Baldwin Hills Theater to Show Free Movies

There will be free movies for the rest of the week in one part of riot-ravaged Los Angeles, thanks to the African-American owners of the Baldwin Hills Entertainment Complex and the distribution arms of Paramount, Universal and Walt Disney studios.

Beginning Wednesday at noon, operators of the three-theater Baldwin, 3741 S. La Brea Ave., said they are scheduled to show “Beauty and the Beast,” “Wayne’s World” and “Beethoven” in the afternoon through Sunday. The complex will be closed at night.

The free showings were made possible by donations of the prints from the studios, they said.

The Baldwin is the nation’s only black-owned and operated first-run movie facility.

“We feel it’s a way of taking people out of this devastating reality,” said Nelson Bennett, senior vice president of Baldwin Theater Inc., a subsidiary of the parent company, Economic Resources Inc.

Bennett believes that the ownership of the theaters is one reason they were spared the damage that a neighboring shopping center incurred. Such nearby businesses as a Wherehouse Records, Kinney Shoes, Security Pacific Bank and Thrifty Drugs were burned to the ground in the civil unrest that followed the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial.

“We feel a sense of thankfulness,” Bennett said. “There is a feeling that we were spared because the community is aware of what that facility represents to the community. But at the same time my heart goes out to those who lost it all.”