34 boulevard de Clichy
Place no. 02
1938 — 1981
Cinema

The Scarlett Cinema

8 February 1938 — 22 December 1981 (43 years)

Forty-three years of cinema on the ground floor of no. 34 — Ciné-Vox-Pigalle, Le Clichy, Agora, Scarlett. A trajectory that summarises that of an entire pan of Parisian neighbourhood cinema: generalist opening, horror specialisation, erotic shift, then closure in the face of the sex shop.

Opening: Ciné-Vox-Pigalle (1938)

The hall opened on 8 February 1938 under the name Ciné-Vox-Pigalle. The company Cinévox Cinéma is still registered at the address, under the APE code for cinema operations — an administrative relic of that period of activity, almost ninety years later.

The opening coincides with the end of the Cabaret du Néant (which had occupied the ground floor since 1895) and with the great period of cinema construction in the Pigalle district, which would host several dozen cinemas between the wars and the 1960s.

Old view of a Pigalle boulevard in the 1930s-40s, with a corner café-tabac, tree-lined median, passers-by, flatbed lorry and shop signs on the façades
The Pigalle neighbourhood at the time of the opening of the Ciné-Vox-Pigalle.
View of a Pigalle boulevard in the late 1930s or early 1940s. On the right, a large café-tabac with the sign "La Cigale · TABAC", its dark canopy, terrace chairs and corner door. In the middle and further away, vertical signs on the façades indicate several shops — a lively, working-class neighbourhood, a string of cinemas, cafés, and food shops. In the foreground: tree-lined median of the boulevard, newspaper kiosk, passers-by in overcoats, a man with a bucket, a delivery man on his flatbed cart. This is the ordinary atmosphere of Pigalle in which no. 34 opened its cinema on 8 February 1938 — a boulevard where popular cinema took the natural succession of the cabarets of the turn of the century.

The architect — Julien Hirsch (E.P.Z.)

The hall was designed by architect Julien Hirsch, trained at the Zurich Polytechnic School (E.P.Z.), who practised in Paris in the 1930s. In 1935 he published a collection entitled Quelques réalisations de Julien Hirsch, architecte E.P.Z. (Paris-Strasbourg, S.N., 1935), one copy of which is held at the Cabinet des estampes of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and is catalogued by the Atlas of Architecture and Heritage of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Hirsch was an architect specialised in cinema halls in the late 1930s. Besides the Ciné-Vox-Pigalle, he designed the Cinevog Latin (Latin Quarter), which also opened in 1938: a newsreel theatre installed in a former restaurant, where Hirsch managed, as Cinema Treasures notes, to fit "a single-screen auditorium with a deep balcony, a lobby, and a large façade, with a curved stage that gave the feeling of a bigger place than it actually was" into a constrained volume. No. 34 boulevard de Clichy falls within the same typology: conversion of a cabaret space into a projection hall, on two levels (orchestra + balcony), with careful work on the façade and the signage.

Stylistically, his writing belongs to Streamline Moderne — the late variant of Art Deco characterised by horizontal lines, aerodynamic curves, simple volumes, indirect lighting. This is the aesthetic of French popular cinema of the late 1930s, halfway between interwar Modernism and post-war functionalism. Hirsch belongs to the second wave of cinema equipment in the Pigalle district, where several dozen halls would open between 1925 and 1960.

His signature at no. 34 remains discreet: as far as we know, no plaque mentions him on the spot, and his name does not appear in any heritage guide to the neighbourhood. This entry modestly restores him to the history of the place.

Intermediate phases: Le Clichy, Agora (1946-1951)

According to the specialised database Cinema Treasures, two intermediate operational names appear between 1946 and 1951: Le Clichy and Agora. This phase corresponds to the post-war revival of the hall, following the definitive closure of the Cabaret du Néant.

Interesting detail: during this intermediate phase, no. 34 shared the name "Agora" with another cinema on the same boulevard located at 64 boulevard de Clichy / 2 rue Coustou — the Cinéma Agora opened in 1932 in a 300-seat basement hall, taken over in 1934 by one of the Fratellini brothers (from the neighbouring Cirque Médrano), and which would operate until 1995 (according to the entry compiled by Ciné-Façades by Philippe Célérier). For five years, two Agora cinemas thus coexisted thirty metres from one another on the same boulevard de Clichy — a curious homonymy, probably linked to the success of the Cinéma Agora at no. 64 that the no. 34 hall tried to capitalise on during its identity-seeking phase, before finding its definitive name in 1951 with the rebranding in tribute to Gone with the Wind.

Renaming: the Scarlett (1951)

On 19 December 1951, the hall was renamed Scarlett. According to local oral tradition, the name is a direct tribute to Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind (1939) — Scarlett O'Hara being the heroine of the film, who had become a mythic figure of popular cinema at the turn of the 1950s. The hall specialised in B and Z movies: horror cinema, neighbourhood crime films, low-budget adventure films, second-tier Italian and American exploitation productions. This is the golden age of boulevard cinemas where programming rotated quickly and one could enter at any time — hence the mention "PERMANENT" visible on the woodwork of the hall.

