Formerly part of Loew’s and General Cinemas’ chains, the Stanton Theatre was a strip mall cinema that served as Stanton’s only movie theatre, until Edwards’ Village Center 6 opened in the mid 80’s. Located beside heavily traveled Beach Blvd., adjacent to a large pharmacy and series of “mom & pop” retail businesses, the theatre was only discernable via a modest, script style, storefront sign. The cramped lobby had a small, side positioned, concession stand that connected directly to the venue’s exterior box office window. The single auditorium featured low end amenities, even by the day’s standards, with stereo sound only being added in later years. Movie goers, who remember the Stanton Theatre, describe the venue as having been dark and somewhat rundown throughout most of it’s operation.   

 

The Stanton Theatre’s sole moment of notoriety came in 1969, when the theatre was one of two Orange County cinemas (the other being Newport Beach’s Balboa Theatre) raided for showing the, then controversial, Swedish film, “I am Curious, Yellow”. The seized films resulted in a case that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the film’s distributor, Grove Press, sought the return of their prints. While the case was settled by 1971, the incident resurfaced six years later, when the theatre faced a permit stipulation, that no future x-rated or un rated films be shown, before the site was allowed to reopen, following a 1977 remodel.

 

After Edwards opened the Village Center 6, the, now independently owned, Stanton Theatre quickly fell out of favor with movie goers and turned to Indian films, with limited success. The theatre was closed for good by the mid 90’s and sat vacant for nearly a decade. A frequent site for break ins, vandalism, and transient squatters, the theatre was damaged by a fire in the late 90’s. In early 2005, the entire strip mall was razed to make way for a new commercial development.