Until the 1980s we were spoiled for choice. If we exclude the glorious Politeama, closed since 1969, there were at least four cinemas along that stretch of a few hundred meters that separates Via Verdi from Via Palestro. And in addition there was the Padus in via del Vasto (Porta Po), the Filo and then the summer and parish cinemas. However, the photos tell of two places: Corso in via Antico Rodano and Italia in via Anguissola. Italy was the first cinema (year 1915) designed exclusively for projections. Of course in the city films could be seen at the Ponchielli, the Politeama or the Filo but that specially built room with stalls and gallery marked the epic of cinema in Cremona. Then the remake in the sixties. Italy became the place of the first visions. The memories then go back to 1981, when “the time of apples” was shown in Italy with a very young Sophie Marceau and there was a queue of kids all the way to Corso Campi. Or to the premiere of the film Stradivari, 35 years ago, an evening at invitations complete with red carpets and VIPs as if you were on the Croisette. And how can we forget the legendary, ever-present cashier Ada. The property belonged to the Baldaro-Camurri family. In 1960 the Corso cinema also opened, transferring the Ponchielli film license there It took the place of an open-air cinema in the garden of the Calciati house. It closed in 1993 and the license passed to Leopardi for the reborn cinema in the Roxy dedicated to Ugo Tognazzi.
The former Corso cinema in via Antico Rodano was included in the new municipal mobility plan to be transformed into garages for private use with 155 garages available. But the cinema crisis did not stop. The Italia in Via Anguissola was transformed into a Bingo hall in 1999, then closing its doors definitively, after the failure of the second experience in the betting sector, which was so popular in Spain, but never had much following in the Bel Paese. In the summer of 2012 the cinema was demolished and replaced by a residential structure designed by the Bianchi e Palù architecture studio of Cremona on behalf of the Rossini Costruzioni company which had purchased the property from Camurri-Baldaro.
In the photos the luminous writing and the poster with the film being shown at the Corso cinema between via Antico Rodano-corso Campi and via Palestro, then the Italy of via Anguissola, the Corso cinema and the demolition of the structure with the screen in the background.