Le Sadique in Superscope poster at the Scarlett, large-format painted advertising with couple on the left and watching male eye on the right
Painted poster "Le Sadique — Superscope".
Mention "PERMANENT" on the lower woodwork, mention "No admittance for under-13s" beneath the title. Superscope is a 1950s widescreen projection format — a typical choice of B and Z movies which played on the technical argument to attract audiences.
Poster of the film 491 by Vilgot Sjöman at the Scarlett, presented as the scandal of the Cannes Festival
Painted poster "491 — a film by Vilgot Sjöman".
The advertising tagline announces "The scandal of the Cannes Festival" and, according to Le Figaro as quoted on the poster, "The boldest film of the year and perhaps in the history of cinema". The film, released in 1964, is adapted from the novel of the same name by Lars Görling and caused a scandal from its premiere at the 1964 Cannes Festival. It was banned in Sweden then re-released with cuts, banned in Norway until 1971, refused by the British BBFC in 1968, and seized by US customs. This poster is therefore a precious chronological marker: it places the Scarlett's erotic programming as early as the mid-1960s — and not, as is often said, from 1968-1969 onwards. Mention "No admittance for under-18s".

The shift to erotic cinema: Bénazéraf, Pécas, Franco

Through the 1960s and especially after 1968, like most cinemas on the boulevard, the Scarlett shifted to erotic film. The programming transformed: "sex loops", soft-erotic films, risqué comedies, then soft pornography from the mid-1970s onwards. The headliners of the Scarlett at this period are the three major figures of European erotic cinema:

José Bénazéraf (1922-2012), born in Casablanca, friend of Jean-Luc Godard — appears in Breathless. Nicknamed "the Godard of X", "the Antonioni of Pigalle", sometimes "the Buñuel of eroticism", he blended politics and eroticism and defied the censors from the early 1960s. Henri Langlois said of his films that they were "like rivers carrying stones and diamonds". Emblematic films: L'Éternité pour nous (1960), Le Concerto de la peur (1963), Joe Caligula (1965), Le Désirable et le Sublime (1969), Frustration (1971), Black Love (1973). In 2022, his daughters donated all his archives to the CNC.

Max Pécas (1925-2003), born in Lyon, is according to the Cinémathèque française the "French pioneer of the Z style, also called nanard cinema". He stood alongside Bénazéraf as one of the masters of the French erotic genre, capable of exporting well, with Le Cercle vicieux (1959), La Baie du désir, I am a Nymphomaniac (1970), Claude et Greta, Sexually Yours (1974), before shifting in the late 1970s to the Saint-Tropez comedies that would become the very archetype of French B-movies.

Jesús Franco (1930-2013), born in Madrid, signs hundreds of films at a frantic pace under some twenty pseudonyms ("Clifford Brown", "Jess Franck"…) — up to three films at once with the same crews. He shot all over Europe, escaping Francoist censorship by working in French co-production. Notable works: The Awful Dr. Orlof (1961), Necronomicon (1967), Eugénie de Sade (1970), A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1971), Les Gloutonnes (1975) — precisely the one whose colourful poster sits on the Scarlett below.

Painted poster Le Journal érotique d'un mannequin at the Scarlett in the 1970s, view from the street with passers-by and balcony ticket booth
Painted poster "Le Journal érotique d'un mannequin" (Erotic Diary of a Model).
At the foot of the marquee, the word "BALCON" can be read — the hall keeps its original neighbourhood-cinema configuration with stalls and balcony. On the right, the glazed ticket booth, the front of the Reichshofen just visible at the left edge of the frame. Late-afternoon Pigalle atmosphere, audience of men in jackets, queue hesitating to enter. The film belongs to the vein of the "erotic diaries" directed in the early 1970s by Jean-Marie Pallardy (1940-2024), a former model turned soft-porn director, who notably shot The Erotic Diary of a Lumberjack (1973). Mention "No admittance for under-18s".
Full façade of the Scarlett in the 1970s with painted poster Caresses interdites, two women, natural light, cars and passers-by
Façade of the Scarlett and painted poster "Caresses interdites" (Forbidden Caresses).
Frontal view of the entire façade with the SCARLETT illuminated sign in large capitals on light bulbs, the painted poster above the door depicting two women in colour (red, ochre, brown on a beige background), and the mention "No admittance for under-18s". On the left, the staircase of the building of no. 34; on the right, the corner of the street with the neighbouring snack bar and the corner towards no. 36 (the building that housed the La Lune Rousse cabaret until 1914). Cars and passers-by in jackets: late-afternoon Pigalle atmosphere of the 1970s, when the Scarlett held its place in the ordinary life of the boulevard, without particular fuss or scandalisation.
Colour poster of the film Les Gloutonnes at the Scarlett, summer 1975, lowered metal shutter, American car and three small girls on the pavement
Colour poster "Les Gloutonnes — Elles avalent tout…" (They Swallow Everything…).
Under the illuminated SCARLETT banner can be seen the polychrome painted poster (red, yellow, ochre) of the film. Mention "strictly forbidden to under-18s". In the foreground, a long American convertible, and three small girls playing in front of the lowered metal shutter of the Scarlett — a striking contrast between the hall's programming and the ordinary childhood of the neighbourhood, which coexisted on the same boulevard pavement. Precise dating: Les Gloutonnes was directed by Jesús Franco (under the pseudonym "Clifford Brown"), the third major figure of European erotic cinema of the time; the film, also titled Les Exploits érotiques de Maciste dans l'Atlantide, was produced by Comptoir Français du Film Production (Paris) and released in France on 6 August 1975. The photograph therefore cannot predate this date — a precious chronological marker.
Façade of the Scarlett cinema with illuminated sign and Sexy Parade banner in the 1970s, crowd in front of the entrance and period car
Façade of the Scarlett — 1970s.
Illuminated sign SCARLETT in large white capitals on light bulbs, banner "SEXY PARADE" above a painted poster of a reclining nude. Mentions "PERMANENT" and "No admittance for under-18s". Compact male crowd in front of the entrance, a 1960s car parked along the pavement, neighbouring Pigalle façades (wig shop, snack "Perle d'Alsace"). This is the iconic image of the Scarlett at its peak as a popular erotic-cinema venue.

