Hollywood Boulevard sells a great many things that are not worth the money, which makes it easy to be cynical about the Chinese Theatre and to miss that it is two separate propositions sharing an address. The forecourt — the courtyard of concrete slabs pressed with handprints and footprints going back to the 1920s — is open public space and costs nothing. The auditorium behind it, which was converted to one of the largest cinema screens in the world, costs the price of a ticket and is a genuinely different reason to be there.
The forecourt is free and heaving; the screen behind it is one of the biggest anywhere and often half empty. Ask Karpo what is showing on the big screen and how bad the boulevard is right now.
The forecourt is free, and that is the point
There is no ticket, no barrier and no charge to walk into the courtyard and look at the slabs. This surprises a substantial number of visitors, who assume the most photographed piece of pavement in Los Angeles must be behind a paywall.
The tradition dates to the theatre's earliest years and has continued more or less uninterrupted, which means the courtyard is a physical timeline of screen fame across a century. Some of the names are immortal, a good number are entirely forgotten, and the juxtaposition is the most interesting thing about it.
It is also small. The courtyard is not a plaza, and it holds a fraction of the number of people who want to be in it at any given moment. That is the source of every complaint about the experience.
There is a second, quieter pleasure in the courtyard that most visitors walk straight past, which is how badly some of the impressions have aged. Concrete cracks, slabs get replaced, and the marks of people who were enormous for one season sit next to names still being said out loud a century later. As an argument about fame it is more eloquent than anything on the boulevard outside.
Timing the courtyard
Through the middle of the day the forecourt is dense with visitors, tour groups and costumed performers working the boulevard for tips. It is not dangerous, it is simply unpleasant if you wanted to look at the ground quietly.
Early morning is transformatively better and almost nobody does it. The courtyard is open, the boulevard is empty, the light is low across the concrete so the impressions actually read, and you can move freely.
Late evening is the second window, once the day crowd has gone and before the nightlife crowd arrives. The theatre facade is lit, which is when it looks best, and the courtyard is navigable again.
The screen behind the doors
The main auditorium was converted to a very large-format screen, and the scale is genuinely exceptional — this is one of the biggest cinema screens in the world rather than simply a big one, in an auditorium with the volume of a 1920s picture palace behind it.
That combination is unusual. Most enormous screens sit in purpose-built boxes; this one is inside a historic theatre with the original ceiling and proportions, which produces a room that no modern multiplex can replicate.
For a film shot for that scale it is one of the best presentations available anywhere in the country. For a quiet drama it is an oddly cavernous place to watch something, and the ticket is not the right spend.
Premieres and closures
The theatre still hosts major premieres, which means it periodically closes to the public at short notice and the forecourt gets fenced off for red-carpet setup. This catches people out fairly regularly.
If there is a premiere on, the courtyard may be inaccessible for a day or more either side while the structure goes up and comes down. It is worth checking rather than assuming a landmark is always open.
The flip side is that a premiere is itself a spectacle, and the boulevard around it becomes an event. Whether that is a reason to go or to stay away depends on what you wanted from the afternoon.
The boulevard around it
Hollywood Boulevard is a working tourist strip and it is exactly what that implies — souvenir shops, costumed performers, and a great deal of aggressively marketed attraction. Managing expectations about the surroundings is most of what makes the visit enjoyable.
The Walk of Fame runs along the pavement in both directions and is, like the forecourt, free. It is also very long, and walking a couple of blocks of it gives you the entire experience without the diminishing returns of walking a mile.
The metro station is directly beneath, which makes this one of the easier Los Angeles destinations to reach without a car. Given the parking situation and the traffic on the boulevard, that is the obvious approach.
There are also guided tours of the auditorium itself, which are the only way to see the room properly without buying a ticket to whatever happens to be playing. They cover the building's history and the conversion, and for anyone more interested in the theatre than in the film currently showing, that is the more sensible purchase of the two.
Practical notes
The forecourt with the handprints is free public space. There is no ticket to walk in.
Early morning and late evening are the only times the courtyard is navigable. Midday is dense.
Low-angled light makes the impressions in the concrete legible. Overhead sun flattens them.
The auditorium behind it holds one of the largest cinema screens in the world, inside a 1920s picture palace.
Book it for a film made for that scale. It is the wrong room for a quiet drama.
Premieres close the theatre and fence off the forecourt at short notice. Check before travelling.
There is a metro station directly beneath. Do not try to park on the boulevard.
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Ask Karpo first
Free courtyard, enormous screen, and a boulevard that is either fine or unbearable depending on the hour. Ask Karpo what is playing on the big screen and how busy Hollywood Boulevard is right now.
