IT was a night to remember.
Flags and bunting stretched along Blossom Street for the grand opening of the Odeon cinema in Blossom Street, York, on February 1, 1937.
The building - designed in the Art Deco style of the time - cost £60,000 to build.
It replaced another once-popular entertainment spot - The Crescent Cafe and Danse Salon, which we featured recently in our nostalgia section.
On the Odeon's debut, it was lit by neon lights with a large spotlight on the tower which lit up the entire surroundings.
VIPs at the grand opening included a viscount and viscountess, and also the cinema chain's founder, Oscar Deutsch.
All of the 1,484 seats were sold out within 90 minutes of the box office opening, and the first person in the queue to buy a ticket was also presented with a bottle of champagne by the cinema's management.
The first films to be shown were The Man Who Could Work Miracles, starring Roland Young, and They Met In A Taxi, starring Fay Wray and Chester Morris.
Prices began at sixpence for the cheapest stalls seat and went up to two shillings for the most expensive circle seat.
Music in the intermission was provided by the Band of The First Battalion: The Royal Scots, and the net proceeds of the event were given to the Poor Children’s Fresh Air Fund and The York County Hospital.
In 2009, The Press interviewed 81-year-old Harry Atkins of Holgate who was a schoolboy when the Odeon first opened.
Harry recalled standing on the pavement across Blossom Street watching the glittering ceremony unfold in 1937.
When the picture house re-opened in 2009 as a Reel Cinema, Harry was welcomed inside as a VIP guest.
Back in 2009, Harry told The Press: “I remember the building being floodlit and a fanfare of trumpets last time.
“I didn’t see the film then, which was The Man Who Could Work Miracles, but went the following week to see Accused.
“I used to go regularly in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It was a Saturday night ritual. The queue used to go back to the Windmill."
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