Faded glory on Broadway

THE OTHER NIGHT I went to the movies and was transported to a world of powdered wigs and hoop skirts, a rococo fantasy of gilded cherubs and crystal chandeliers. And then the film started.

Of all of L.A.’s many hidden gems, maybe none is as sparkling nor as hidden as the Broadway theater district downtown. A dozen spectacular Jazz Age cinemas decorate a grimy six-block stretch of low-end shops. Most of the movie palaces are shuttered, and all are in need of repair. But once upon a time they were the neon-lighted hub of L.A.’s entertainment scene, where screen goddesses and guys in fedoras rubbed elbows with Army nurses and aircraft pioneers.

The Los Angeles Conservancy opens these cinema paradisos to the public every year during its Last Remaining Seats series, which runs through July 5. I turned out for a recent screening of “The Mark of Zorro” (the one with Tyrone Power, not Antonio Banderas) at the Los Angeles Theater, a Baroque confection that often has been likened to Versailles, though I think the French palace suffers a bit in the comparison. The idea behind its design, in the days before movie houses became dark boxes built to enhance THX sound systems, was to make theatergoers feel as if they had entered a fantasy world even before the house lights came down. Outside there might be a depression or world war going on; inside, one half-expected to bump into Marie Antoinette at the popcorn stand.

The walls of the Los Angeles are alive with naked nymphs and grotesque masks set in patterns almost too busy for the eye to process. It’s all completely fake, of course, painted plaster as insubstantial as a movie set, making it a peculiarly appropriate place to see a movie. The grand staircase leading to a crystal fountain is spectacular enough, but the real wonders are downstairs: the restrooms. The ladies’ room is preceded by a circular antechamber fit for a princess, with 16 private compartments, each finished in different marble. The men’s room has an antechamber too, where Joes could get a shoeshine or dab on some extra Brylcream.

The Los Angeles and other Broadway palaces -- the Orpheum, the Million-Dollar Theatre, the Tower -- are really more like cinema cathedrals: giant, elaborate spaces that generate a feeling of almost religious awe (a few have been converted to real churches). But in a city famously blase about its own history, the bulk are endangered.

Broadway, once the West Coast answer to that other street in New York, is now a down-at-the-heels shopping area that turns dark and scary after nightfall. Though the district has historic landmark status, requiring public review before altering or destroying the structures, that doesn’t provide immunity from the wrecking ball. Because of maintenance costs, modern moviegoing tastes and downtown’s demographics, it’s unlikely that the cinemas will live again as movie theaters.

L.A. gave birth to the movies. To lose the astonishing nurseries where the medium grew up would be tragic.

Dan Turner