Pete
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Post by Pete on Mar 27, 2010 15:43:08 GMT 1
Anyone any recollections of Cinemas that have long since gone?
Bromley The Pullman (later The Astor) - opposite what used to be The Odeon and known as The Flea Pit! It was very small, sort of 'wedge' shaped inside and at an angle to the pavement, so easily recogniseable today as the Taste Buffet.
The Gaumont - Bromley South, now Habitat.
Hayes, Station Approach - The Rex, now Iceland.
West Wickham, Station Road - The Plaza/Odeon/Gaumont. This was next to the Post Office and replaced by Boots. I originally had this down as The Gaumont but since learned it was originally The Plaza, The Odeon, and lastly The Gaumont.
Coney Hall - on the corner of Kingsway/Croydon Road. Actually, whilst this looks distinctly like it was once a Cinema (and indeed, it was intended to be), this 1930s Art Deco inspired building never achieved it's status and was eventually opened as a restaraunt and dance hall! Later it became a garage, selling petrol and cars, with the upstairs turned into offices of the Danish Bacon Company. Sadly, these days it's just another Wickes store.
All my 'present day' references are obviously subject to change.
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Post by joykentishmaid on Apr 10, 2010 8:08:00 GMT 1
Oh dear, I don't like change I think that the first film I ever saw was Ben Hur at the Regal.
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Post by peter52 on Oct 2, 2010 23:43:26 GMT 1
Following onto Historian's thread... how about old Cinemas that have long since gone? I can think of a few... some slightly off-patch, but here they are anyway. PengeEmpire BromleyThe Pullman - opposite what used to be The Odeon and known as The Flea Pit! It was very small, sort of 'wedge' shaped inside and at an angle to the pavement, so is easily recogniseable today as occupied by Taste Buffet. The Gaumont - Bromley South, now Habitat. Hayes, Station Approach - The Rex, now Iceland. West Wickham, Station Road - The Gaumont, next to the Post Office. My 'present day' reflections are according to Google Maps, and may have changed. There were the King's Hall and Essoldo in Penge. I could see the neon sign for the Essoldo from my grandparents' bedroom window in Mackenzie Road!
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Pete
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Post by Pete on Aug 29, 2011 19:45:22 GMT 1
I don't like change either... I also remember when neon lights were a novelty, I always seemed to be drawn towards them, which was the idea I suppose... these days everything is too much of the same, there's no excitement like there was back then. Such is life.
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Post by richardf on Aug 12, 2012 5:05:32 GMT 1
I seem to remember that the Penge Empire was the name when it was still a stage theatre featuring the Court Players, who were old style rep performing one play a week Monday (or perhaps Tuesday) to Saturday with one Matinee on Wednesday (I think). And there was always a Panto opening on Boxing day and running for four weeks or so.
When it changed to a movie palace the name changed to the Essoldo as it became one of a group with that name.
The King's Hall. opposite the Grammar School was the local flea pit by reputation but I never found any manifestation of infestation though it did tend to have the B grade movies, mainly comedies of doubtful value - Crazy Gang, Moore Marriot and Graham Moffat supporting Will Hay and that sort of thing. Great for us because we were the kids of the time and thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh yes, they also seemed to have all the Tarzan films of the Johnny Weismuller vintage. That really dates me
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Pete
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Posts: 124
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Post by Pete on Aug 18, 2012 13:11:06 GMT 1
Ha! we may be dating ourselves Richard, but what memories we have... I sometimes wonder if the young people of today will be able to look back and dwell on their memories in the same way we do? Everything was relatively 'new' back then, with everything in it's infancy - going to the pictures was an event, whereas nowadays it's just a matter of course. Good days, we had the best of it in my opinion.
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Post by oldbiker on Jun 8, 2017 20:58:18 GMT 1
Bumping this old topic back up... I'm sure there was a cinema near the green at Elmers End - the end building of the crescent shaped parade of shops. My mum took me to see a Danny Kaye film there during the day in about 1954. How decadent.
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Post by The Historian on Jun 8, 2017 23:09:14 GMT 1
Bumping this old topic back up... I'm sure there was a cinema near the green at Elmers End - the end building of the crescent shaped parade of shops. My mum took me to see a Danny Kaye film there during the day in about 1954. How decadent. Yes there was a cinema there. It was demolished by a local company called Frank Valori.
