Caroli, Regina, Rex in Rüsselsheim am Main / Germany

 

Rüsselsheim is famous for the Opel car production. And good workers need good entertainment in their spare time. The 1962 sent postcard shows the building Friedensplatz 6 in Rüsselsheim. Honestly, it doesn't show a cinema - only neon signs for three cinemas.

Caroli was opened on Christmas Day 1955 with 407 seats, Rex was opened in 1956 with 482 seats (not far away from Friedensplatz) and closed in 2011, Regina has opened from 1957 till 1985. From 1958 all three cinemas belonged to Kurt Palm.

Kurt Palm, born in 1924 in Mainz-Gustavsburg, made his first 8mm films at a young age and initially trained as an electrician. During the Second World War he was employed as a cameraman and reporter. In 1947, he opened his first movie theater Burg-Lichtspiele (today Burglichtspiele Gustavsheim) in a 1899 built chapel.

Palm soon expanded its business activities. He owned more than twenty movie theaters and began to produce films himself. His best-known projects include the documentary Der 2. Weltkrieg / The Second World War (1982) and various erotic films. His REPA Filmproduktion GmbH was one of the most successful German film producers in the early 1970s.

Palm's busy life finished in 2013.

I publish this no-cinema-showing postcard because cinemas are not only any buildings for showing films. Making good entertainment is a hard job from Monday till Sunday, all year long, done by enthusiastic men and women and not by machines. When these people die, a piece of culture and history and their stories are also dying.