Cinema Paradiso

Remember going to the movies? We like to binge-watch Netflix and Prime, but we do miss the unique experience of going to a cinema. We love to visit the 'bioscoop', the 'kino', the movie palaces anywhere in the world, and to see a great film on a big screen with an audience that's laughing and crying. It seems like a forbidden paradise today. On her blog Cinepostcards, Jane Melichar writes: "I love the surreal reality of cinemas, a familiar place that sends me to strange places, a journey into the world and into me. This adventure starts around the corner." We agree so much. So, here are 25 postcards (plus a vintage photo) of cinemas which we collected through the years.


French postcard by EAS, no. 08997/4. EAS stands for E.A. Schwerdtfeger, a German postcard publisher. Caption: Au Cinéma. Les plus jolis tableaux sont moins beaux que nos rêves (At the cinema. The most beautiful scenes are less beautiful than our dreams).


French postcard by M.D.(Phototypie Marcel Delboy, Bordeaux), no. 105. Caption: Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Le Casino.

A French poster for the silent comedy Rigadin et son sosie/Whiffle's Double (Georges Monca, Pathé Frères 1910), starring Prince. In front of the Casino, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where the film apparently was shown.


American postcard by Mitock & Sons, North Hollywood, California. Color by Bert Kaltman / Plastichrome, Boston. The picture was taken at the premiere of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963). This postcard was sent from Mexico to Italy. We bought it in the USA and it's now in our collection in the Netherlands.

Pacific's Cinerama Theatre is "The Only Theatre Of Its Kind In The World", boasts the card's publisher at the backside of the card. "Located in Cinerama Center, Sunset and Ivar, Hollywood, it's the first geodesic dome in concrete anywhere in the world. It is the first major theatre built in Hollywood in 35 years. It is an endless network of electronic marvels. Gold is the dominant color in the richly fabricated carpeting and drapes. Striking innovations in lightning and luxurious seating provide unbelievable comfort and beauty."


Vintage Czech postcard.

The former Mugrabi cinema (Kolnoa Mograbi) in Tel Aviv, Israël was located at the Kikar Bet BeNovember aka 'Mugrabi Square' near Allenby Road and Ben Yehuda Street. It was also known as Mograbi or Moograbi Opera House and as Mugrabi/Mograbi/Moograbi Hall. It was designed by architect Yosef Berlin in an art deco style that was popular in cinemas worldwide. The building was roofless for the first few years and was eventually stopped with a sliding roof. The cinema opened in 1930, and in the 1940s, it was home to the Palestine Folk Opera company. People gathered in front of the theater to dance in the streets when the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the Partition Plan in November 1947. Later it was again used as a cinema. It was a key cultural icon of Tel Aviv. If you wanted to locate yourself in the city, it was always in relation to the Mugrabi. After a fire in the summer of 1986 due to an electric short-circuit, the building was demolished. It is now a car park.


Dutch postcard. This picture of the former Rembrandt Theater in Amsterdam probably dates from 1932. That year the film Paprika was shown here. It was a German comedy directed by Carl Boese and starring the Hungarian star Franciska Gaal and German actor Paul Hörbiger. On the left side in the background, the postcard shows another famous Amsterdam cinema, the Tuschinski Theater.

The Rembrandt Theater was designed in Art Nouveau or Jugendstil style in 1902 by the architects Evert Breman and Willem Molenbroek. It started as a theatre for operettas but in 1919 it was renovated and changed into a cinema. There were 1200 seats. It became the main Dutch venue for the films of the German Ufa studio and many big billboards covered the front of the cinema. In 1940 the cinema suddenly burned down. Years later it was known that the fire was an act of the Dutch resistance. The cinema was never rebuilt and at the location at the Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square), 21-23 in the heart of Amsterdam is now a hotel.


Dutch photo. Front of the Rembrandt Theater in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. On show was Barcarole (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1936), starring Gustav Froehlich and Lyda Baarova. A gift by Roloff de Jeu.


