[1] The cinema is situated at the junction of East Parade and Station Avenue.

The architect was Cecil Clavering of the Harry Weedon partnership, and the style, by the same firm, was first produced for the Odeon, Kingstanding.

The Harrogate Odeon was built as a copy of the Odeon Cinema, Sutton Coldfield, opened in April 1936; the listing text for that building describes that the foyer, staircase and auditorium are "each defined as a separate block in a complex, carefully massed and expressionistic composition" inspired by the Titania-Palast in Berlin, built in 1928.

Further Odeon Cinemas in similar style were built in York and Scarborough.

[1][2][3] On its opening on 28 September 1936, the cinema seated 1,049 in the stalls and 598 in the circle; the first film shown was Where's Sally?.