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Post by redleader on Aug 9, 2017 23:40:54 GMT 1
We have lived in Shirley now for forty years but still frequently visit the Odeon Beckenham where I was trainee manager back in 1964/66 and look back with nostalgia at how the cinema used to look. I thought I would share with you a few memories as a snapshot of that time.
Almost my first job on leaving school at the age of 15 was a post-boy in the head office of ABC Cinemas in Golden Square, just off Piccadilly Circus. There, although just a lowly minion, you got to learn some of the inner workings of the organisation. Then publicity dept in particular pumped out volumes of promotional material to the cinemas every week to encourage the managers to publicise the films on release. A year and a half later I was selected for training as a cinema manager and posted to the ABC Beckenham where I was on the receiving end of all this bumpf and being encouraged to coerce local businesses to participate in full page ads in the Beckenham Advertiser (at their expense!) and organise carnival floats to promote the films – not an easy task even then.
For a sixteen year old in 1964 this was entry into what then seemed the glamourous world of show business – or at least being on the periphery of it. Every evening at six o’clock the manager, Johnnie Bacon, the assistant manager if we had one and myself had to change into evening dress and be in the foyer ready to greet the patrons. We all had our own individual dressing rooms backstage to get changed because the cinema had been built as live theatre as well. Johnnie Bacon was a larger than life character who reminded me greatly of Terry Thomas with a big, broad and toothy smile and a penchant for frequently uttering ‘the man’s an ebbsolute shah’ (absolute shower). We had a large body of uniformed staff headed by Arthur Dingle as Chief of Staff who, even then, was past retiring age. I’m sure I remember seeing him around Beckenham many years later when he must have been in his 90s. Then there was Frank, one of the ushers and another guy, whose name escapes me now, who was disabled and walked very awkwardly and was epileptic and Phyllis the ice cream saleslady plus a formidable lady who had the title of chief cashier.
There were two ticket windows in an enclosed box office in those days, pretty much where current ticket sales is (if it’s ever manned). We rarely had to open the second ticket machine because the cinema was never that busy – only for blockbusters then such as ‘Becket’ and ‘Zulu’ in 1964 or ‘Khartoum’ and ‘A Man for All Seasons’ in 1966. It was always the historical dramas that brought in big audiences in Beckenham. Today the old box office has gone. The manager’s office which was in the right hand corner as you come through the front doors is now just a cupboard and of course the vast auditorium which once seated 2,500 people is now split up into six screens, one of which has absorbed the once popular Regal Ballroom on the first floor. This was, certainly in my time there, very much a separate, leased out entity and not part of the cinema management. Fortunately, although it’s all been divided into six screens, because it’s a Grade II listed building all the old Art Deco decoration has been retained. Even though some of it is covered up it is all still intact underneath. To the left of the foyer in what is now a coffee, ice cream and sweet shop was once the cinema restaurant with comfortable chairs and tables with linen tablecloths, served by waitresses in black dresses with white aprons and a little white headdress worn like a tiara. The kitchens were where the toilets are now and the manageress’s office (we called lady managers manageresses in those days) was next to today’s emergency exit. The cash desk window next to that was staffed by a little old lady who’d been there for years named Mattie. She was as deaf as post and used to shout at everybody.
At the front of the stalls in the auditorium there was once a mighty Wurlitzer organ, which in the early days of the cinema was regularly played between performances by people like Reginald New who was the organist in 1940. I always wanted to play the organ (and still do but am too old to learn now) and I used to occasionally bring the organ up on its electric motor with all its flashing lights and tinker with the keyboards imagining I was Reginald Dixon. I did it one Sunday afternoon before the cinema was due to open at 4pm and at about 3.45pm I pushed the button to send it down and the fuses blew. The Chief Projectionist had to rush down with a handle and crank the thing down. He wasn’t best pleased and I got a mighty severe ear bashing and a very red face! The organ was subsequently sold much later for £50 and I understand it is now in situ somewhere in Cheltenham.
From the ABC Beckenham I moved to the Ritz Chatham for a few months before being ‘head hunted’ (all sounded very grand in 1966) to go and work with a former Assistant Manager at Beckenham named Gordon Hubbard who was then the General Manager of the Mecca dancehall the Ilford Palais and had the very grand title of Assistant General Manager at the age of 18. A lot more fun and glamour and more stories but we’ve moved on from Beckenham now….……….
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