VISTA THEATER WILL REOPEN ON FRIDAY

The Vista Theater, which closed as a revival movie house last week, is scheduled to reopen Friday as a second-run neighborhood theater with a $2.50 admission at all times, its new management says. Its first bill is a double feature of “Beverly Hills Cop” and “The Breakfast Club.”

Fred Hicks, president of Studio City-based Plaza Entertainment Corp., said he bought a long-term lease for the Vista from the Landmark Theater chain because he thinks there is a definite need for a discount neighborhood cinema in the Silver Lake-Los Feliz-East Hollywood area.

Although he will not be booking the cult and foreign films that made the Vista beloved among certain movie buffs, Hicks said he plans to show what he called “more sophisticated” fare at the Vista than he can at his two other theaters, the Plaza Twin in Escondido and the Plaza in Valencia. For example, he said, he hopes to show and do well with Woody Allen’s “Purple Rose of Cairo” and Albert Brooks’ “Lost in America” for the urban audience at the Vista, even though he wouldn’t offer them to his suburban patrons.

Hicks said he has no intention of dismantling any of the Vista’s much-commented-on Egyptian-style interior decor, and said he took strong exception to comments by some former employees of the revival house that a second-run theater operator might let the 62-year-old building deteriorate. “If anything, the theater will benefit,” Hicks said, explaining that he expects to fix up the restrooms by Friday and intends to have seats repaired and the sound system upgraded in the near future.

Landmark Theaters officials said they sold the lease on the 700-seat Vista because the revival movie industry has been badly hurt by cable television and home video showings of classic and cult films and by the increasingly mainstream tastes of youthful audiences. However, Landmark said it plans to keep open its two other area revival theaters, the Nuart in West Los Angeles and the Rialto in South Pasadena.

Hicks said he thinks many of the people who came to the Vista for obscure films also see popular commercial movies. He said he hopes to retain them with the low admission price and “professional, clean and courteous operation.”

The previous management said business at the Vista was also hindered by its location at 4473 Sunset Drive, a confusing intersection of Hollywood and Sunset boulevards and Hillhurst Avenue.