- The Beverley cinema has been entertaining with vintage erotic films since 1960
- But its 74-year-old boss Maurice Laroche is shutting up shop as sales plummet
- Laroche, who has owned the cinema since 1993, blamed decline on the internet
The last surviving porn cinema in Paris is closing down at the end of the year as it struggles to compete with the internet.
The Beverley cinema in the second arrondissement has been entertaining customers with vintage erotic films since 1960.
But 74-year-old boss Maurice Laroche is shutting up shop as sales plummet to a third of what they were 20 years ago.
The last surviving porn cinema in Paris is closing down at the end of the year as it struggles to compete with the internet. Pictured: Owner of the Beverley cinema Maurice Laroche
He told Le Parisien: ‘Today, when we sell 600 tickets a week, we are happy. Twenty years ago, we sold 1,500-1,600.’
‘In the early 1980s, the atmosphere was happy. There were 20 porn cinemas in Paris and 110 across France,’ he added.
Even The National Film Center had up to 44 screens devoted to X-rated films.
But now the Beverley cinema’s annual turnover hardly exceeds €300,000.
Maurice Laroche, director of the Cinema Le Beverley movie theatre, sprays air freshener in the theatre in Paris
The Beverley is the last cinema in the capital still screening pornographic movies but it will close at the end of the year
Laroche, who has owned the cinema since 1993, blamed this decline on the rise of internet porn.
He said: ‘Now 10-year-old kids can see any porn movie.’
Reflecting on his time as boss, Laroche recalled when his cinema attracted all sorts of people aged 18 to 100 and his couple’s nights made the cinema ‘a place of reproduction’.
‘Fifteen years ago, a couple came to introduce me to their baby, who they said was conceived at The Beverley,’ he said.
The Beverley cinema in the second arrondissement has been entertaining customers with vintage erotic films since 1960