Friday, 02 December 2011 09:15
Photo courtesy of cubarte
Lovers of theater and also the “seventh art” have always counted on excellent theaters and cinemas in Cuba. In the busy street Galiano, between Concordia and Neptun, there has been inaugurated on March 29th, 1941 the movie-theater América.
The building is of Art Deco style and initially competed with the most important theaters of the United States of America and the rest of the world. The inside is of a stunning beauty with a perfect acoustics and from every corner and even the balcony visibility is good.
In its beginnings, the movie-theater performed Hollywood productions, including premieres. Years later arrived movies of the wide-screen system (Cinemascope and Technicolor). There have been some important moments in its history, such as the simultaneous premiere of the movie “Helena de Troya” – Rossana Podestá and Jack Sernas playing the main characters – in countries of every continent; the showing of “High Society”, the last film Grace Kelly stared in along with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong before getting married with Prince Rainer III. The movie was a big commercial success. At the América’s the first full-length cartoon produced in Cuba was shown: Elpidio Valdés, by the prestigious director Juan Padrón.
This giant movie-theater brought shows of all kinds with celebrities like Pedro Vargas, Marta Pérez, Lola Flores, Rosita Fornés, Carmen Amaya, Imperio Argentina, Benny Moré, Ernesto Lecuona, Elena Burke, Esther Borja, Celia Cruz, Cesar Portillo de la luz, Orquesta Aragón, Libertad Lamarque and Josephine Baker.
Nowadays, only variety shows can be seen, for example directed by Ricardo Isidrón, always of a good sense and a big audience. The cafeteria is also important, one of the points to refer to of central Havana.
With its 70 years of existence the movie-theater stays charming, booming and full of life, just like our continent of the same name.
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