The Gaumont-Palace was a

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking * ...

located on Rue Caulaincourt in the French capital

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Originally constructed between 1898 and 1900 as the Hippodrome de Montmartre, it staged equestrian shows during its early years. It was originally built with a

Belle Époque The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...

facade. The site was acquired by

Léon Gaumont Léon Ernest Gaumont (; 10 May 1864 – 10 August 1946) was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry. He founded the world’s first and oldest film studio Gaumont Film Company, and worked in ...

in 1907 and converted into a cinema. It remained part of the

Gaumont Film Company The Gaumont Film Company (, ), often shortened to Gaumont, is a French film studio headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont (1864–1946) in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in ...

empire throughout its history. Gaumont-Palace avec sa nouvelle façade créée en 1931

In 1931, Gaumont reconstructed the cinema, with a new

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

exterior. The largest cinema in France, it was used to premiere major productions from both France and abroad. With a capacity of 6,000, it commonly attracted between fifty and sixty thousand spectators a week in the early 1930s. The size of the cinema meant that it rarely held films over for more than two weeks before they were switched to smaller venues in the city such as the Caméo cinema.Crisp p.296 In 1952, the cinema featured in the comedy film ''

Holiday for Henrietta ''Holiday for Henrietta'' (french: La fête à Henriette) is a 1952 French comedy film directed by Julien Duvivier, and starring Dany Robin, Michel Auclair, and Hildegard Knef. While urgently trying to develop a screenplay for a new film, two scr ...

''. In 1962, it was converted for the use of

Cinerama Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporati ...

widescreen format. Increasingly, its large size was considered a disadvantage, due to poor audio quality. Plans were made for a further reconstruction but these were abandoned. In 1972, Gaumont sold off the site and it was demolished in 1973 and redeveloped. The money the company received from its sale allowed it to renovate other parts of its cinema chain, including in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

and

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

References

Bibliography

* Abel, Richard. ''The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914''. University of California Press, 1998. * Crisp, Colin. ''Genre, Myth and Convention in the French Cinema, 1929-1939''. Indiana University Press, 2002. {{Coord, 48.8851, -2.3297, display=title Cinemas in Paris Former cinemas Cinemas in France Demolished buildings and structures in Paris Buildings and structures demolished in 1973