Radio City Music Hall in New York/USA

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in Rockefeller Center in New York City. The building was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. It was a project of  John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and RCA (Radio Cooperation of America) chairman David Sarnoff. 
The Music Hall opened on December 27, 1932. Originally it was a hall for stage shows. On January 11, 1933, the Music Hall converted to a film theater with a spectacular stage show perfected by Roxy. The first film shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Radio City Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio. The film-plus-stage-spectacle format continued at the Music Hall until 1979, with four complete performances presented every day.
Radio City Music Hall has 5,933 seats for spectators, and additional seating can be placed on the pit elevator during events that do not require that space bringing the seating capacity to over 6,000. It became the largest movie theater in the world at the time of its opening.
Now the focus of the theater is on concerts and live stage shows, movie premieres and feature runs have occasionally taken place there such as the Harry Potter film series.
I got this postcard via Postcrossing. The photo was taken in Christmas time and advertises The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, an annual Christmas stage musical and Christmas tradition since 1933. 

Filmtheater Prager Straße - Rundkino in Dresden/Germany

I bought this two unwritten postcards today at the Geschichtsmarkt Dresden (Market of History), an unique place where people interested not professional in local history can discuss their projects. And you have the chance to buy old postcards, literature and other papers about the region. It remembers a public forum and I like visiting it every year.
The Filmtheater Prager Straße was opened on 7th October 1972 - the national holiday of the German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany). It was the largest cinema in the GDR with a big hall with 1.018 seats and a small hall with 132 seats. Even this building is a classical rotunda it is not an IMAX cinema or something like this. But there was the possibility to play movies in 70 mm. In the late 1990s I saw there the great movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick in 70 mm. I think today there isn't this technique anymore.
In 1990 the West German UFA got this cinema. They opened 5 new little halls in the basement. 
In summer 2002 the flood destroyed the cinemas in the basement. Financial problems followed. Since 2011 this cinema belongs to the Cineplex group and has now at all 5 halls with 1.400 places.
The building itself has been a listed monument since 2003.
The cinema was fanciless named after the street. But the people called it soon Rundkino - round cinema. This has been the official name since 2011.
The first, the upper postcard was published in 1978. The second is from 1984, it is a view from the town hall tower.
At the postcards you can see very well the idea of the architecture: the round building between the angled buildings and the free places and space between them. Today there isn't so much free space because of many new buildings. And there isn't any new postcard with this monument.

Lichtburg in Essen, Germany

The cinema Lichtburg in Essen opened in 1928 with 2.000 seats. It was destroyed in 1943 and reopened in 1950. The Lichtburg has still today one hall with 1.250 seats. A second smaller hall with 150 seats is called Sabu - in memory of the Indian actor Sabu (1924 - 1963), famous from The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

Unfortunately the stamp isn't left on the card, so I can't identify the date/year of the postcard. I think the picture was made in the early 1930s.

So the Lichtburg is one of these old film palaces from the great 1920s era, of corse a listed monument and really worth seeing. There can still played movies in 70 mm, for instance the Tarantino's The Hateful 8.

A postcard maybe from the late 1960s showing Kettwiger Straße view to the Burgplatz with cinema Lichtburg left.

Winterstein-Lichtspiele in Bitterfeld, Germany

Unfortunately I don't know much about this cinema. I think it was built in the 1950s and it was closed in the early 1990s.  In the same building there was a public library - one of the rare postcards with a library.
I'm still wondering about the name of the cinema: Winterstein (in English "Winter Stone"). It could be a place name. And then it could be from the actor Eduard von Winterstein (1871-1961). But he is more famous as a theatre actor than a movie actor. And he was still alive, when the cinema was opened. It wasn't usual to name a building after a living person. 
The sign above the name was the logo of Junge Pioniere, the East German youth organisation of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14. Under the logo is written: "Unser Vorbild ist die Partei. Wenn sie uns ruft, sind wir bereit! - The party is our ideal. We are ready, when it calls."

Filmtheater am Hauptbahnhof in Dresden/Germany

The photo was made by Tom Bäcker, he called it "Metropolis adieu". Unfortunately he didn't tell us the name of the old Filmtheater. But this is no problem, because I know the building. It was the little cinema next to the main station in Dresden. 
The building is a part of the main station and was originally the entrance for the Royal family to the station (so called Königspavillon). After 1918 it was a ticket office. From 1950 to 2000 it has been used as a cinema. It is said it was a classical news theatre in its first years, where you could spend your waiting time watching the latest news. 
I remember it as a normal cinema. Its speciality was the unique GDR (East German) atmosphere until the end in 2000 - still 10 years after the end of the GDR. It was like a museum inside with 100 % GDR atmosphere.
Now the building is renovated and only a normal entrance: no king, no cinema, no Dave ...

