A funny thing happened to the old California Theater on its way to
becoming a new opera theater and concert hall: the old movie palace will
soon emerge as a uniquely equipped ultramodern film showcase.  Although
the theater opens next week with Opera San Jose's production of "The
Marriage of Figaro," and will serve as the new home of Symphony Silicon
Valley (successor to the bankrupt San Jose Symphony), it will be a special
place for cineastes, especially those interested in film restoration.

The reason: David W. Packard, son of the late HP co-founder Dave Packard.
He's been intensely involved with the entire $74 million California
Theater renovation project, but he has paid special attention to acquiring
and installing the "best and most varied projection equipment available,"
according to Stewart Slater, who was the guide for a quick trip through
the theater Friday evening.  Slater, head of the American Musical Theater
of San Jose for two dozen years, and now working with Team San Jose,
coordinator for the city's theater renoval project, has nerves of steel...
or he is a good bluffer.

Standing in the middle of the unfinished theater, just five days ahead
of the Opera's first public dress rehearsal before a full house, Slater
speaks of the projection room's equipment "capable of projecting every
known film format, with the possible exception of IMAX." Will the theater
be ready on Wednesday?  Sure, Slater says, no shadow of doubt audible
in his voice.  There will be fine-tuning, he allows, for months to come;
items such as two large Wurlitzer organs and an open-air lobby fountain
yet to arrive, but the theater will be fully functional...  including
removal of the plastic still covering 1,100 seats, missing patches of
paint, exposed electric wires, a construction fence protecting the First
Street entrance, etc.  - all will be taken care of, he says.

Even behind the construction mess, the 1927 building looks sensational.
In addition to the original painted-wood ceilings and Tiffany-lamp style
mica chandeliers, everything from rich carpets to marble columns and
decorative cornices show off the very best of the West Coast "Orpheum
Era" from the early 20th century.  The original architects were Weeks &
Day of San Francisco; the renovation is the responsibility of Berkeley's
ELS Architects.

It will be an amazing venue for next year's San Jose film festival,
the Cinequest, which had to hole up until now in tiny movie theaters.
Packard's contribution is just the latest in a series of good deeds
on behalf of historical cinema.  He is responsible for many Vitaphone
restorations, including "Jack Buchanan and His Glee Club" (1928), "The
Opry House (1929), and "Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields" (1926), and he
financed renovation of the 1925 Greek/Assyrian-style Stanford Theater
in Palo Alto, which shows only classic films, primarily from the years
1920 through 1965.

Incidentally, when the California Theater first opened, 77 years ago,
it provided the venue for the premiere of "An Affair of the Follies,"
starring Billie Dove (who, before her death, at age 96, was the last
surviving Ziegfeld girl), and some of Hollywood's biggest stars found
their way to San Jose on the occasion.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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