Customer Reviews

The Oakland Paramount

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Anybody who likes Art Deco architecture will love this book. While most Art Deco books covering multiple buildings necessarily treat each one lightly, this book presents a complete coverage of the Oakland Paramount Theater, considered a premier American Art Deco theater. The first quarter of the book is devoted to the theater's history and is lavishly illustrated with historical photos of the interior, some taken during construction in 1931. The middle half describes the 1973 authentic restoration and is accompanied by lots of color photos documenting the finely detailed interior. The professional photos are well lit and give a good sense of this fantastic space. The last quarter describes the mechanical aspects of the building and includes behind-the-scenes photos of areas not normally accessible to the public, such as views of the colored lighting system above the suspended ceiling and the pipes of the mightly Wurlitzer organ. The photos alone are worth the price of this book and the history presented is a bonus. I highly recommend this book!

This is a small, but very well written book that covers the Oakland Paramount Theater Building.

The pictures of the Oakland Paramount are excellent and the book makes a good study of the style of the theatre. In my opinion, the pictures tell the story much better than the written word, but the written word is needed.

As a motion picture theater researcher, this book is needed in your collection, if you like motion picture theatre books.

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