Vintage postcard, no. 774. Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles, USA.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre, now TCL Chinese Theatre, is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The original Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, which opened in 1922. Both are in Exotic Revival style architecture. Built by a partnership headed by Sid Grauman over 18 months starting in January 1926, the theatre opened 18 May 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. It has since been home to many premieres. Among the theatre's most distinctive features are the concrete blocks set in the forecourt, which bear the signatures, footprints, and handprints of popular motion picture personalities from the 1920s to the present day. The in 2013 renovated theatre seats 932 people and features one of the largest movie screens in North America.


Longshaw Card Co., Los Angeles. Hollywood Boulevard around 1950.

This card was mailed in 1950. Left Grauman's Chinese Theatre. To the right the El Capitan cinema with the sign on the roof. In the middle, the high tower of the First National Bank (1928) by architects Meyer and Holler, still existing. The front right might be the entrance to the Roosevelt Hotel.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 921/10.

We once visited Zoo Palast, when it used to be one of the locations for the Berlin Film Festival. In 2011, the legendary cinema at the Hardenbergstraße in West-Berlin was closed. It was quite a shock to read this on Wikipedia. The Zoo Palast was built in 1956, but at the site, there had been a Palasttheater am Zoo since 1915. In 1925 the Ufa overtook and rebuilt the cinema. Many classics of the German film had their premiere here, including Metropolis in 1927. The cinema had its own orchestra, a ballet, and a cinema organ.


Dutch postcard by A. de Herder, Rotterdam. The Arena Cinema was located at the Kruiskade, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The presented film was the Dutch comedy Fanfare (Bert Haanstra, 1958), starring Hans Kaart.

After the success with his W.B Theater on the Nieuwe Binnenweg, Karl Weisbard decided in 1930 to open a second cinema on the Kruiskade: Roxy Theater. The building was designed by Jac Van Gelderen. The cinema had 1000 seats and opened on 31 May 1930. In addition to films, small operettas were performed. In 1936, Karl Weisband sold the theater to Ed Spits who converted it into Arena. During the war, only theater performances took place, but from 1945 the showing of films was resumed. In 1988 Arena changed into a disco/music venue Nighttown, which went bankrupt in 2006. Since 2013, it is a supermarket.


Dutch postcard, Sparo. Rotterdam, Kruiskade with Luxor cinema.

Cinema Luxor in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, was built in 1917 by architect P.J. Vermaas and could hold 1200 seats then. It was the first really big film theater in town. Luxor opened with the Dutch film Gloria Transita by Johan Gildemeijer. It was an opera film with live song performances by renowned Dutch singers such as Louis Morisson and Emil van Bosch. Around 1918-19 it became a Dutch film theatre for the German Ufa films, that's why there are the German letters Palast [Palace] on the facade. The takeover was first secretly done by middlemen as Germany had lost the war of 1914-1918, but by 1926 the Dutch branch of the Ufa company became officially proprietor (until 1938).In 1928 Luxor was remodelled by architect J. van Wijngaarden. Luxor miraculously survived the Rotterdam bombardment and subsequent fires of May 1940. After the war, it was for years property of the Rotterdamsche Kunststichting (the Rotterdam Art Council), who ran it as a cinema, but slowly it became more and more mixed with theatre and vaudeville. In the early 1970s, Luxor got a radical make-over, losing most if its old elements; the number of chairs went down to 900. Luxor closed down as a cinema in 1985.


American postcard. Times Square at Night, New York City, c. 1940-1941.

Down left the marquee of the Astor Theatre indicates that Chaplin's The Great Dictator was screened, which had its New York premiere on October 1940. The Astor opened in 1905 as a legitimate theatre but became mostly a cinema from 1925 on. Top left publicity for the play 'Life with Father' which opened on Broadway, New York, in 1939; it was turned into a film in 1947. Down at right Loew's State Theatre, where Gary Cooper can be seen in The Westerner (1940). Loew's State Theatre opened in 1921 and showed both Vaudeville and cinema.


French postcard by BLD, no. 1. Photo: C.M., Le Havre. Caption: Interior of the Normandie. The Elevators. In the back: The theatre/cinema.

When entering into service in 1935, the French ocean liner Normandie was the biggest and fastest ocean liner in the world. Despite its commercial misfortune (the French state heavily subsidised it), Normandie's novel design and lavish interiors in art déco and Streamline Moderne Style led many to consider her the greatest of ocean liners.


