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The Loew's Kings was opened in Brooklyn's Flatbush area on September 7, 1929. It was a Palace from the opening night. The film was "Evangeline" starring Dolores Del Rio. She was there in person to take a bow. The stage show, "Frills & Francies," was a musical revue with an MVC, a line of Chester Hale showgirls, a prima ballerina soloist, and a 40 piece orchestra. The stage shows are almost forgotten, even though the Kings continued first-run films and vaudeville long after other theatres of its type succumbed to the lure of sound; the depression also forced continuing retrenchments of live stage shows.
Fortunately the kings still remains, a monument to its architects, builders, and interior designers. C.W. and George L.Rapp were foremost architects who did many of the Paramount Publix larger theatres in various cities, including both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Pararnounts. Unlike many other theatres that were converted to movie houses from other uses, the Kings was planned as a de-luxe "talking-picture" house and nothing seems to have been overlooked in its construction.
The grand entrance lobby is 40 ft. wide and stretches forward for 75 feet on a gently sloping pink marble floor. Beautiful chandeliers are suspended from the high vaulted ceiling. Brass railings on the right were used to organise the audience into lines. This lobby ends in a rounded fashion with several fluted enormous Corinthian type columns. To the left, the inner lobby is1 visible; and this is the point at which the theatre's direction shifts 45 degrees from the entrance lobby. On the left of this inner lobby (150 ft. long)...