One of the first dedicated cinemas in Boulogne, the Kursaal opened in 1911 and was sited immediately next to the Crédit Lyonnais bank in rue Victor Hugo. During the following decades, Boulogne's cinemas -- at one time, the city had five on the go at once, the others being the
Coquelin, the Lumière, the Coliseum and the magnificently-named Vog -- would proceed to cut each other's throats, and the Kursaal was one of several cinemas snidely purchased (and subsequently closed) by the owners of the
Stars cinema in the early 1980s. However, these opportunists would get theirs, after a fashion, when the
Gaumont Coquelles opened just over a decade later; as a wise Jedi once said, there's always a bigger fish.
The legendary Johnny Hallyday played a show at the Kursaal in 1961, and he went on to enjoy quite a love affair with Boulogne, returning to the city for further shows in
1963,
1966, 1977 and 1990. The Kursaal closed in 1982 and was knocked down in 1985, with its replacement taking the form of a mainly residential block which also contains a ground floor retail space (currently home to a Zara, as seen in the above photo). While the cinema may be long gone, the bank next door is still in operation, and it's housed in a most impressive building.
