Located at 802 S. Broadway, the Tower Theatre, is a historic movie theatre that opened in 1927. It was commissioned by H.L. Gumbiner, who built the Los Angeles Theatre in four years later, and it was designed by architect S. Charles Lee. The 900 seat theatre was designed in powerful Baroque Revival style with French, Spanish, Moorish, and Italian elements. The interior was designed after the Paris Opera House. The Tower was the first film house in Los Angeles to be wired for talking pictures and it was the first theatre in Los Angeles to be air conditioned. It opened in 1927 with the silent film The Gingham Girl starring Lois Wilson and George K. Arthur.
The Tower was independently operated for the first few decades of its existence. In the 1940s and early 1950s, it became known as the Newsreel, as it often ran newsreel films (prior to the popularity of television news coverage). The theatre underwent a major renovation in the early 1960s. According to limited historic documentation, the renovation included the repainting of the theatre's interior which covered up much of the original ornate decorative painting by A.T. Heinsbergen & Co. as well as permanently removing the famous canvas ceiling dome murals (which featured clouds, angels and classic nude ladies).