{"id":204326,"date":"2026-03-04T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204326\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T19:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:49:08","slug":"grand-lake-theater-celebrates-100-years-as-oaklands-movie-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204326\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Lake Theater celebrates 100 years as Oakland’s ‘movie palace’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Grand Lake Theater opened near Oakland\u2019s Lake Merritt in 1926, movies were the dominant new force in American entertainment and culture, and the moguls and exhibitors running Hollywood wanted fans to be able to enjoy their silent dramas, Westerns and comedies in comfort and style.<\/p>\n

Thus arose the era of the movie palace, of which the Grand Lake Theater is one of the Bay Area\u2019s most beautiful and enduring examples \u2014 with its giant illuminated rooftop sign, famed marquee and elegant interiors, originally built in the elegant neoclassical and Art Deco styles. Surviving the advent of television and home movie-viewing via VHS tapes, DVDs and streaming, the Grand Lake continues to operate as a place where people can come together to watch movies on a big screen \u2014 as movies were made to be watched.<\/p>\n

To celebrate its century of operations, the theater is offering a free screening of beloved classic films all day Wednesday.<\/a> You can see \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain\u201d and \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d starting at 1:15 and 1:30 p.m., respectively. You can also see two rarely-screened, early Disney animated films, \u201cFantasia\u201d and \u201cSnow White and the Seven Dwarves,\u201d starting at 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"Judy“The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland, is screening at the Grand Lake Theatre for its anniversary on Wednesday, March 4, 2026.(Mgm\/Kobal\/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The theater continues its landmark birthday celebrations with architectural tours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Grand Lake Theater opened this week in March 1926, during a period when hundreds of movie palaces were opening around the United States every year. The Grand Lake originally operated as a venue for vaudeville entertainment and silent-film showings on a single screen, with musical accompaniment provided by a large Wurlitzer Hope Jones Unified Orchestral Organ. The theater soon became a part of the Fox Theater Chain and accommodated the arrival of sound movies \u2014 or \u201ctalkies\u201d during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

In 1980, life-long movie fan Allen Michaan, owner of Renaissance Rialto, Inc. purchased the lease for the theater and began the process of updating it in\u00a0 various ways and restoring it to its original glory. The updates included installing state-of-the-art projectors and subdividing and expanding the building, so that it could hold a main auditorium and three smaller screens, including with old-style Egyptian and Moorish-style decor.<\/p>\n

\"MovieMovie director Ryan Coogler is photographed at King\u2019s Boxing Gym in Oakland on Nov. 17, 2015. Coogler directed the new boxing movie, \u201cCreed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michaan purchased the building in August 2018, several months after Oakland-born, \u201cFruitvale Station\u201d and \u201cCreed\u201d filmmaker Ryan Coogler greeted fans<\/a> to a screening of his superhero film \u201cBlack Panther\u201d at the theater.<\/p>\n

Coogler stood on stage in the main auditorium, where he said he came to watch movies while growing up in the East Bay. \u201cI just wanted to swing by and say thank you to you guys for taking time on a Thursday night to come see the film,\u201d Coogler said at the time.<\/p>\n

Coogler\u2019s blockbuster new film \u201cSinners\u201d also is currently playing at the Grand Lake Theater<\/a> in 70mm and goes into the March 15 Academy Awards ceremony with a record 16 nominations, including for best picture and best director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Grand Lake Theater opened near Oakland\u2019s Lake Merritt in 1926, movies were the dominant new force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,184,7,332,967,418,181,23,64332,1399,143,145,144,420],"class_list":["post-204326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-entertainment","tag-history","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-movie-reviews","tag-movies","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}