{"id":240,"date":"2009-07-13T09:40:40","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T09:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=240"},"modified":"2009-07-13T09:46:40","modified_gmt":"2009-07-13T09:46:40","slug":"forgotten-cinema-saddleback-1-2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/07\/13\/forgotten-cinema-saddleback-1-2-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Cinema: Saddleback 1-2-3"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thirty five years ago, General Cinema’s Saddleback 1-2-3<\/a> opened as South Orange County’s\u00a0“hottest” entertainment destination, in a highly popular shopping plaza, that was the\u00a070’s equivalent of the\u00a0Irvine Spectrum. Yet, by the turn of the millennium, the theatre was a shunned entertainment relic, in a mostly vacant center, which was heading for demolition and redevelopment.<\/div>\n
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Saddleback Valley Plaza\u00a0broke ground in 1968, on a twenty five acre plot, located beside\u00a0the corner of Rockfield and El Toro. A “town and country” style development, the plaza was the first commercial corridor in South Orange County, serving\u00a0an area that was experiencing an explosion of growth at the time. Over the ensuing five years, the plaza expanded to include\u00a0a varied collection of retail stores, eateries, and\u00a0service establishments.\u00a0Then,\u00a0in the summer of\u00a01974, the plaza capped off it’s status, as the area’s premiere destination, with the opening of the Saddleback Cinemas; a grand opening that saw the ballyhoo of a\u00a0carnival, complete with a hot air balloon, camel rides, and marching bands.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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While hardly notable, in comparison to the multitude of quality cinemas that dotted the county at the time, the Saddleback Cinemas were a fore bearer of the “lifestyle center”\u00a0theatres that would eventually come to dominate the industry, a few decades later. Benefiting from the\u00a0plaza’s drawing power, the cinemas became an instant hit, despite possessing rather substandard amenities.\u00a0With mono sound, shoebox auditoriums, and sterile decor, the theatre provided far less than it’s nearest competitor, Edwards’ Viejo Twin<\/a>, but the cinema continually outperformed the competition, as the area’s top draw.\u00a0Within a few years, the Saddleback 1-2-3’s success\u00a0garnered a pricey buyout by Edwards, who went on to add an additional three auditoriums in 1980 (the neighboring Saddleback\u00a04-5-6<\/a>)\u00a0and a second theatre across the street, in 1984 (the El Toro 5<\/a>).<\/div>\n
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Unfortunately, as the\u00a080’s and 90’s saw an influx of larger modern\u00a0theatres, coupled with a host of grander shopping plazas, the Saddleback Cinemas\u00a0began to slip in to irrelevance. No longer drawing the large crowds of years past, Saddleback Cinemas struggled to survive on “hold over” films, which had already made the rounds at Edwards’ more lucrative venues. By the late 90’s the former “hot spot”, Saddleback Valley Plaza, had become a decrepit ghost town, on a highly coveted piece of property.<\/div>\n
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The Saddleback Cinemas quietly closed\u00a0in 1999 and the entire plaza was razed\u00a0a few years later, to make way for the $32 million “Arbor on El Toro” shopping center.\u00a0While revived as a popular shopping and dining\u00a0destination, the “craftsman” style Arbor center lacked what had been Saddleback’s key tenant, a cinema. However, there was little notice taken of the loss.\u00a0Today, the former “hottest\u00a0entertainment destination in South Orange County” has virtually vanished from record, with even photos of the Saddleback 1-2-3 practically non existant.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty five years ago, General Cinema’s Saddleback 1-2-3 opened as South Orange County’s\u00a0“hottest” entertainment destination, in a highly popular shopping plaza, that was the\u00a070’s equivalent of the\u00a0Irvine Spectrum. Yet, by the turn of the millennium, the theatre was a shunned entertainment relic, in a mostly vacant center, which was heading for demolition and redevelopment. . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}