Editor,
In the classic Frank Capra film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” town hero George Bailey (played artfully by Jimmy Stewart) is haunted by scenes of squalor, deterioration and depravity of what his quaint town of Bedford Falls would have been like without him. In Laguna Beach, we must never have had a George Bailey because we are now seeing the whittling away of what we know and love about Laguna Beach.
Last week, without so much of a hint, our one and only movie theater was shut down.
And now like an old lady who died, all the relatives who never cared about her when she was alive are rummaging the deceased’s treasures, such as the historical Edgar Payne murals. And like a wilting corpse, the vultures are descending too.
According to the owner, Leslie Blumberg, she is deluged with offers and is looking into options to “restore the building.”
Someone needs to tell the owner this goes beyond refurbishing an old building. Our movie theater was about movies and was part of the living fabric of Laguna Beach.
Until last week, the Laguna Beach movie theater was one of the oldest continually operating movie theaters in the country. Built in 1923, it was older than the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood, which was built in 1927. Our theater has its own illustrious Hollywood history, too, dedicated by none other than Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, which is why I could never understand why the owner and the city for that matter never flaunted that.
Losing our only movie theater takes from Laguna Beach one of the core elements of what makes a city a city, a regularly operating motion picture theater. But Laguna stands to lose much more than a business we will miss; it is losing its sense of identity, its small town authenticity. Our movie theater was our anchor to Main Street, which seems to have been lost on the owner. Good for her to want to restore it to its former glory, but former glory means as a movie theater.
Perhaps instead of reading offers, the owner should watch “It’s A Wonderful Life,” like Lagunans do at Christmas time (which in a bit of irony, Laguna theater manager Bob Lively used to play every Christmas). For the rest of us, we need to be a bit more like George Bailey.
Alan Boinus, Laguna Beach
