{"id":546,"date":"2010-07-15T06:20:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T06:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=546"},"modified":"2010-07-15T06:20:35","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T06:20:35","slug":"ua-santa-ana-from-pride-to-scorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2010\/07\/15\/ua-santa-ana-from-pride-to-scorn\/","title":{"rendered":"UA Santa Ana: From Pride to Scorn"},"content":{"rendered":"
Forty five years ago, this evening, a sell out audience welcomed Santa Ana’s “ultra modern and luxurious” United Artists Theatre <\/a>on to the Orange County cinema scene. The VIP grand opening festivities included\u00a0a pre release\u00a0screening of\u00a0the John Wayne picture “In Harms Way” and a star studded\u00a0reception, which\u00a0featured the likes of Maureen O’Hara in attendance. Amid this red carpet and\u00a0scanning searchlight Hollywood glamour, one city dignitary commented, “Santa Ana is\u00a0thankful to United Artists for bringing this wonderful showpiece to our city…It will be a source of community pride for years to come.”\u00a0Within a decade,\u00a0the city would have a very different outlook on the theatre.<\/div>\n
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The cavernous United Artists Santa Ana\u00a0had a relatively short run\u00a0as a community friendly movie going destination. Built towards the tale end of\u00a0the single screen era and\u00a0at a time when the city was experiencing a dramatic public image downslide, business\u00a0trailed off within a few years of the theatre’s opening. By the 1970’s the theatre, not to mention Santa Ana as a whole,\u00a0had\u00a0fallen victim to shifting demographics and a greater focus towards south Orange County.\u00a0No longer able to stay competitive, the United Artists Santa Ana closed on September 1, 1975.<\/div>\n
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Two days after closing out, with the family friendly “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Swiss Family Robinson”, the theatre reopened as the latest venue in the Mitchell Brothers’ adult\u00a0entertainment empire. Operated as a “porno theatre”, the newly re christened Mitchell Brothers Santa Ana, experienced an immediate change of fortune, pulling in an estimated\u00a0$1,000,000 per year in ticket revenue.\u00a0However, a highly successful porno theatre was\u00a0hardly the sort of business the city desired to be associated with.<\/div>\n
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Over the ensuing\u00a0eleven years, the City of Santa Ana filed 47 lawsuits and paid out in excess of $700,000, all in an attempt to close down the theatre. Yet, despite the well publicized efforts, the Mitchell Brothers repeatedly prevailed in court and continued to operate\u00a0in Santa Ana\u00a0until June 30, 1990.\u00a0Finishing out with a triple bill of “The First Time”, “Hot Lips”, and “The Devil in Miss Jones IV”, the\u00a0theatre was closed, not as the result of any legal proceedings, but due to United Artists (still the master lease holder at the time) electing not to renew the Mitchell Brothers’ lease. Two years later, the vacant theatre was demolished, as part of\u00a0a Horner Plaza redevelopment project.<\/div>\n
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In contrast to the civic pride Santa Ana dignitaries voiced at the July 14, 1965 grand opening,\u00a0twenty five years later, a city councilman\u00a0\u00a0remarked “I would just have to say good riddance to an ugly cancer in our community\u00a0“, on hearing of the theatre’s closure.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty five years ago, this evening, a sell out audience welcomed Santa Ana’s “ultra modern and luxurious” United Artists Theatre on to the Orange County cinema scene. The VIP grand opening festivities included\u00a0a pre release\u00a0screening of\u00a0the John Wayne picture “In Harms Way” and a star studded\u00a0reception, which\u00a0featured the likes of Maureen O’Hara in attendance. Amid […]<\/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-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","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=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}