Vista Theatre opened on October 9, 1923, as a single-screen theater. In addition to screening films, the theater also showed vaudeville acts on stage. Originally known as Lou Bard Playhouse on opening day in 1923, the cinema played the film Tips with Baby Peggy. The original seating capacity in the auditorium held space for 838 seats. The owners later removed every other row to allow for increased legroom, reducing the number of seats to 400. It is one of the remaining historic structures from the 1920s, when Hollywood was first built up and began attracting residents to its new suburban homes from areas near downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles, at the time middle and wealthy class sections of Los Angeles. Until its refurbishment by Thomas Theaters in 1980, the theatre showed soft-core porn, then to hard-core porn and finally gay porn for 20 years. It also showed gay-oriented non-pornographic films, including the local premiere of The Times of Harvey Milk. The theater is a local landmark. It has been renovated to play new release movies, and retains its historic architecture. In a manner reminiscent of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the theater's forecourt features cement handprints and footprints of notable film figures. However, the handprints and footprints at the Vista Theatre tend to include more icons of independent and cult films such as Barry Bostwick, Spike Jonze, John C. Reilly and Martin Landau, among many others. It is used in the 3am portion of Pharrell Williams's song "Happy" as part of the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, and also appears on the album cover of 1990's Lights...Camera...Revolution! by Suicidal Tendencies. The Vista appeared in . It appeared in the film True Romance, as the place where Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette first meet. The Crooked Web was also filmed here, while the 'Walls of Babylon' scenes from D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance were filmed on the site before the theater was constructed.
Theater Today
The Vista is now a first run theater, meaning they screen new movies. They are operated by the same “Vintage Cinemas” company that owns and operates the vintage Los Feliz 3 Cinema in Los Angeles. The venue pays homage to their vintage architecture and history by playing vintage commercials like or playing vintage interviews with celebrities that could be related to the current screening. The Vista has drawn many famous actors and directors to attend, host, or sometimes surprise audiences at screenings of their movies there. Anne Hathaway, Taika Waititi, Lupita Nyongo, John Cho, Zoe Kravitz, Chris Hemsworth, and Tessa Thompson are just a few who have attended screenings of their films at the Vista since 2018. In addition to catering to the celebrity cinephile scene, the Vista’s Simplex 35mm Film Projection System draws many niche LA movie screening clubs to rent out the theater space during off hours. The Secret Movie Club, La Collectionneuse, and El Cine are frequent renters of the theater for niche screenings, often including speakers before or after.
