Santa Monica’s Aero Is Still Dynamic : 50-Year-Old Movie Theater Retains Its Homey Image and the Homage of Its Patrons

The neighborhood theater, with its low ticket prices and double features, appears to be going the way of newsreels and Flash Gordon serials. Revival houses and second-run theaters like the Fox Venice, the Criterion, the Rialto, the Vista, the Gordon and several others have closed their doors or changed their bookings to compete with places like the Cineplex Odeon theaters in Universal City.

But cheap tickets ($4) and double features still survive at the Aero Theater, a comfortable, mid-sized movie house located somewhat incongruously on Santa Monica’s trendy Montana Avenue. In an area where older businesses are razed every month, the Aero is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

“Basically, we are a neighborhood theater, and the people nearby are the ones who have supported us over the years,” said Joe Domenico, who has owned the Aero since 1978. “Some people around here have been coming for decades.”

Aircraft magnate Donald Douglas Jr. built the Aero in 1939. It opened in 1940 and served the general public and workers from the Douglas Aircraft plant (near the present-day Santa Monica Airport). When World War II arrived and employees were working around the clock, Douglas kept the Aero showing movies at all hours, so workers on all shifts could enjoy “Abbott and Costellos, Gene Autrys, all of that,” Domenico said. “It was a great morale-booster.”

After the war the Aero continued as the only movie house in the north end of Santa Monica, Domenico said.

As television took its toll on the movie industry in the 1950s and ‘60s, the Aero found ways to survive. Fridays became teen nights, and the Aero became a meeting place for Westside teen-agers looking for weekend recreation.

Today the major threat to the Aero comes from changing economic conditions on Montana Avenue. Rent in the tony shopping district is between $4 and $4.50 a square foot, said Alexis Scharff, chairman of the Montana Merchants Committee. Others put it nearer to $5. That’s up from $3.50 six years ago.

The increase has led to single storefronts’ being renovated, carved up and reopened as tiny boutiques. Older tenants, like the Sweet Sixteen Grill, a neighborhood fixture since 1942, have disappeared. The Aero is awfully tempting.

“The landlord, I’m sure, has been barraged by offers to sell the property,” Domenico said. “We have rumors start sometimes. A couple of years ago people were coming in here--some with tears in their eyes--asking if it was going to be knocked down, destroyed and rebuilt as something else. Some people were very emotional.”

The proliferation of multiple-screen theaters might also pose a threat to the Aero. There are only seven movie screens in Santa Monica, but there are to be 22 by 1990. The Mann and Cineplex corporations are building four-screen theaters on the soon-to-be-renovated 3rd Street mall, and AMC Theaters is putting in seven at the corner of Arizona Avenue and 3rd Street.

Can the Aero survive? Domenico isn’t sure, but he’s hopeful.

“Well, we might not be able to get new movies as quickly then,” he said. “We might be the last stop before they go to video.”

At present the theater is doing well, Domenico said. The changes on Montana Avenue have brought in new patrons, he said, and attendance has grown steadily for eight years. It’s especially good when the theater manages to book double bills of recent hits like last winter’s “Broadcast News” and “Wall Street.”

Andy Lerner, a Santa Monica Canyon resident, was there recently to see “Presidio” and “Big Business.” He found the Aero more comfortable, convenient and inexpensive than the theaters in Westwood and West Los Angeles.

“It’s nice to go into a theater that has a small-town feel to it,” Lerner said. “And you don’t have to go to a shopping mall and fight your way past yogurt stands to see a movie.”

Small-town is the term that comes up most often when talking to Aero patrons. Hollywood location managers apparently agree: the Aero has been seen in movies like “From 10 to Midnight” and “Three on a Match.” Most recently it doubled as a Cape Cod movie house in the Meg Tilly-Rob Lowe picture “Masquerade.”

Although the projection and sound systems are contemporary, not much else has changed at the Aero since 1940. The white Streamline Moderne facade remains the same, as do the marquee, the terrazzo walkway, the light fixtures and even the seats. The popcorn maker dates back to the ‘50s, as does a kitschy serve-yourself ice cream case. Lumpy, comfortable sofas line the lobby. In one corner an antique soft- drink machine still stands, but it hasn’t worked for years. The company stopped making replacement parts for it years ago.

Although there’s not a theater anywhere that still charges 10 or 12 cents admission, ticket prices at the Aero are about as low as they come, especially for a double feature: General admission is $4, and children and the elderly pay $2. The price draws people from all over Los Angeles and helped earned the Aero the title of “Best Neighborhood Theater” in Los Angeles magazine.

Domenico laments the passing of what he calls “a sleepy little street,” but he says he’ll keep the Aero open as long as he can.

“Who knows what will happen?” Domenico said, shrugging. “Venerable places like the Brown Derby have been knocked down. When I first got here, there were six or seven service stations on Montana. Now, apparently, the one next door is leaving, and we’ll have one left.

“That’s progress. But it’s also a shame.”