On Movie-Crazy Westside, It’s Just a Field of Screens

As surely as Westwood is the capital of Los Angeles when it comes to grand movie houses, the Westside is a moviegoers’ Mecca, with more theaters per square mile than just about anywhere in the country.

“The saturation here is very, very high,” said John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations, a West Los Angeles company that acts as a clearinghouse for film information, including ticket sales. “When you combine things like UCLA and the income status of the residents, the demographics are ideal to have a large attendance per screen.”

And there are not just multiple-screen theaters such as AMC, Mann and Cineplex Odeon on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. There are the classic Hollywood venues of the El Capitan, the Cinerama Dome and the world-famous Mann Chinese theater, where tourists can walk in the concrete footsteps of their favorite stars.

Other single-screen venues on the Westside that are throwbacks to the glory days of moviegoing include the Nuart and the Royal in West Los Angeles, where avant-garde foreign films and classic film-noir movies are shown. There also is the Aero on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, where the price of a first-run double feature is $6.

In Beverly Hills, there’s the Music Hall on Wilshire Boulevard, a theater owned by the Laemmle Theaters chain.

At the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Boulevard, pictures of silent-film stars line the walls and live organ music is played during screenings of vintage silents such as Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush.”

“There’s something for everyone on the Westside,” Krier said. “We’re very lucky to have so many great places to see the movies.”