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Pictured below is a 1951 photo of Buena Park’s Valuskis Theatre (once known as the Grand); a venue with a sorted history that included one of the darkest moments in Orange County cinema.

 

On May 19, 1951, a ten year old girl, Patty Jean Hull, was abducted from the theatre and murdered by a convicted sex offender, Henry Ford McCracken. The search for Hull, and eventual murder trial of McCracken, would go on to become one of the earliest, nationally televised, media circuses, setting the groundwork for future national sensations, such as the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald and O.J. Simpson murder trial. While more the result of timing (i.e. television emerging as a popular media form) than any shortcoming on the theatre’s part, the murder would prove to be a turning point for the Valuskis. 

 

The formerly popular Valuskis Theatre would never recover from the massive negative publicity and was soon forced in to showing Spanish language films, with limited success. By the 1970’s, the theatre would turn to pornographic booking and became part of the Pussycat Theatre circuit. As an adult cinema, the theatre was the site of frequent vice raids and suffered through a series of well publicized court cases, throughout the 70’s; most notably a battle with a local woman, who sued on the basis of being “offended and outraged”, utilizing the California “Red Light Abatement Act”. Despite coming out victorious in these cases, with the emergence of home video, and facing stiff competition (no pun intended) from near bye Studio Adultland, the theatre was shuddered in the mid  80’s and razed by the 1990’s. Today, a Ford car dealership sits on the Beach Blvd. site.