The Val Lewton Screenplay Collection

The Hawaii Theater had a gala opening on May 6th, 1940 that was attended by a good section of the Hollywood b-list. Independently owned Tthe Hawaii was not affiliated with any studio and located at 5939 Hollywood Boulevard it was over a mile east of the a-list Grauman's Chinese and the Egyptian. And despite the efforts of a valiant publicity man who did his best to sell the wonders of the Hawaiian themed murals, cantilevered roof construction and ultra-violet lighting no one ever considered the Hawaii a movie palace.

To survive in the competitive Hollywood theater world, the proprietors of The Hawaii, Albert Galston and Jay Sutton, developed an almost Lewtonesque philosophy of selling movie tickets. Galston was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "We found the majority of our audience were adolescents and advanced teen-agers and we capitalized on that type of booking. We revived the lost art of exploitation. In opposition to the theory that you can't change clienteles, we could switch from horror pictures to class pictures -- and have a concert on the stage and still make money."


The Hawaii Theater had a gala opening on May 6th, 1940 that was attended by a good section of the Hollywood b-list. Independently owned Tthe Hawaii was not affiliated with any studio and located at 5939 Hollywood Boulevard it was over a mile east of the a-list Grauman's Chinese and the Egyptian. And despite the efforts of a valiant publicity man who did his best to sell the wonders of the Hawaiian themed murals, cantilevered roof construction and ultra-violet lighting no one ever considered the Hawaii a movie palace. To survive in the competitive Hollywood theater world, the proprietors of The Hawaii, Albert Galston and Jay Sutton, developed an almost Lewtonesque philosophy of selling movie tickets. Galston was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "We found the majority of our audience were adolescents and advanced teen-agers and we capitalized on that type of booking. We revived the lost art of exploitation. In opposition to the theory that you can't change clienteles, we could switch from horror pictures to class pictures -- and have a concert on the stage and still make money."
	The Hawaii Theater


The Lewton's were a staple of the Hawaii's programming beginning with The Cat People which had a thirteen week run where attendance figures for the theater passed the 100,000 mark. Galston recalled that "When we saw "The Cat People" in 1942 we said, 'Here's a picture that has exploitation value'. We converted our box office facing into the head of an immense cat and sold tickets through its mouth. We had cat heads floating around the audience. This put 'em in the mood. The picture cost RKO $140,000; we ran it for two months and our film rental paid 10% of the whole cost." Other Lewton films followed at the Hawaii including I Walked With a Zombie, The Body Snatcher, Curse of the Cat People, Youth Runs Wild, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim and The Ghost Ship. In 1963, Galston and Sutton (who had run the theater throughout its twenty-three year existence) closed the doors of The Hawaii for good. The building was purchased by the Salvation Army which converted the structure into a tabernacle. Today, the structure still stands and houses the Salvation Army's Way-Out program designed to get runaways off the street.
Lewton at the Hawaii The Cat People I Walked With a Zombie/The Leopard Man double-feature The Body Snatcher The Ghost Ship/The Seventh Victim double-feature