Grand Lake Theater celebrates 100 years as Oakland’s movie palace with free screenings, tours

When the Grand Lake Theater opened near Oakland’s Lake Merritt in 1926, movies were the dominant new force in American entertainment and culture, and the moguls and exhibitors running Hollywood wanted fans to be able to enjoy their silent dramas, Westerns and comedies in comfort and style.

Thus arose the era of the movie palace, of which the Grand Lake Theater is one of the Bay Area’s most beautiful and enduring examples — with its giant illuminated rooftop sign, famed marquee and elegant interiors, originally built in the elegant neoclassical and Art Deco styles. Surviving the advent of television and home movie-viewing via VHS tapes, DVDs and streaming, the Grand Lake continues to operate as a place where people can come together to watch movies on a big screen — as movies were made to be watched.

To celebrate its century of operations, the theater is offering free screenings of beloved classic films all day Wednesday. You can see “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Wizard of Oz” and two rarely-screened, early Disney animated films, “Fantasia” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

The theater continues its landmark birthday celebrations with architectural tours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Grand Lake Theater opened this week in March 1926, during a period when hundreds of movie palaces were opening around the United States every year. The Grand Lake originally operated as a venue for vaudeville entertainment and silent-film showings on a single screen, with musical accompaniment provided by a large Wurlitzer Hope Jones Unified Orchestral Organ. The theater soon became a part of the Fox Theater Chain and accommodated the arrival of sound movies — or “talkies” during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood.

In 1980, life-long movie fan Allen Michaan, owner of Renaissance Rialto, Inc. purchased the lease for the theater and began the process of updating it in  various ways and restoring it to its original glory. The updates included installing state-of-the-art projectors and subdividing and expanding the building, so that it could hold a main auditorium and three smaller screens, including with old-style Egyptian and Moorish-style decor.

Michaan purchased the building in August 2018, several months after Oakland-born, “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” filmmaker Ryan Coogler greeted fans to a screening of his superhero film “Black Panther” at the theater.

Coogler stood on stage in the main auditorium, where he said he came to watch movies while growing up in the East Bay. “I just wanted to swing by and say thank you to you guys for taking time on a Thursday night to come see the film,” Coogler said at the time.

Coogler’s blockbuster new film “Sinners” also is currently playing at the Grand Lake Theater in 70mm and goes into the March 15 Academy Awards ceremony with a record 16 nominations, including for best picture and best director.