(Roving correspondent/ photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits and documents the scenes of our youth. Today, the Ken Cinema keeps it real!)
The Ken is the last of its kind. Most neighborhood theaters couldn’t cut the mustard as costs to run a neighborhood movie house skyrocketed in the early ’90s with the encroachment of digital projection and a hostile takeover by corporate multiplex theaters.
“The Ken opened in 1912,” the Cinema Treasures Web site tells us. “The theater was remodeled in 1947 by S. Charles Lee in Art Moderne style, and was restored in 1975 after being taken over by the Landmark chain as a showcase for foreign features.”
The first time I saw a film at the Ken (4061 Adams Ave.) was in 1981. In those years, the format was free-form and eclectic, serving foreign-language enthusiasts and cult-film buffs alike. The feature changed frequently, every day or so, from “8 1/2” to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” to “Rear Window.” The Ken gave me my cinematic education and formed my tastes and preferences in film. Often it was like a big party, rowdy and interactive — I remember the row of scooters parked out front for “Quadrophenia.”