CIVIC dignitaries, a new Bing Crosby film, sundry musical attractions and Sir Harry Lauder: Glasgow knew how to stage a cinema opening back in 1934.
This was the scene outside the Paramount, in Renfield Street, on the last day of the year. The distinctive facade, with its finned windows, was neon-lit at night, and must have been a striking sight. The formal opening was performed by Mrs A B Ewan, wife of the city’s Lord Provost, who said the building’s transformation - buy 400 workmen, in just seven months - into a cinema showed the rapid change which had taken place in the heart of Glasgow. The opening-night film was She Loves Me Not, in which Crosby co-starred with Miriam Hopkins). Teddy Joyce and his Band, Betty Ann Hagler and the St Helier Sisters provided the music. Lauder came onto the stage and the audience joined him in a number of songs, including Auld Lang Syne. The advanced stage equipment was displayed in a special tableau, The Volcano.
Within a few years the Paramount had been acquired by the Odeon chain. It later became one of the city’s key entertainment venues, staging, in the 1960s, concerts by the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, amongst many others. It also added more and more screens, and had nine of them by the time it closed in 2006.
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