سینماخانه‌ها

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Picture palaces

The greatest of all the ‘picture palaces’ built in the 1920s and 1930s was the Roxy Cinema in New York. It cost $12 million to build and had 6214 seats.

Three hundred people worked at the cinema, with sixteen projectionists and 110 musicians. It also had a hundred singers, and a group of dancers to keep the audience happy - and its own hospital! The Roxy opened in March 1927 and closed in March 1960.

Most of the cinemas in the big cities seemed like palaces to the film-goer. Inside were comfortable seats, thick carpets and coloured lights.

There was often a restaurant, and sometimes a dance floor, too. Some American cinemas had creches where mothers could leave their babies while they went to watch the film.

A man or woman played a cinema organ while audiences waited for the film to begin. The organ came up out of the floor as the music started.

Film fact

The drive-in cinema became popular in the early 1950s in America - very popular with young people! More than 4000 drive-ins opened between 1948 and 1956.