Spent an evening at the Paramount Theater for a showing of Hitchcock's classic North By Northwest. First time I'd ever been there and, just as everyone says, man is that place beautiful. Art deco gilding everywhere and the most fantastic details on everything from the banisters to the wall sconces.

The whole outing was an honest-to-God "evening at the pictures" with cocktails in the mezzanine, newsreels and cartoons, multiple spinnings of the Dec-O-Win and a serenade from the mighty wurlitzer.

By the time the film started there wasn't an empty pair of seats to be found.

I like cartoons from the time when cartoons could wield shotguns.

Its a classic for a reason.

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Movie time? As well as the occasional classic film, the Paramount Theatre is home to the Oakland East Bay Symphony and a variety of music, comedy and theater shows. Built in 1931, its heyday as a picture palace was all too brief and it lay pretty much neglected until its closure in 1970. Luckily for us all it was rescued by the Oakland Symphony and restored to its former glory with the help of what I can only assume must have been tremendously generous donations. Thus it was re-opened in 1973 and eventually gained status as both a California and National Historic Landmark.