Just found an interesting postcard. 

It is from the last days of this cinema in 2000, a protest postcard against closing addressed to the owner Deutsche Bahn / German Railways. "Von der Bahn überrollt! - Overrun by the railway!"

Delphi Filmpalast in Berlin/Germany

Three ad-cards show Delphi Filmpalast in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The house was built in 1927/28 and was used as a dance hall called Delphi Palace. In 1949 the house was reopened as a cinema, with now 784 seats in one hall. 
The movie title over the entrance is a litte riddle because of the hidden letters - the title is Vergebung (in English: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Swedish: Luftslottet som sprängdes, Sweden 2009). This movie run in summer 2010 in the German movie theatres.

I love the fan-shaped Delphi-emblem over the door, unfortunately not very well photographed at the postcard. It looks like a part of an arrow to the entrance. It is also used by the Delphi film distribution. This distribution started in 1985 with the rerelease of Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). Later this cinematic masterpiece has shown for one year at Delphi Filmpalast.

Danke, Ina, für die Karten!

Cinema Paris Berlin/Germany

 

Three ad-cards showing Cinema Paris - situated at Kurfürstendamm 211 in Berlin. The house was built in 1897, after World War II it has been used as the French Culture Centre Maison de France. The cinema opened in 1950. It is still an one-hall-cinema with 325 seats. The name is the game: there are shown above all French movies in German and in French. 

The cinema advertises the movie Kleine wahre Lügen (Les Petits Mouchoirs, France 2010), the movie came in July 2011 to the German screens.

Danke, Ina, für die Karten!

Zoo Palast Berlin/Germany

Zoo Palast in Berlin was built in 1956/57 by Paul Schwebes, Hans Schoszberger und Gerhard Fritsche. At first there were two halls, with 1070 and 550 seats. Later there were some rebuildings - the cinema had 9 halls with 2758 seats in 1999. In 2013 the Zoo Palast was opened nearly new, with 7 halls and 1700 seats. Look here to see more pictures: kinokompendium.de.
The postcard was made in 1958. The cinema advertised the movie "Die Katze / La chatte / The cat" (Henri Decoin, Italy 1958).

Zoo Palast has been the main cinema for the Berlin International Film Festival from 1957 till 1999.
The postcard shows the French actress Brigitte Fossey, the German actor Rüdiger Vogler and the German film director Helma Sanders-Brahms during the Film Festival in Berlin in 1985.
I love this postcard, got it via Postcrossing. It reminds me when I visited the Berlin International Film Festival in 1992 with Unifilm Saarbrücken. An unique and crazy excess of films. We used to have front-row seats, also in the big hall of the Zoo Palast - a very interesting vista.

Filmnächte am Elbufer in Dresden/Germany

Filmnächte am Elbufer - Filmnights on the banks of the Elbe is Germany's largest open-air cinema (about 3.300 seats) in front of the historical buildings of Dresden. There are shown movies in June-July-August and many concerts take place. At all - a summer festival for everybody. 
The screen is one of the largest mobile screen with 448 m² (32 metres by 14 metres) in the world. It is a combined screen-stage-system. I saw there "Once Upon a Time in the West" years ago.
The postcard is an ad-card from the sponsor/premium partner Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden. They advertise the movie Honig im Kopf (Til Schweiger, Germany, 2014).
At all I don't like open-air cinemas. I need a dark quite hall to enjoy movies - without lights, ships, gulls, rain, cold weather from the river ...

Just found an older ad-card from 1999 for the same event. Interesting design, I like it.

An ad-card from 2016, advertises the Short film night on July 15th, 2016. A joined venture of Filmnächte am Elbufer and Filmfest Dresden - the International short film festival. 

Theatre Row in Tacoma, Washington/USA

I got this interesting postcard via Postcrossing from Danielle from Tacoma. The picture is painted by Marshall L. Johnson. It shows the historic Theater District of downtown Tacoma circa 1930.  Encompassing the Pantages, Rialto, and Theatre on the Square, the Broadway Center manages the largest complex of theaters between Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Additionally, The Broadway Center Conservatory and Education Department provide one of the largest performing arts education programs in Washington State.
Let's go to Tacoma!