The Odeon on Gateshead High Street was one of the countless UK cinemas that came and went during the long heyday of the 'silver screen'.
Blacks Regal, as it was initially called, was opened 85 years ago, on February 15, 1937, by one of Britain's best-known entertainers Gracie Fields.
Fields, at the time, was Britain's highest-paid music and film star, and interrupted a holiday in glamorous St Moritz to fly in to wintry Tyneside for the occasion.
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Thousands lined the High Street and traffic was halted as 'the Rochdale Lass' sang the popular song Sally on the cinema roof.
Newspapers reported how the ceremony lasted just 30 minutes before Fields "returned to Newcastle and entrained for London en route to Switzerland to resume her holiday".
The cinema was taken over by the Odeon chain in 1944, before being re-named Gateshead Odeon a year later. It could accommodate 2,300 movie-goers and was nearly always sold out.
It was Gateshead's finest picture hall, built in Art Deco style, and it boasted a magnificent Compton organ which was played during performances and intervals.
In the 1950s, live entertainment as well as the latest films were on offer, with the likes of Nat King Cole and the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra playing to packed houses.
From the late 1960s onwards, however, audience numbers steadily fell. By 1975, Gateshead Odeon wasn't making sufficient money and it was decided to close the cinema.
The very last film screened there was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, starring Clint Eastwood, in 1975.
'Screen Dims For The Last Time' was the headline in the Chronicle on January 18 of that year.
The closure brought to an end, we reported, "the traditional Saturday morning sessions which have enthralled millions of children for more than 35 years.
"The youngsters fought to keep their Saturday Super Club open. Hundreds of members and their parents signed a petition protesting against the closure."
Cinema manager Jim Elliot, who was retiring after 30 years in the job, said: "Children have been entertained here for three hours every Saturday, and all for 5p. We used to get 400 children here for the show."
Also bowing out was the picture hall's original Compton organ. There was a special performance with an audience coming along to hear the instrument played for the last time.
The building would operate as a Top Rank bingo hall between 1978 and 1995, before being finally demolished in 2003, with the land lying empty after that.
There have been various plans for the site's redevelopment - none of which have come to fruition. The latest plan, as reported by ChronicleLive in August last year, was to see 109 apartments built there.
However, a spokeswoman for Gateshead Council told us: "The proposals put forward last year have now been withdrawn, and no further applications have been made."
Today, the Odeon name lives on in Gateshead in the shape of a state-of-the-art IMAX cinema at the Metrocentre, while the new, near-by Trinity Square hosts Vue Cinemas.
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