Wednesday, April 16, 2008 – The Dark Capitan

The El Capitan Theater, 6838 Hollywood Boulevard – opened in 1926 as "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama." The Churrigueresque Spanish colonial exterior was designed by the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements, and the East Indian interior was the work of G. Albert Lansburgh. It was later completely remodeled in the moderne style - in 1941 "Citizen Kane" debuted here. Richard Nixon delivered his Checkers Speech from the theater in 1952, then a NBC studio. Disney finally purchased it, restored it to its 1926 glory, and reopened it in 1991 with the premiere of "The Rocketeer." It's a tad spooky.

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Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik