Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph
Over the years, Los Gatans have enjoyed movies at several venues, including the Los Gatos Cinema (formerly called Los Gatos Theatre) on N. Santa Cruz Avenue.
Picture from the Past
Movie theaters and movie makers came to Los Gatos
By John S. Baggerly
The movies, that most democratic of all entertainments, came to Los Gatos about 1900 in what today is the Sorenson Plumbing building at 21 E. Main St. Moviehouses nationwide were called nickelodeons at that time because admission was just 5 cents. The next movie theater was in the Rankin Building at the southeast corner of Main Street and Montebello Way. Movies may also have been shown for a short time in the Opera House building, now Opera House banquet facility and antique shops.
In 1915, The Strand was opened on the west side of N. Santa Cruz Avenue just south of Bean Avenue and in the location of the present Los Gatos Cinema. Before moviehouse snack bars came into being, The Strand's manager permitted patrons to slip next door to the Sweet Shop, make a purchase and return. Between the late 1920s and early '30s, The Strand became the Premier Theater.
The first movies shown throughout the nation were accompanied by a pianist who knew the correct music for events such as springtime, a winter storm, courtship, marriage, birth of a child, a pursuit and a happy ending. Such a man in Los Gatos was a Mr. Chase, a pianist, piano repairman, local railroad buff, Campbell and Los Gatos postal employee, football fan and grandfather of Eddy Chase. He might attend a Los Gatos High School football game on Friday evening, catch a Stanford or Berkeley game on Saturday and a week later be viewing a historic railroad site 1,500 miles from Los Gatos. Eddy's father was a longtime local postman who delivered the Los Gatos route on horseback and later by auto.
On the subject of early movies--silent, of course--local historian Bill Wulf reports that early on, the piano accompanist was replaced by a roll of music with appropriate melodies, which arrived in the same packet with the film. The roll was inserted into an instrument similar to the player piano.
For a brief time Los Gatos had dreams of becoming a second Hollywood. Bronco Billy Anderson came to town from Chicago with the intent of making movies here. Anderson called for a horse-drawn four wheeler that might pass for a stagecoach and locals were called as extras, dressed in what appeared to be their Sunday best.
In the driver's seat and with reins in hand and surrounded by extras was Eldon Hatch, a painter and summertime manager of the town swimming pool in what was then Memorial Park. A photo similar to that of Hatch was loaned to Dr. George G. Bruntz for his book The History of Los Gatos; it appears on page 97. Hatch's daughter, Camille Craddock, sent her copy of the photograph to Anderson in Hollywood and he sent her a thank-you letter but did not return the photo. Today at her Los Gatos home, Craddock regrets having sent the photograph, which she understands ended up in a Hollywood museum.
Because of morning fog rolling over Los Gatos in the summertime, Anderson gave up on our town and tried Niles, a locality on the east side of the San Francisco Bay that some producers were testing. London-born Charlie Chaplin, like Anderson, tried his luck in Niles before moving down to Hollywood.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
