Gay Paree Cinema
90 Walton Street NW,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
90 Walton Street NW,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
3 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previous Names: Walton Street Art Theatre
Nearby Theaters
Originally opened as the Walton Street Art Theatre. The Gay Paree Cinema opened as a gay mens adult cinema on August 13, 1971 with Chuck Roy in “Happy Birthday Davy…” It is listed in the 1977 edition of Bob Damron’s Address Book as a gay pornographic cinema.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
Hey Ken… You might have been a bit hungry when you added the AKA above. That should be “Walton Street Art Theatre” not “Walnut Street!”
Cheers!
The Supreme Court case for Carnal Knowledge came from Albany, Georgia. I think it was in 1971 give or take a year.
Following the US Supreme Court overturning the Georgia Supreme Court verdict in favour of Carnal Knowledge, the film was subsequently shown with Night Porter (another Avco Embassy release) as a double-feature during 1974. Does anyone remember seeing these together at this time (and in Georgia)?
Albany ,Georgia was the city. While we are talking about banning movies Augusta Police Chief,James Beck, stated he would raid the IMPERIAL THEATRE there if it showed A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Being an ABC theatre and wanting no bad press it was pulled only to play later when it was released as a R rated movie,
I used to pass the Gay Paree while riding the #23 bus to downtown for my classes at GSU.
I never went into the place, gay is not my orientation and I don’t speak French.
Now that you mentioned the Houston Street Art, Stan, I passed that place many a time too while
a student at GSU. I believe it had an “adult” bookstore attached, or it might have been just
next door. Someone told me that they showed movies there with people actually “doing it."
I didn’t believe that – had to check it out. Went into the place, little foyer. High up the wall straight
ahead was a little window – this was the projection booth. The projectionist granted admission. $3,
very pricey for 1971. I forked over the three bucks and the guy asked me, "Which one, one or two?"
What?? "Which movie you want to see?” The straight one. “They’re both straight.” So it was door number one for me. Went into the auditorium, seated maybe 20, folding chairs, the light from the
projection booth lit the place up pretty well. About a half dozen guys, all looking intently at the
screen. And yes, they were “doing it” onscreen. Still couldn’t believe it.
I was just back from Vietnam then. Shocked that Coke had gone up to 25 cents a can, bus fare
on the Atlanta Transit System was $1.25 and hardcore porn was being shown in Atlanta. The times they were a changin'.
It took Hinson McAuliffe about ten years to shut all the hardcore places down. And they stayed
shut for a long time.
Nice comment Ralph.
I remember this theater as well… on two accounts. (1)it was the first gay theater I had ever seen, and (2) it was just down the street from both the Atlanta Boy Scout office at 167 walton, which was virtually next door to the “Main” Atlanta YMCA, home of the skinny dip. I used to think it interesting that the gay theater was within a block of the two largest male-centric organizations in town! for those younger folks, up until probably the late ‘60’s swim trunks were forbidden at the “Y” swimming pool— everybody skinny dipped!
Somewhere along the line I remember reading that the Gay Paree was a Mike Thevis operation. Thanks for the updated location photo, Ken. Hinson McAuliffe did indeed periodically raid the XXX theaters in Atlanta, think there were about 7 or 8 of them. After a raid they would switch to showing softcore for a while – but they had good lawyers, and when the heat died down, they went back to hardcore. It took McAuliffe a while to fine tune his prosecutorial skills in that area, but by 1980 he did succeed in shutting down all the porno theaters in Fulton County. The Buckhead Cinema was the only “adult” theater that remained open – it survived by switching to a softcore format (most of the major adult film companies shot in two versions: hard and soft.) Open secret among the raincoat crowd was the Buckhead showed hardcore late at night on the weekends. With the glut of porn on the internet and tons of dvds now available, it’s hard to imagine that the pruriently inclined once had to go to public ‘adult’ theaters to scratch their itch.
This opened on August 13th, 1971. Grand opening ad in the photo section.
FYI Myra Breckinridge, Carnal Knowledge, A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, Hannie Calder, Midnight Cowboy, Women in Love and Sraw Dogs were all X Rated! This was before pòrn of course…