Remember Valley Cinemas? Turlock Movie Memories and the Dollar-Ticket Years
A question on our Facebook page brought back a familiar Turlock movie stop: “What movie do you remember seeing at the old Valley Cinemas on Geer Road?” Among the replies, Anette Edwards Arias remembered Return of the Jedi and a $4.50 ticket.
The dollar-ticket memories have a paper trail, too: Valley Cinemas advertised $1 admission on Mondays and Tuesdays in 1987. You did not have to wait for the theater’s final discount-house period to find a cheap weeknight ticket.
Amanda Zarco connected Home Alone with the cruising that took place near the theater. Holly Inouye remembered a Titanic screening malfunction just after the ship split, followed by vouchers for another visit. The replies are full of details like that, where a movie title brings back the whole outing.
The 1987 Advertisement Makes the Prices Plain
Open page 8 of The Signal’s May 12, 1987 issue and the Valley Cinemas ad is hard to miss. It lists three prices: $1 on Monday and Tuesday, $2 for matinees and $3 at other times. It also announces new ownership, with a Sena Bros. Theatres logo.
Those weeknight prices gave moviegoers a low-cost option years before Valley’s final discount-house period.
It Began as California Cinemas
The history collected by Cinema Treasures dates the theater to 1976, when it opened as California Cinemas I and II. It was part of a shopping-center development associated with the Doo brothers. Two additional screens were added in 1985.
The California and Valley names help explain why people sometimes remember the same Geer Road building differently. A four-screen neighborhood theater also offered a different scale from the 14-screen complex that would later open across town.
What Happened When the Main Street Multiplex Opened
The Turlock Stadium 14 record dates the new Main Street theater to December 18, 1998. The larger complex occupied a former Kmart building and is now Regal Turlock.
Valley continued briefly as a discount, second-run theater. Cinema Treasures records its closure on March 18, 1999, after the operator did not renew the lease. The building survived and found another use.
The Building Became a Gym
By October 2001, a Signal report on local fitness businesses listed In-Shape City among projects under construction in Turlock. The former cinema went on to a long health-club use.
Today, Curl Fitness lists its Turlock club at 2710 Geer Road. That is the modern address for locating the former theater building. A person who knows it only as a gym may have driven past the place where someone else remembers a first date, a family outing or a dollar movie.
Where to See a Historical Exterior
See the historical California Cinemas exterior photograph by Prof David Ducay in the Cinema Treasures collection, and compare it with the building on our theater history page.
Which Film Takes You Back to Valley Cinemas?
Add your movie, the year if you remember it, and who you went with to the original Facebook conversation.
