STRUCTURES : Aging Palaces : Multiplexes threaten the survival of classic movie houses. But the Mayfair in Ventura and a handful of others hang on.

It’s true. Movies and the theaters that house them aren’t what they used to be. For a local case in point, you need only compare any number of faceless multiplex theaters in the area with the lowly, lonely and--once you stop long enough to appreciate it--quite lovely Mayfair Theater on Santa Clara Street in Ventura.

There it sits, a humble yet fanciful remnant of Streamline Moderne design, tucked between the more stolid edifices of the Elks Lodge and Pacific Bell. Far from being utilitarian, the Mayfair has a charm that by 1992 standards is cheekily retro. It harks back to a day when theater architecture was more about making a structural fashion statement than merely accommodating an ever-increasing number of screens.

The Mayfair’s unusual organic design involves a roof that swoops up and over toward the street corner, much as a balding man who combs long strands of hair over a shiny pate. A series of holes lining the eaves of the roof--echoed in the round windows in the theater doors--suggest that the roof was patterned after a painter’s palette. The marquee juts out, propped up by a separate box office, much like a lathed table leg.

Curvilinear lines are repeated in the trim and the terrazo tile floor of the entryway, counteracting the basic building form’s long rectangular box on which one facade has been splashed with decorative frosting.

But that’s the movies for you: a seductive facade that, with any luck and artistry, will age gracefully.

From a business standpoint, the Mayfair hasn’t amounted to much in years. As of next week, “Madame Bovary” will usher the theater into a new era as an art house. Over the decades, it has hosted a gamut of formats, including first-run Hollywood films in its early years, porn, Spanish-language films, a short-lived revival house policy, and its policy of second-run double features. Next contender: art.

The neon-encrusted marquee boasted the name Pussycat Theater during the ‘80s, and, briefly Teatro Mexicano before resuming Mayfair, its historically given name. It hasn’t known great box office potential for some time.

But ledger sheets aren’t everything. Quite apart from its chameleonic programming and management turnover, the Mayfair enjoys the distinction of being a modest little gem of Americana.

Prominent Los Angeles-based theater architect S. Charles Lee built the theater for original owner Jenny Dodge in 1941, 10 years after he built his generally acknowledged masterpiece, the Los Angeles. A no-holds-barred baroque structure that took the term “movie palace” to heart, the Los Angeles still stands in downtown L.A., albeit in a less-than-pristine state, and shows Spanish-language films.

In 1927, a 27-year-old Lee designed the Tower Theater, still on Broadway in L.A., reportedly the first theater built for sound.

Lee was also responsible for the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills, the Fox in Bakersfield and the Fremont in San Luis Obispo. The Fremont was built in 1940, a year before the Mayfair, and with its dramatic swan-like plumage rising into the San Luis Obispo skyline, it makes a much bolder statement than the Mayfair.

But the two theaters have in common an emphasis on curving forms and free-flowing imagination, a look aimed at transcending the geometrical blockiness or classical/cultural obsessions in previous architectural trends. The Ventura Theater, for instance, was built in 1928, designed by architect L.A. Smith with a deliberate mixture of classical and Mission Revival elements. What the Mayfair has over it is a fun factor.

For reference, other Moderne structures in the downtown Ventura sector include the County Stationers building, at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets, and the Public Library a half-block away on Main Street. But there’s something singularly impressive about the Mayfair, in part because it represents an endangered architectural species.

During the decades following construction of the Mayfair, the theater vied for moviegoers with the bigger, older Ventura Theater around the corner. Tickets were 39 cents, compared with the Ventura’s 44 cents. But what Mayfair patrons got was a movie experience in a more streamlined, contemporary setting.

Unfortunately, in the ‘50s, the all-American practice of going to the movies began to be eclipsed by television.

Today, the small screen--especially since the advent of videotape--and the proliferation of multiplexes are very real threats to the survival of classic movie houses, many of which have been converted to concert programming (i.e., the Ventura and the Wilshire) or other uses.

For theaters such as the Mayfair, the coming attractions are not necessarily pretty, but hope springs eternal.