New Theater Speaks to Downtown Audiences

The new twin-screen movie theater in downtown Santa Ana looks much like dozens of others throughout Orange County.

Outside, a marquee lights up the street and the blue-and-pink face of the building, throwing a glow around the colorful posters advertising the theater’s current programs and coming attractions.

It’s when you step inside and see what’s on the screens and, more significantly, hear what’s coming from the loudspeakers, that the difference becomes obvious:

“Terminando mi labor, me voy “ (Completing my task, I’m off),” a grizzled gunfighter says to a young woman after murdering his latest rival in “Cabalgando Con La Muerte”--Riding With Death.

“Mi hijo le va a extranar mucho . . . que le vaya bien ,” (My son will miss you a lot . . . be well) she answers him, in a scene that could have come straight out of 100 American-made Westerns.

Movies in Spanish Only

“The idea is to exclusively show movies in Spanish,” said Edgard A. Santos, manager of Teatro Fiesta, an upscale, 650-seat duplex theater operated by Metropolitan Theatres Corp. For Orange County, it is the newest showcase--and one of just three such theaters--for the latest in Spanish-language cinema.

The theater, only 5 months old, dominates Fiesta Marketplace, a $12-million entertainment and shopping center that developers and city officials hope will play a major role in the economic revitalization of downtown Santa Ana.

Although theater operators say there is a scarcity of quality Spanish-language films in the market, Teatro Fiesta is still managing to drum up brisk business.

Business is “good, but we’re expecting more,” Santos said, adding that theater officials plan to draw bigger audiences by occasionally presenting live entertainment. Santos would not provide attendance figures, but he says the theater “is packed” on weekend nights.

The theater is Metropolitan’s first venture in Orange County, said Bruce Corwin, president of the Los Angeles-based exhibitor.

“There has not been a new theater in Santa Ana in a long time,” he said. “We just felt that . . . the area needed a new theater, and it was a good location for us. And the whole concept of the Fiesta Marketplace was very intriguing and very creative.”

The audience in the area for Spanish-language films is sizable enough that business has not been affected at the Cinema West Coast, another Spanish-language theater only a few blocks away, according to Alfonso Olivos, who helps operate the family-owned business.

When the Fiesta opened in August, in addition to its mostly Mexican movies it presented a few Spanish-subtitled American films These included “Rambo III,” “Betrayed” and the cartoon “The Land Before Time.”

Of those, however, only the Sylvester Stallone opus drew a sizable audience, Santos said. So Metropolitan temporarily stopped showing American movies, at least until something comes along that will prove a sure-fire hit with local Latino audiences.

Santos says that Teatro Fiesta audiences prefer comedies--sexy comedies--and action films. That is evident from the ads for coming attractions at the Fiesta--films such as “El Fiscal de Hierro--Ejecutor Implacable (The Iron Prosecutor--Implacable Executor).”

Action Films

The ad for the film, with its drawing of a man aiming his gun directly at the viewer, contains this dramatic tag line:

“The city had to be cleansed of drugs, contraband and death . . . and one man could not do it on his own. . . . Neither threats against his family nor money could prevail against him. . . .”

Santos said a major problem with Spanish-language cinema is simply that the pickings are pretty slim. “There isn’t very much material in the market,” he said. The general feeling is that the state of Spanish-language cinema--and the size of its audience--is in decline.

Corwin agrees and points to the growing assimilation of many Latinos as part of the reason. “I think it’s part of the Americanization of the Latino and other ethnic groups,” he said.

But he noted that audiences for Mexican movies are loyal and for them, movie-going is a family outing. Unlike American audiences, three generations of a family will go see a movie together--grandparents, parents and children.

“They’re a great audience,” Corwin said.