Built in 1935 by American production company'Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the architect of this iconic cinema was Thomas W. Lamb. He was also the architect of the'Metro'Cinema in Bombay. The first film to be screened there was Bonnie Scotland. It was a 1935 American film directed by James W. Horne and starring Laurel and Hardy. Blockbusters such as Gone with the Wind, Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe were screened at Metro. The same theatre ran the 1973 Hindi film, Bobby, for 52 weeks. Incidentally, Uttam Kumar's father, Satkari Chattopadhyay, was the chief operator at Metro cinema. Uttam-Suchitra's 1957 film Chandranath was the first Bengali film to be screened there. The theatre also had a 16 mm film library that Satyajit Ray was particularly fond of. Films could be hired from there. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who had released his debut film Dooratwa on March 20, 1981, at Metro, had shot a scene there with Nawazuddin Siddiqui for Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa. The theatre has been so iconic that even the climax scene of the Priyanka Chopra-Ranveer Singh-Arjun Kapoor starrer Gunday had also referred to Metro cinema in the dialogue. It became so integral to the city that the adjacent areas got named after it. The Metro Channel is famous for political gatherings and the adjoining alley, known as Metro Goli, is a shoppers' delight.