WESTSIDE COVER STORY : The Vast Picture Show : In era of multiplexes, Westwood’s classic, large-screen theaters offer fans the total movie experience.

If there’s one thing Lee Finch can’t stand, it’s going to a movie theater and finding his favorite action-adventure film projected onto something the size of a large-screen television.

“You bet I’m mad if my wife and I pay $15 to see a movie and we walk into the theater and the screen looks like it could fit in someone’s living room,” said Finch, a West Los Angeles resident and a dean at Santa Monica College.

“That’s why, before I take my family to the movies, I do my homework. I find out about the size of the screens,” Finch said. “We almost always wind up in Westwood. We know we’ll never be disappointed.”

The Village. The Bruin. The National. The Crest. The Regent. The Plaza. The Festival. Nowhere in Los Angeles--and perhaps nowhere else in the country--are so many classic big-screen theaters, featuring first-run films, so closely grouped together.

“I don’t know of anywhere like it,” said Rich Given, director of marketing and advertising for Mann Theaters, which owns six of the seven big movie houses in Westwood. “Westwood is really a flagship area for us. I don’t think you’ll ever see us carving up The Village Theater into a multiplex.”

In an era of multiple-screen theaters, where moviegoers shuffle off to screens like airline passengers to departure gates, the grand movie palaces of Westwood in some ways seem out of place--big, comfortable, sometimes even opulent. Relics of the Golden Age of cinema, when movies cost a quarter or less and every show began with cartoons, they remind us that just going to the movies can be as enjoyable as what is on the screen.

Many can seat more than 1,000 people. Several have balconies. The mural of Hollywood on the walls of Pacific Theater’s Crest is stunning, especially when the lights go down and the black ceiling and tiny lights twinkling in it give the impression of gazing at the stars.

“When you go to one of these houses it’s not just going to the movies, it’s an evening out on the town,” said Barry London, vice chairman of Paramount Motion Pictures Group.

He added: “The theater is supposed to be a place where magic occurs. When you go to a place like The Village or The Bruin, the magic starts the minute you walk in the door.”

Studios such as Paramount place such a high priority on Westwood as a showcase venue that they specially design the marquee placards that advertise films--like the large circular marquee that rings The Village.

The Art Deco architecture at most of the theaters is reminiscent of the glory days of Hollywood. The seats are wide, cozy and--at The Crest--have high-backed chairs that recline like airline seats.

“I took my kids to The Crest and they were amazed,” Finch said. “Going to a place like that makes you feel like you’re going to the movies, not the mall. If I wind up at one of the multiplexes, all I can think is how sad and sterile this is. It’s not going to the movies, it’s sitting in a box.”

The concentration of large, single-screen theaters in Westwood runs contrary to a nationwide trend. Theaters are being gutted and replaced by multiscreen complexes, particularly in urban areas. Of the 24,000 movie theaters in the United States, film industry experts say only about 10% are of the type found in Westwood.

Westwood’s rise in moviegoing prominence was built over decades, starting with the construction of The Village and The Bruin theaters in the 1930s and continuing with The National in the 1970s. As more big screens became available in such a small area, studios premiered their films sometimes in two or three of the theaters to get the biggest crowds.

But today, for theater owners trying to lure large audiences, having just one screen doesn’t make sense.

“It’s a matter of economics,” said London. “The more movies you offer, the more variety people have to choose from. But it’s the experience that suffers.”

Some in the industry wonder if the public’s taste will eventually turn back to the heyday of moviegoing. Although many people prefer renting videos to dealing with movie crowds, those who want a real movie experience will seek out a big-screen venue, industry officials say.

“If you go to the movies and the whole thing reminds you of sitting in your living room, you may wind up choosing your living room over the theater,” said Del Reisman, past president of the Writers Guild of America West Inc.

“But when you go to one of these palaces, and you see a movie the way it was intended to be seen, with the best projection, the best sound, the biggest screens, there’s nothing else like it,” Reisman said. “The experience can’t be duplicated.”

