AMERICA’S KINEMAS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5226, 13 January 1928, Page 3

AMERICA’S KINEMAS.

HUGE BUILDINGS OF LUXURY.

COMBINED ENTERTAINMENTS.

For gorgepusness comfort, and size,, the picture theatres in the United States bear away all palms, writes Iris Barry, in the “Daily Mail.” Everyone has heard of “Roxy’s” in New York, that vast block of masonry, not without beauty, which houses; a small town within itself besides an auditorium seating 6000 .and sweeping out like a great fan from a stage . which is< huge but. looks small. There are cafeterias, lounges, a broadcasting . station, a sumptuous flat, practice rooms, floor above floor ; the orchestra, a really gptod one, includes 116 performers.. The-attend-ants, groomed to the last fraction in courtesy, number scores. No 'one can escape a visit to this kinema without being shown — with what pride!—the carpet in the foyer, woven in a. single piejee and said to be the largest carpet so made. Not far away is the Paramount building, the foyer of which towers up in severe marble arches and, the upper atmosphere of which blazes with illumination from a forest of chandeliers that strike gleams on the polished surface of the high hall.It seems the. custom to deprecate the existence.of these mammoth kinernas ; just as in Hollywood the inhabitants almost apologise for the quite astonishing “Ch’nese” theatre recentwiy opened there. But in actual fact rthese gargantuan and wildly decorated kinemas have a certain exuberant style of their own ; and the Paramount in New York would probably not strike a visitor from the fflanetS: as more startling than Versailles must have be,en in its. inception, or the “Chinese” in Hollywood as more fantastic than the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Besides, as kinemas, they ’ are very comfortable and show films magnificently. Of course films unadulterated are hardly ever to be found in the United States. A great-many kinemas show . a vaudeville programme with a film tacked on to the end of it. The rest do Tessjmagnificently what Mr Rothapfel ,of “Roxy’s,” does a!nd stage an /immense prologue to the picture along Jifcith musical interludes. <■. This, is rather annoying to anyone who wants to see films," as it may be necessary (as it was for the writer - when visiting the “Oriental” at Chicago to wait hours before any motion picture makes its appearance ; and the tableaux vivnats, balleits, orchestral interludes, jazz bands, and what not that are provided are not all first-rate. It is rather annoying, tod, mot to be allowed to smoke. (Films for more critical audiences :are also shown at smaller picture {theatres specialising in Continental pjebures, revivals of worth-while films of all kinds, experimental or travel films., and oddities. But at least these new kinemas do their pickname of “cathedrals lof motion pictures,” eyen though it may be true, as one of the weekly magazines gibes, that they exist only to provide-half-wits with “hot and cold running entertainment.”