What the posters tell

Set side by side, these photographic archives draw the complete trajectory of a popular Pigalle cinema over nearly thirty years — and make it possible to date them with unprecedented precision. 491 by Vilgot Sjöman (1964) places the Scarlett's erotic programming as early as the mid-1960s, well before the official liberalisation of 1968-1969. Le Sadique in Superscope belongs to the B and Z movies of the 1950s-1960s. Le Journal érotique d'un mannequin, in the vein of Jean-Marie Pallardy, places the photograph in the early 1970s. Les Gloutonnes by Jesús Franco, released in France on 6 August 1975, gives an even more precise marker: the photograph where three small girls play in front of the lowered metal shutter of the Scarlett cannot predate this date. Finally, the photograph of the Sexy Parade façade documents the peak of popular erotic cinema of the mid-1970s, just before the shift to soft pornography then hard. For anyone interested in the cultural history of Pigalle, these images constitute a first-rate document: they show a boulevard cinema that never ceased to embrace the evolutions of the gaze-market, from Hollywood to the peep show.

Closure and reconversion (1981)

The Scarlett ceased its activity as a traditional cinema on 22 December 1981. The premises were then converted into a large sex shop with video screenings, presented at the time as a "little brother of the Sexodrome" nearby. This is the moment when Pigalle massively switched, all over the boulevard, from X-rated cinemas to direct sales of video cassettes — a change of economic model brought about by the spread of the VCR and VHS cassettes in households.

Oral tradition — a rejected Monoprix project. According to the oral memory of no. 34, the Scarlett premises were nearly taken over by Monoprix to open a store. The plan is said to have been rejected by the residents of the building, anxious to preserve the tranquillity of the inner courtyard: a supermarket would have brought noisy early-morning deliveries into the courtyard, with logistics lorries at the porch from dawn — incompatible with the silence characteristic of the place and with the work of the artists in the studios at the back. This residents' pushback partly explains why the ground floor turned to the erotic trade rather than to mass-market food retail.
Current façade of the Scarlett DVD Shop and Peep Show at 34 boulevard de Clichy
The current façade of the Scarlett.
The former cinema has turned into SCARLETT DVD SHOP and PEEP SHOW. The illuminated SCARLETT sign in white capitals survives, as if loyal to the place — only the commercial content has changed. Mentions "PEEP SHOW LIVE SHOW · CINE VIDEO · 2 €". To the right and below can be seen the standardised sex-shop graphic codes that have progressively colonised the boulevard since the 1980s. On the left, no. 34 is just visible with the entrance door of 34 boulevard de Clichy and its artists' studios deep in the courtyard — the maximum gap between the street and the inside.

Current use: Moon City and Pharmacie Pigalle

The site today houses two establishments which share the ground floor:

  • The Moon City sauna, occupying the walls that successively housed Café Reichshoffen, Brasserie Riester, Brasserie du Coq d'Or, ephemeral cafés-concerts, the Cabaret de l'Enfer, the Cabaret du Néant, the Ciné-Vox-Pigalle and the Scarlett. Over more than 1,200 m², the establishment presents itself as one of the largest in Europe.
  • A Pharmacie Pigalle, occupying part of the façade.

An enduring cinematographic memory

No. 34 has kept its cinematographic vocation well beyond the closure of the Scarlett, but shifted towards production. Several film and television production companies are today registered at no. 34: Frédéric Tellier (director of SK1, Sauver ou périr, Goliath), Artisan 14, Christiane Leherissey (institutional and advertising films), Martine Jamaux Production (technical services), and director Fabrice Minier. No. 34 remains, almost a century after the opening of the Ciné-Vox-Pigalle, one of the small audiovisual hubs of lower Montmartre.

Sources & resources

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