Although the elegance of the old movie houses provides a grand atmosphere, it is mainly the size of the screens that draws audiences. And the screens in Westwood are some of the largest in the country.

Some multiplexes have screens as small as 20 feet wide by 10 feet tall; The Bruin’s screen, built in 1931, is almost twice the size--38 feet by 19 feet. The screen at The National, which opened in 1970, is 50 feet by 21 feet. And The Village, the largest theater in Westwood with 1,500 seats, has a screen that is 55 feet by 25 feet.

In all of Los Angeles, only two theaters have larger screens: Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome and Mann Chinese.

Then there is the sound. All the Westwood theaters are equipped with THX sound, which is not just state-of-the-art amplification equipment.

Filmmaker George Lucas, who licenses theaters to carry THX sound, has a strict set of guidelines that theaters must meet before the sound system can be installed. The requirements include everything from the acoustics of the building to the operating noise level of the air-conditioning unit.

“Fortunately, all our theaters met the standards,” Given said. “We didn’t have to do any major remodeling to get the THX sound installed. That’s probably because these theaters were built with good acoustics in mind.”

Reisman said Writers Guild members often talk with him about the lack of good screens.

“When it’s your writing that’s going up on that screen, you want to see it displayed in the best possible way,” said Reisman, who has written for film and television.

“Movies are a collaborative process. If you have a great director, great actors, a great cinematographer and production designer, and then show the product of their work on a small screen, you wonder, ‘Why bother?’ ”

Rejence Humphrey, a manager at the AMC 7 theaters in Santa Monica, said big screens may be preferable for big pictures such as “Batman,” but he defended the smaller screen experience. Several of the AMC screens in Century City and in Santa Monica are small.

“Sometimes you want to have a more intimate setting,” Humphrey said. “The smaller screens can seem almost like a private screening room, and that may be more suitable than sitting in something the size of a barn filled with 1,000 people.”

Paramount’s London said Westwood stands alone because many of the single-screen theaters that still exist are in dilapidated urban areas. When the theaters were built 40 or 50 years ago, those areas may have been thriving but they have since decayed. For many suburban residents, settling for a movie on a small screen is safer than venturing to rundown parts of town.

“Westwood is a thriving community,” London said. “It’s in the heart of the Westside and it has UCLA nearby. It’s a wonderful place to experience the movies.”

Henri Villeg is well-versed about the glamour of the Westwood theaters. For 10 years, he’s been a ticket seller at The Village and also has worked at The Bruin.

Six days a week, Villeg sits in a glass booth the size of a Volkswagen selling tickets to moviegoers. He is busy for a half-hour before each show, then he sits and reads or watches the bustle at Broxton and Weyburn avenues, waiting for the next show.

“I love my job, and I love this theater,” said Villeg, who lives across the street from where he works. “This is where the stars come when they want to see a movie. Last week I sold a ticket to Ron Howard. They all come here. They say if they’re going to see their movie or any movie, they want to see it done right. I tell them this is the place.”

Villeg said his job has made him a familiar face to Los Angeles moviegoers, including his favorite actress.

“Once I was selling tickets, and I looked up and there was Elizabeth Taylor looking me in the eye. She is so beautiful. She comes here quite often. I’ve seen her heavy, I’ve seen her thin, but she always takes my breath away.”

Paula Stephens, assistant to the chairman of the film and television department at UCLA, goes to the movies at least twice a week. She said she won’t even consider seeing a film on a small screen.

“It’s mind-blowing to see a great movie at one of (Westwood’s large) theaters,” she said. “After you have, you don’t bother going anywhere else. Having these great old places gutted for four or six screens is really a shame.”

Stephens used to live in New York City. Aside from a few theaters in mid-town Manhattan, she said, no place equals Westwood.

“The community should make sure that these theaters are retained,” Stephens said. Given said Westwood’s classic Mann theaters will be around for some time to come--they recently hosted the first Westwood Film Festival, with packed houses nearly every night.

“We know what we have here is special,” Given said. “I expect Westwood will always be a place that Hollywood will call home.”