French postcard by A. Nieps edit. Caption: Camp de Mailly, Foyer-Cinéma.

Seen from the podium, the French army visiting a temporary cinema at Camp de Mailly, poses for the photographer. Made during the First World War. Mark the military orchestra in the pit in the foreground, accompanying the silent movies. Camp de Mailly was a training camp for the military, founded in 1902, and most active during the Great War, in particular for training and equipping the Russian expeditionary force in France.


French postcard, no. 1610. Caption: Rue Caulaincourt, Paris. Sent by mail in 1921.

This building was built 1898-1900 as the Hippodrome Montmartre. In 1911 film producer Léon Gaumont took it over, restyled, and turned it into the Gaumont-Palace. With its supposed 3000 seats, it was the biggest cinema in the world then (mark the letters on the facade "Le plus grand cinéma du monde"). The Gaumont company also had its headquarters here. In 1931 Gaumont built a completely new cinema on the site, which hosted seats for 6000 persons, and was well equipped for sound film. In the 1960s it was a major Cinerama cinema, but in the early 1970s it closed down and in 1973 it was destroyed. Only by speedy handling, the French Cinematheque managed to save Leon Gaumont's personal archive, as workers had fast thrown outside all that was in the building. A vast part of the business archive thus must have been gone lost.


French postcard. Mourmelon-le-Grand (Marne), church and main square, left the cinema Tivoli and Salle des Fêtes. Probably 1920s.


French postcard by Librairie Militaire Guérin, Nourmelon-Le-Grand. Sent by mail in 1932. Tivoli Cinema, Mourmelon-Le-Grand, France.

The Tivoli Cinema was opened in 1932, according to Cinema Treasures. It operated into at least the 1950s. It has since been demolished and apartments have been built on the site. However, Gerald A. DeLuca comments at the site: "Judging from the postcards, this is probably a pre-World War I cinema. The color-tinted one shows a poster for the film Sans famille, probably the 1913 version rather than the 1925 version." We agree with Gerald.


A picture of the Astor cinema in Vanderbijlpark, a city in Transvaal in South-Africa. The photo was sent as a postcard by a kid to his grandparents in the Netherlands. Maybe he is the kid standing in front of the cinema at the right?

Today, Vanderbijlpark town doesn't have a cinema anymore. Our sources, like the great database Cinema Treasures, don't mention this cinema, but this photo of the Astor proves there used to be a cinema in Vanderbijlpark, once at a time.


French postcard, no. 93. Photo: Nam Phat, Saigon. Saïgon, Rue Catinal, Passage Eden, Cinema Eden.

The Eden building in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, was built in 1947 and demolished in 2010, to make a place for a mall. The complex hosted the much older Cinema Eden, which in the 1920s was frequented by Europeans but later on was a popular hotspot for the Vietnamese population.


Polish postcard by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. Photo: J. Tymínski - KAW. Kino Milenium, Slupsk, Poland.

Cinema Milenium in Słupsk - the name points to the future of cinematography - opened in 1963. It was one of the first in Poland to have a Cinerama. It belonged to the ten most important cinemas in Poland. The cinema inaugurated its activity on 4 April 1963 with a screening of the Polish film Zerwany most (Jerzy Passendorfer, 1962). Initially, the Milenium cinema had 724 seats in the auditorium, but their number decreased slightly after subsequent renovations and as a result of enlarging the stage. At the beginning of the 1970s, the number of seats was reduced to 640, in 1979 the reclining seats were replaced with new ones, and in 1999 another renovation and modernisation of the stage forced the number of seats to be reduced to 600. On 16 December 2000, the cinema showed its last film: Zerwany most. Now there is a supermarket in this building.


American postcard. Los Angeles, 7th Street/Hill Street, Warner Bros. Theatre Downtown.

