History: The Middletown Paramount opened with a big celebration two weeks before its sister in Peekskill. On Tuesday June 10 the Middletown Times Herald published a Special Paramount Edition on the Paramount Publix Corporation and the new theatre. On Wednesday May Clarence Van Fleet threw the switch that illuminated the huge electric sign over the theatre. Opening dday, Thursday, began with a noon parade. The doors opened at 6 P.M. for the first of two shows--all on film--which included a welcome film by Buddy Rogers, star of 1927's Best Picture, Wings, a music selection by the Paramount Symphony Orchestra, Paramount News, a short feature on Middletown and its best known citizens, and then the feature film, The Big Pond, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert.