Local News in Brief : It’s ‘The End’ for Theater
Efforts to save the Los Feliz Theatre have failed and the city’s pioneer art and foreign-language film house will close Oct. 12, its operator said.
Bob Laemmle, co-owner of the Laemmle Theatres, which introduced art films to Los Angeles in the Vermont Avenue house soon after World War II, said the company will show its last movie there Oct. 11. A private party for members of the American Film Institute will close the theater on a nostalgic note the next night, he said.
Laemmle Theatres, which rents the movie house, was unable to negotiate a new lease with a development company that bought the property late last year. A group of Vermont Avenue merchants and residents tried to rescue the theater but are now conceding failure.
“We’re pretty discouraged,” said Koki Iwamoto, owner of Chatterton’s Bookshop next door and an organizer of Friends of the Los Feliz Theatre.
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