On this day in Paris history: The Grand Rex reopens after the Occupation—with chewing gum.

Two months after the Libération de Paris, the Grand Rex reopens to the public with a comédie américaine and chewing-gums handed out at the intermission, on October 13, 1944. The boulevard Poissonnière cinema emerges from four years during which the armée allemande had transformed it into Soldatenkino, a venue chiefly for soldiers on leave. For this reopening, the film choice itself carries a particular weight: Ève a commencé, with Deanna Durbin and Charles Laughton, ranks among the very first hollywoodiens features shown in Paris libéré.

Only 12 years had passed since the Rex opened its doors on December 8, 1932. Its creator, producer and operator Jacques Haïk, had tasked architect Auguste Bluysen with building a cinema palace capable of seating around 3,300 spectators. The hall made an impression with its star-lit ceiling, its decor evoking a Mediterranean town, its balconies and its vast stage. A nursery, infirmary, kennel and police station even completed the facilities, promising moviegoers they could spend a good part of the day there!

The arrival of German troops upends this spectacular life. Le Rex is requisitioned in 1940 and reserved for Wehrmacht personnel on leave. The films shown are authorized by the Occupation authorities and may include propaganda works. A large clock remains lit in the hall, while a loudspeaker interrupts the screenings as needed to announce train times for soldiers who must join their unit.

Cinema also becomes a target of the Resistance. On 17 September 1942, the Valmy unit carried out a bomb attack against the Rex, one of the actions this year against places frequented by the occupying forces. Two years later, the German soldiers finally leave Paris and abandon an establishment whose reopening remains complicated by a shortage more everyday than others: electricity.

In the autumn of 1944, Paris was still living under energy rationing, and many cinemas struggled to run as usual. The Rex then equipped itself with a motor and an alternator that let it generate its own electricity. According to the venue’s official history, the installation can operate thanks to substantial fuel reserves left by the Germans. The paradox is quite telling: the stock left by the former occupier ends up powering one of Paris's largest screens.

The film chosen for this revival is Ève a commencé (It Started with Eve), a musical comedy directed by Henry Koster in 1941, featuring Deanna Durbin, Charles Laughton, and Robert Cummings. It is the first Hollywood film distributed in Paris since 1940! The newspaper Défense de la France announces the film at the Rex as well as at the Avenue cinema, while only a few theaters have already resumed regular programming in the liberated capital.

After four years in which American films had disappeared from Parisian screens, Deanna Durbin offers viewers far more than a light comedy. The young actress was already enormously popular in France before the war, and her return to the screens coincides with the arrival of a cinema from the United States that the audience had been deprived of during the Occupation.

The chewing-gums proposed during the intermission have endured in the tales about that evening. Their presence alone lends the screening a distinctly special character: in a Paris still grappling with shortages and rationing, this small product associated with America accompanied the return of a Hollywood film to a venue that had until then been reserved for German soldiers.

• To be read
• Le Grand Rex: the world's largest cinema
• The Grand Rex: a cinema, a party and a living Parisian myth, with Alexandre Hellmann
• This Week's Best Bets in Paris and Île-de-France, October 12–18, 2026

The Rex program, moreover, preserves the excess that built its pre-war reputation. A screening could pair a musical opening, newsreels, an intermission, stage attractions and the feature film. Orchestra, dancers, movable sets and special effects occupied a place almost as important as the film itself!

This revival would be interrupted again a few months later. From April 12 to June 22, 1945, the Rex closes its doors to welcome repatriated prisoners of war. The cinema would then permanently reclaim its vocation and make American productions one of the driving forces behind its postwar success.

For further reading:

Le Grand Rex: the world's largest cinema
Its starry vault, its atypically decorated facade, its grandeur... You've got a thousand and one reasons to visit the Grand Rex! In fact, it's the world's largest cinema, with a grand auditorium seating 2,702 people. [Read more]

The Grand Rex: a cinema, a party and a living Parisian myth, with Alexandre Hellmann
Alexandre Hellmann tells the story of the Grand Rex, between family heritage, daring innovations and an undiminished passion for cinema. [Read more]

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