The Visalia Fox Theatre is a landmark

movie palace A movie palace (or picture palace in the United Kingdom) is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 192 ...

and

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Visalia, California Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...

. Opened in 1930 as a part of the Fox Theatre chain, it was converted to a three screen multiplex in 1976. After a brief closure in the late 1990s, it was restored by a community group and reopened in 1999 as a live performance auditorium with a seating capacity of 1,275.

Background

Designed and constructed from 1929-30 by

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

-based architec
Clifford A. Balch
and enginee
Floyd E. Stanbery
the Visalia Fox Theatre was erected at the end of the

Silent Film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

era at a cost o
$225,000
(2.9 million in 2010 dollars). It is one of many such theaters throughout the United States and Canada built by William Fox and his

Fox Film Corporation The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film ...

, later to become

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

. The Fox Theatre opened on February 27, 1930. Opening night featured a

talkie A sound film is a motion picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, percep ...

western, a

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, informa ...

, a

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

cartoon and a

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American Double act, comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–19 ...

comedy. The theatre and the streets around it were packed for the premiere—quite a feat in a town of 7,000—an indication of the central role it would play in the community for decades to come. The Fox would remain a one-screen auditorium theater for over 45 years until 1976, when most movie theaters were becoming multiplexes. Having been purchased by the expanding Mann Theater corporation, and in order to stay in competition with two triplex movie theatres opening in Visalia around the same time, the one-auditorium was split into three screens. The ground level of the theatre was divided into two auditoriums, with two different screens, while the balcony of the theater became the third auditorium. The Fox would continue with this format showing first-run movies for 20 years until late 1996, when Mann built a 12-screen multiplex in the Sequoia Mall on the other side of town. With the opening of the new multiplex, Mann shut down the doors to the Fox after 66 years of showing movies. It wasn't very long before the Fox would be restored to its same mint condition as the day it opened in 1930.

Description

The Fox is an

atmospheric theatre An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace design which was popular in the late 1920s. Atmospheric theatres were designed and decorated to evoke the feeling of a particular time and place for patrons, through the use of projectors, archit ...

designed to evoke the feeling of being outside in a far-away place. This style of

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

was common during the

roaring twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the U ...

and into the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, when they were particularly popular as a fantastical escape from harsh realities outside. Atmospheric theatres were created to be unique experiences. Each was made with a different

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

in mind, and the interior of the Visalia Fox emulates a temple garden in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

. The ceiling is dotted with stars which flicker and glow during movies and performances to give the appearance of a clear night sky. There are elaborate "

temples A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

" or "

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

s" flanked by murals on either side of the stage, and a hand-sculpted

genie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic mytho ...

—a fearsome face between two elephants—above the

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

arch. The decadently lavish ambiance of the theater is the result of an artistic technique called

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

, a French phrase indicating an object that appears to be something it is not. Common at the beginning of the

culture industry The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...

and the

Golden Age of Hollywood Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall *Golden Cap, Dorset *Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershir ...

, this

kitsch Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste. The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation with ...

approach to construction was a simple function of finances and practicability. As the

studios A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial d ...

stepped up competition for the attention and admiration of their audiences, hundreds upon thousands of elaborate environments were erected across the world. Architects and contractors eschewed prohibitively expensive materials like high-quality wood,

gold leaf Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...

, and

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

for more reasonably-priced ingredients like

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

and paint.

Restoration

The Fox was shuttered in November 1996 and remained closed until a group of nostalgic community members known as "Friends of the Fox" took up the task of acquiring and restoring the decaying theatre. The clock tower, long neglected, was filled with years of pigeon filth; the giant six-foot clock—a nuisance to keep on-time even in its heyday—was meticulously reassembled by a local engineer and the clock's former keeper. Much of the intricate interior of the building was destroyed in 1976 by the hasty conversion to a three screen multiplex. The genie above the stage was delicately and painstakingly re-sculpted by a local volunteer using old pictures as a template. Most of the murals needed repainting, and countless flourishes and decorations needed replacing. After three years and an outpouring of support from Visalia and surrounding communities, the restoration was complete.

Marvin Hamlisch Marvin Frederick Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012) was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only seventeen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an " EGOT ...

played the Grand Re-Opening to a sold-out house on November 20, 1999. The theater remains a vibrant performing arts center and defining feature of the community. Nearly all of the Tulare County Symphony performances are held at the Fox. Films are also still shown at the theater on occasion notably classic films, many of which were shown at the theatre many years prior when they were in first run.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Tourist attractions in Tulare County, California Theatres completed in 1930 Theatres in California Buildings and structures in Visalia, California Mass media in Tulare County, California

Background

Description

Restoration

See also

References

External links