"It Happens Every Spring"

This scene from "It Happens Every Spring" (20th Century Fox, 1949) is set in some small town in the midwest. But here we have Ray Milland and Jean Peters walking down 3rd St. in Santa Monica. The theatre they're passing is the Criterion at 1313 3rd. 

Ray plays a college chemistry professor who accidentally invents a solution that causes whatever is doused with it to repel wood. Like, for instance, a baseball getting close to a bat. After trying a batting practice with several of his students he gets on the train to Chicago and suddenly becomes a star pitcher for a major league team.  

Lloyd Bacon directed the film which also features Paul Douglas, Ed Begley, Ray Collins and Jessie Royce Landis. The cinematography was by Joseph MacDonald. 

 

 

Another view a moment later reveals that the Criterion was running the terrific double bill "Snake Pit" and "Jungle Patrol."

The theatre opened in 1924. In 1986 it was gutted and a new 6 plex built behind the historic facade. It closed in 2013 and there's now retail and office space behind the facade. See the Los Angeles Theatres page on the Criterion Theatre for many photos. 

On IMdb: "It Happens Every Spring"