STYLE: ARCHITECTURE : The Last Picture Showcases

Once the pride of Los Angeles, the majestic movie palaces along Broadway have been increasingly down on their luck. Most recently, Metropolitan Theatres Corp. pulled out of the opulent Los Angeles Theater, a 1931 landmark designed by S. Charles Lee and noted for its 14-foot-tall chandeliers, French Baroque stairway and crystal fountain with marble fish.

While the Los Angeles Conservancy and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency struggle to find ways to keep the Los Angeles Theater and 11 other movie palaces alive, Gallery at 777, at 777 S. Figueroa St., has mounted an exhibit of recent color photographs. “The Final Curtain: Endangered Movie Palaces of Downtown Los Angeles,” shot by Robert Berger and Anne Conser of Santa Monica, will be on display through July 29. Says gallery director Francie Kugelman: “Many people don’t know these theaters exist. Perhaps if more people knew, we might be able to save them.”