Originally opened in 1920 as the Pantages Theatre, it later became the Downtown Warner Theatre (until the mid-1960s) and lastly the Warren Theatre (late 1960s and 1970s). Later a church, now a retail shop for the Jewelry Exchange. While the ground floor and podium disappeared, the proscenium arch balcony and ceiling are still there. No pictures allowed inside, but visitable with the Conservancy tour. See our Flickr site for a snapshot we took in 2010.


Italian postcard, no. 86. Venice, Lido, Palazzo del Cinema (left), and Casino (right), 1950s.

The Palazzo del Cinema was constructed in 1937 in record time to host the 5th edition of the Venice Film Festival. The architect was Luigi Quagliata, while next door Luigi Miozzi constructed the Summer Casino of Venice. In recent years the Palazzo del Cinema has expanded in several ways and also annexed the space of the Casino. Yet, the very ambitious plans for total makeover and demolition of existing structures mostly failed, over and again.


Italian postcard by Fotocelere. Caption: Sassuolo - Supercinema "Cristallo" - Interno.

The interior of the Supercinema Cristallo in Sassuolo in the province of Modena, Italy, probably in the 1950s. The cinema closed and was demolished.


French postcard by ND Phot., no. 358. Caption: Tunis, The Italian Theatre. The card was mailed in 1915.

The Politeama Rossini in Tunis was indicated here as The Italian Theatre. Politeama was an Italian denomination for a multifunctional entertainment building, combing cinema, theater, and other forms of leisure. The Politeama Rossini in Tunis opened in 1903. It catered to the Italian community in Tunis and competed with the City Theater, which had opened at the end of 1902. In 1923 it was sold and became storage. Later on, it became a cinema only. It still exists as the cinema Le Palace. Its facade was reconstructed in 2002 after it was destroyed during the embellishment of Avenue Bourguiba.


American postcard by E.C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee, no. 18088. Caption: "Jones, Linick & Schaefer's Rialto Theatre, State St., between Jackson and Van Buren. Finest Vaudeville Theatre in Chicago."

The Rialto Theatre in Chicago, Il., USA, was opened in 1917 as a venue for Vaudeville and films, near the corner of State and Van Buren Streets in Chicago. The Rialto could seat over 1500. The theatre was designed by the architectural duo of Marshall & Fox, who also designed the earlier legitimate Blackstone Theatre (now the Merle Reskin), the Blackstone Hotel, and, later, Chicago's famed Drake Hotel. This mid-sized venue was located directly across the street from the neo-classical department store building that began its life as Rothschild's, then the Davis Store, then Goldblatt's and is today the Loop campus of DePaul University. Later the Rialto Theatre was called the Loop End and still later, the Downtown, the Rialto was a burlesque house by the 1930s. In fact, it was the big burlesque center of Chicago for many years, save 1944-1950. Among the ladies who appeared onstage here were Gypsy Rose Lee, Margie Hart, Tempest Storm, Ada Leonard, and Ann Corio. Abbott and Costello reportedly first met there, and Phil Silvers also performed. A 1954 Chicago Tribune article stated that the Rialto closed on 31 December 1953 and was demolished shortly thereafter to make way for a one-story 'taxpayer' shops complex. The final sign on the marquee? "Speedway Wrecking Company - The Greatest Stripper of Them All"!


Italian postcard. Caption: Via Rizzoli, Bologna. 1920s.

While most people may recognize the two landmarks of Bologna in the back, the two medieval towers (remains of what once may have been a wood of towers all over town, similar to today's San Gimignano), we chose the card for the sign on the right over the entrance, spelling: 'Modernissimo, cine, caffè, teatro'. The whole block, called Palazzo Ronzani, was intended as a combination of commercial activities and leisure, so in addition to shops, offices, apartments, a cafe, a hotel, restaurant, and an underground theatre, it housed on the ground floor one of the finest cinemas in town: the Modernissimo. Plans were approved in 1912 but only in 1915 construction was finished. In recent years the Cineteca di Bologna has initiated to restore and restructure the Modernissimo into a 400 seat cinema, attempting as much as possible to restore the early 20th-century situation. See also Bologna magazine, Repubblica, and this picture at Flickr we took in 2017.

Sources: Jane Melichard (Cinepostcards), Cinema Treasures, De Filmkijker (Dutch), and Wikipedia.