Published in the July 23 – August 5, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
People of the farm town of Morgan Hill must have felt excited June 22, 1951 as they streamed into the new Granada Theater. On that grand-opening day, owner Mr. Eanderson greeted film-goers as they stepped into the spacious lobby. The theater’s single-screen cinema seated 650 people, plenty for the city’s population of 1,657.
The downtown’s original Granada had been built in the 1920s. It was gutted by fire in 1949. That Granada is currently The Hill Bar and Grill.
Now the story of the iconic art moderne Granada building’s future seems like a cliff-hanger on the silver screen. The city will put the property up for sale. Who knows what a developer might do with the theater.
Like a team of movie heroes, dedicated volunteers of the Morgan Hill Granada Preservation Society have restored the theater venue to a condition presentable for events. They installed an ADA-compliant restroom and they’ve shined up the lobby, making it as welcoming as it was for patrons when the doors first opened back in 1951. The theater has been retrofitted with a surround sound system and a high-definition digital projector.
The MHGPS is now showing classic and nostalgic films. The response by the Morgan Hill community has been supportive. Many residents want to see films at the Granada that are not today’s CGI-heavy concoctions.
Many older films scheduled to be shown are suitable for families. Saturday mornings, parents can drop their kids off to watch cartoons. Kids are encouraged to wear pajamas and breakfast cereal is available at the concession stand. For adults, the Granada will show a series in its “Bad Movie Night” — starting with the and unintentionally hilarious “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”
Other possibilities for the Granada include date-night movies, chick flicks for a ladies night out, and midnight monster movie marathons. The MHGPS encourages the community to submit ideas for themed movie nights as well as live events such as stand-up comedy, battle of the bands, and entertaining lectures.
The Granada has a potential for public and private use and can be rented for private parties or for company team-building.
It has also served as the site for the Poppy Jasper Film Festival. The MHGPS is working with the film festival organizers to show “the Best of the Poppy Jasper” shorts Aug. 22-24. We would like to see a partnership between the Poppy Jasper festival organizers and the Granada to bring to Morgan Hill talented filmmakers in the Bay Area to show their cinematic works.
The Granada also has the potential to make downtown Morgan Hill a destination for dinner-and-a-movie nights for people living in the South Valley region. Marketed effectively, it could potentially bring people from the Monterey Bay Area and Silicon Valley who want a fun night out at a local eatery followed by an entertaining movie. We offer many excellent restaurants and the opportunity to see nostalgic movies will give added reason to take a trip to Morgan Hill.
For nearly a century, Morgan Hill has celebrated stories on celluloid. The classic movie “Cinema Paradiso” told the story about how an Italian town’s movie house shaped the culture of a community. The Granada theater in many ways repeats that story. That’s why Morgan Hill Life supports the MHGPS efforts to make the theater the cultural heart of our downtown. As Humphrey Bogart said at the end of “Casablanca,” “… this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
