Club Gaumont Closes Down In Paris

July 30, 1999, after playing "Waking Ned" at 8pm, the single-screen auditorium of the Club Gaumont, formerly Publicis Matignon, located in the basement of the Drugstore Publicis, Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées, closed down.

This movie theater hadn't played first run movies for quite a while, and was the shadow of what it had been earlier. It is the first time a Parisian theater closes down since the Publicis Saint-Germain le December 31, 1996, and the Gaumont les Halles December 31, 1999.

The theater was built as the same time as the Drugstore Publicis Matignon, in 1970. The auditorium had a 300 seats and a nice 35ft screens. Like the other Publicis theaters, it is part of the Parafrance circuit. It is luxurious, and flashy (the back of the seats are covered with glass, for instance). It was equipped for 70mm (Out Of Africa was played there). It sometimes played in French version the movies that were played at the Publicis Elysées in their own languages.

When Parafrance went bankrupt in 1985, many French Paramount theaters closed down, but Gaumont took over the Publicis theaters. The Publicis Matignon reopened after remodelling, and is renamed the Club Gaumont. Unfortunately, it is mostly used for privated and press screenings, and it isn't open very often to the public. Much worse, the auditorium is much smaller than it used to be, and the new screen is only 23ft wide.

The Publicis Saint Germain closed down when the Drugstore Saint Germain was sold to become an Armani superstore. The Publicis Elysées is now the only survivor of the Publicis theaters, which tried to offer some luxurious and decent screens and volumes when auditoriums tended to get smaller and uglier. For how long?