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The missing Alborada cinema was located at Calle Galileo 282-288, between Can Bruixa and Novell, next to Travesera de las Corts. It was part of the intention, on the part of the company Las Arenas, S.A., to provide that part of the city with places of recreation, since at that time there was no television.
Les Corts then was still far from the center and lacked movie theaters. This was the reason why the Las Arenas company looked for the possibility of finding an empty lot, in this case, at 288 Galileo street. And it made the decision to build the Alborada cinema.
The possibility that they were successful in their management is that they already had the programming of other cinemas located in the neighborhoods of Hostafrancs, Sants and Las Corts. The Alborada had a capacity of 845 spectators and shared its programming with various rooms of the chain: Liceo, Albéniz, Arenas and Gayarre.
In the post-war years, projection companies were formed to achieve a lower cost of the product and, instead of having the cinemas distributed throughout the city, they tried to have them be pairs and that they were in the same neighborhood.
The reason was very simple, the films at that time came on celluloid tapes with several rolls. The distributors did not have the amount of films to supply all the theaters and they also had an economic cost. If they managed to have two cinemas in the same neighborhood, with only two films they had enough material to cover both rooms.
The cyclist who transported the tapes from one cinema to another became fashionable. The projections were made inverted in both cinemas and when the first film had consumed half of the rolls the cyclist took them to the other cinema and in this way with the rental of two films they offered cinema in two locations.
Despite the contradictions regarding the inauguration date that some give in 1947 and others in 1948, almost 100% could give Saturday, December 28, 1946 as the date, since that Saturday (April Fool’s Day), it appeared in the Billboard of La Vanguardia on its page 6, announcing the programming of: Perfidia, starring Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Stewart Granger and Gran Hotel, starring Cantinflas.
Since in those days the cinemas were not open every day and they used to be only on weekends and holidays or vigils, its programming continued, on Tuesday, January 31 and 1 (New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Eve), with the screening of Crazy loose and A great lady. On Thursday, January 2, he already announced the programming for Saturday, Sunday and Monday of the following week, which were the films: Steal a million and Fireball. Subsequently, he began to schedule the film sessions only on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
At the beginning of the 1950s, despite the attempt to encourage spectators by handing out hand signs in the shops in the area, the cinema began a decline in spectator attendance, for which reason, in 1954, its owners They made the decision to carry out a reform to revitalize the premises.
They hired Antoni de Moragues i Gallissà , nephew of the modernist architect Antoni Maria Gallissà i Soqué (president of the permanent board of the Unió Catalanista in 1897), to carry out the cinema improvement project.
They even carried out variety shows, in which in the fall of 1951, the then popular Antonio MachÃn came to act, but not even with the varieties did they manage to raise the premises.
It reopened its doors on Monday, October 4, 1954, completely renovated, together with the Liceo Albéniz Arenas and Gayarre cinemas, from the Las Arenas, S.A. company, screening: Everything is possible in Granada, with Francisco Rabal and I confess, with Anne Baxter and Montgomery Clift.
On the occasion of the acts that were held annually in those festivities dedicated to the elderly, on June 11, 1961, the VII Homage to the Old Age of Las Corts was held at the premises, which was presided over by Laureano López Rodó, Spanish politician, jurist, professor and lawyer, commissioner of the Development Plan and Minister of Foreign Affairs during the dictatorship.
An act that the managers of the Las Arenas company took care of at that time to try to advertise the place in front of the citizens of the neighborhood, who despite the attention paid, including it in different programming circuits, did not manage to reactivate the place.
It closed its doors on Sunday, November 8, 1964. The last two films that were shown on its screen were: Comic Parade, Life is hard, shot in 1932; Nightlife, shot in 1930, and Politicism, from 1931, and Empire of the Night, with Eddie Constantine and Elga Andersen. The same program that was projected by the Albéniz and Gayarre cinemas.
