The Egyptian Revival style building on the west side of Highland has been a Hollywood landmark since it opened July 4, 1929, a fitting date for the building which was commissioned in 1919 by World War I veterans and has been home to the American Legion Post 43 since then. The site includes an art deco speakeasy once frequented by Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan, Micky Rooney, Stan Lee and others, and a large meeting room that hosted dances and meetings.
Post 43 embarked on a $6 million makeover that resulted in the construction of a state-of-the-art 482-seat motion picture theater, the only Hollywood theatrical venue owned and operated by veterans. The American Legion is the nation's largest wartime veterans' association, and Post 43 is home to and provides services for 1,400 veterans, as well as services for youth and the community. Nothing in the group's mission statement suggests that opening a movie theater would be a natural fit. But its heart-of-Hollywood location had always tied Post 43 to the film community, and its members decided to take the leap in creating the best motion picture theater possible to increase the strength of those ties.
I had never heard about a veteran's group building a world-class 35mm/70mm and digital cinema inside an American Legion, says the project's creative director/chief projectionist Taylor Umphenour. Those are two Venn diagrams I never thought would overlap. But the American Legion Post 43 stands at a unique crossroads of old and new Hollywood and the veteran community and I wanted to be involved. Umphenour, who supervised finishing of the projection booth, started his career as an IMAX 15-70mm projectionist. It's a film format that is completely unforgiving, he remarks. It's a very exacting environment and it's where my habits were formed and where I came to understand the value of preparedness and attention to detail. Later, he moved to an art-house movie theater where he operated 35mm carbon arc projectors. I really benefitted from understanding both ends of the spectrum, he said.
When Umphenour arrived at the Hollywood Legion, the makeover of the entire building had a deadline. I came on in Fall 2018 and the Turner Classic Movies film festival was set to debut in Spring 2019, he recounts. The first thing that needed to be done was the film system, which had been purchased from Los Angeles Center Studios and needed to be completely overhauled and restored for 35mmm and 70mm in time for the film festival. One challenge was finding parts but, says Umphenour, finding support staff who know these projectors well enough to resurrect those machines was an even tougher hurdle.
He gives a shout-out to the invaluable support from Bill Steele, the theater director, and Roger Addams, the Norelco AAII projector technician. The three of us worked as partners in making sure the engineering on the film system would be complete by Spring 2019, he says. As a team, Bill and I set the standards for what we wanted to accomplish, and everybody rose to meet those standards. Since the debut of the projection booth, Umphenour says, they have added the ability to run at variable speeds. Now, when we project silent films, we are able to run them at the frame rate at which they were originally shown. The booth also has a Christie 4K projector for digital projections.
Steele's role was to oversee the remaking of the theater's cavernous interior, a massive 6,500-square foot concrete space with 80,000 cu. ft. of air. The greatest challenge there was taming the acoustics. We had to get the decay to a level that allowed cinema sound to really shine, Umphenour says. British acoustics engineering firm Arup did an auralization, a technique for the reproduction and creation of sound that enabled Steele and architect Peter Gruneisen to hear the space before it was even built. Using auralization, Grueneisen, who has designed many of film composer Hans Zimmer's recording studios, applied specific acoustic treatments that resulted in a dramatic improvement in the room's audio. It was night and day, says Umphenour.
Since opening the Legion Theater in Spring 2019, it has hosted a robust film schedule until COVID-19 hit in March 2020. Steele and Umphenour approached the American Legion board with a proposal for converting the parking lot into an outdoor cinema, which was approved and opened in early October that same year. We're in the heart of Hollywood, he says. We needed to find a way for people to safely enjoy entertainment together. The schedule can be found at www.hollywoodlegiontheater.com.
The American Legion Post 43 is to be commended, says Umphenour. They took a big risk on doing something good for their community and the Hollywood community. It's not a risk a lot of other organizations would have taken but, downstream, it created a beautiful world-class venue that is starting to pay off.
The HPA Awards will take place at the American Legion Theater on November 18.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
12/06/2026
Meet The Grumpy Onion Ireland's newest online sensation, all he wants is to ...
12/06/2026
RT stays Up All Night with brand new daily 2026 FIFA World Cup Vodcast
Adding to the fun around 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, RT has launched a brand new d...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
The Egyptian Revival style building on the west side of Highland has been a Hollywood landmark since it opened July 4, 1929, a fitting date for the building which was commissioned in 1919 by World War I veterans and has been home to the American Legion Post 43 since then. The site includes an art deco speakeasy once frequented by Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan, Micky Rooney, Stan Lee and others, and a large meeting room that hosted dances and meetings.
