouse. O TINY TOWN IN STUDIO BEING RECONSTRUCTED Signs of spring are in the air on the “back lot,” at the Paramount studios in Hollywood. It is just as though the city council, in the little town that so often changes its appearance, has ordered a clean-up, paint-up campaign. Paramount’s back lot Main street is being prepared for some of the sequences in “Skippy,” film version of Percy Crosby’s famous child character in which Jessie Cooper will play the title role. Coogan’s Brother Acts Robert, kid brother of Jackie Coogan, will play the part of Sooky, bosom pal of Skippy, and Mitzi Green is the girl in the case. Time after time, the complexion of the streets on the back lot has been changed. Buildings have been torn down and reconstructed. From a typical mid-western setting the whole character of the street will be changed in a short time, to become more metropolitan. Again it has shifted its character, becoming a boom mining town, with a lot of brightly painted signs and hitching rails for the horses. Like Thriving City Today, the chief business places in Paramount’s street on the back lot are a beauty parlor, vaudeville theatre, tobacco warehouse, corner drug store, book shop, restaurant and a bank, also on a corner. It is to be said in favor of the “streets” on the back lots in the studios, that they can control their own parking arrangements and traffic. They can build city halls or libraries without asking the people to vote on a bond issue. Just because some writer puts one in a play is sufficient reason for the enterprise. Altogether, they are ideal communities. When there is no business the people all move out. When things pick up, they come back again, in new clothes and new characters. 6— ■■ — ■ qs ORPHEUM COMING SOON