Only in L.A.
The Silent Movie Theatre is the last fully operational silent movie venue in the U.S. and shows Hollywood’s earliest releases as well as the occasional talkie. Read about the theater’s fascinating and lurid history -- including bathtub film preservation, rough trade and murder -- on the Web site. 611 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 655-2510, www.silentmovietheatre.com.
Vineland Drive-In is the Los Angeles’ last active drive-in. The mildly Googie architecture of this four-screen arena is somewhat dulled by the industrial area. 443 N. Vineland Ave., city of Industry, (626) 961-9262 .
Occasional screenings are held at C-level, a media-lab located down an alley and behind a red door in Chinatown. (213) 617-0978, www.c-level.cc.
Echo Park Film Center hosts Super-8 home movies, obscure 1950s sci-fi, digital video contests and more at this hub for “neighborhood cinephiles and celluloid revolutionaries.” 1200 N. Alvarado St., Echo Park, (213) 484-8846, www.echoparkfilmcenter.org.
Cheap seats can be had at the Vine: two soft hits from two months back (e.g., “City by the Sea” and “Red Dragon”) for five bucks. 6321 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 463-6819.
The L.A. Conservancy offers Saturday-morning walking tours of Broadway’s National Register Historic Theater District. These pre-WWII movie palaces -- Orpheum, Los Angeles, Palace, Million Dollar and others -- are stunningly opulent, even in their various states of disrepair. (213) 623-CITY, www.laconservancy.org.
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