What Were Cinemas Like When You Were A Child, Grandparent?

[SteveDave]

In the future when we get films broadcast into our heads we will look back with fondness for the times we used to sit in the dark with noisy strangers. I am from Cardiff & all of the cinemas I knew as a child/young adult have long since been closed down & turned into flats or shops.

The 1st film I ever saw at "the pictures" was "Snow White & The Seven Dwarves" when it was re-released in 1983 & I would've been about 5. My mum & dad took me to the Monico a lovely looking building that was slap bang in the middle of suburban Rhiwbina (which is in Cardiff) 



My father took me out of school early one day & we went there to see "Return Of The Jedi" before "It gets full of noisy bastard kids". I remember getting a programme for it & sitting down next to another boy I'd never met & both of us discussing excitedly what was in the programme. For some reason we thought Sy Snootles was what C3-PO looked like under his outer armour. Pfft...kids. The Monico also had a life-size R2-D2 in the foyer. I was always asking for a photo stood next to it but we never took a camera to the cinema. Who would?

A few years later I saw "Transformers: The Movie" in there & got nightmares from the trailer of "Howard The Duck" that was shown before it. Jeffrey Jones was damaging kids long before all the recent business.

The Monico is now flats & the world is all the more poorer for that.

What are your childhood cinema memories?

[billtheburger]

This was my childhood cinema.


My mum was manageress there when I lived in her womb.

The first films I remember seeing were Herbie goes Bananas, Condorman, Octopussy and ET.
At the end of ET, I recall asking my dad if his throat hurt. He laughed at me. That kind of thing fucks kids up.

[Bored of Canada]

This place.





Became a library.



Then a cinema in the 90's.



Now it's barely either, having no films, and all the books relegated to a tiny room with no furnishings and shit carpet.

I went here to see the second Babe film as a 6 year old, and accidentally slammed my finger in a heavy steel door they had for the bathroom.
Almost severed it. Missed the first half of the film because I was in so much pain, bleeding and silt, like some goddamn wimp.



Though I generally went to the Regent.



This city's an old gold mining city, so all the bigger buildings were built in the 1850's and have that more Victorian Architecture, as the city became immensely wealthy.
So the Regent used to have a whole different design. Then when the Americans were here during WW2, fighting in the Pacific, one of the GIs fell asleep with a cigarette in his mouth and burnt down the entire cinema. The US Government had to pay and build us a new cinema. So now there's this Art-Deco Multiplex surrounded by Victorian buildings. 

Not sure which cinema, as it was in Sydney, but my parents took me to see the Big Lebowski when I was 5. Which is, coincidentally, my earliest memory. Which I remember vividly.

Julianne Moore naked flying about with the scariest fucking noises being made, the dream sequence[nb]Especially the Kraftwerk-esque guys carrying the giant scissors. Christ.[/nb], and John Goodman biting off the Nihilist's ear. Never forget any of that.

That kinda shit doesn't fuck kids up.

[weekender]

Solihull high street wasn't always pedestrianised, it used to have an actual road with cars running down it.

You see this?  This is where Royal Bank of Scotland is now!





What you can just about see from that first picture is that there was a fire escape running down the left-hand side, which wasn't alarmed or anything.  What this meant was that you all clubbed together to buy one ticket for one of your gang, who went into the cinema, right, and opened the fire door.  Then you all just went up the fire escape and into the cinema to watch the film, it was brilliant.  Everyone used to do this, it was a well-known secret[nb]I don't know of anyone who ever did this, but nearly everyone I knew claimed they'd done it at least once.[/nb]!

[checkoutgirl]

The right hand side of the above building with the lower roof used to be the Abbey Shopping Centre Twin Cinema in Drogheda, County Louth. It was very small, maybe a hundred seats in each cinema. The inside was unremarkable (horrible carpeted steps, crappy little ticket booth) until you got into the main rooms which had red velvet walls and old film posters. I can still feel Michael Berryman's eyes bearing down on me in a dimly lit, red velvet covered room.



The Dawn Of The Dead poster made my 12 year old mind think "How will they escape the zombies? There's no escape". Something about the red velvet and the old film posters was very evocative, even at the time.

The first film I can remember seeing there was Batman in 1989 for a school friend's birthday. I loved it. I think I also went to see Robin Hood Prince of Thieves a couple of years later. The last film I can remember seeing there was Get Shorty in 1996. Being a twin cinema it had another feature at the time which me and my mate decided to forego because it was a cartoon, Toy Story. My other two mates went to see that and I think they probably got the better deal as they were raving about it when they came out. The 17 year old me just shrugged and muttered "I bet it was crap, it's a cartoon for fuck sake".

[Beagle 2]

This was my childhood cinema.


My mum was manageress there when I lived in her womb.

The first films I remember seeing were Herbie goes Bananas, Condorman, Octopussy and ET.
At the end of ET, I recall asking my dad if his throat hurt. He laughed at me. That kind of thing fucks kids up.

Erm, you might just have freaked me out a bit. Is that Unit 4 cinema in Rawtenstall? Because my mum used to be manageress of it as well, in the early 80s. She gave it up when I was born in 1981.

[billtheburger]

Erm, you might just have freaked me out a bit. Is that Unit 4 cinema in Rawtenstall? Because my mum used to be manageress of it as well, in the early 80s. She gave it up when I was born in 1981.

It is.
I am also freaked out.
My mum gave it up in 1977 when I was born.

[Beagle 2]

Fuck! I'm pretty sure that's the one, I know it was a Unit 4 and I know we lived near Rawtenstall, unless there were multiple Unit 4's in the area there's a really good chance my mum took over from yours! She would have managed it 1977-1981. I'm just double checking with one of her old friends she worked with that it's that one.

How spooky. Sadly my Mum's not around any more, but if yours is, ask her if she knows the name Ann Taylor.

Edit: Nah that's got to be the one, we lived in Bacup and that's on Bacup Road. My mum used to sneak the rest of the family in for private screenings of stuff like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the Exorcist.

[billtheburger]

So you are a Rossendalien by birth?
Have you managed to escape?

Unfortunately my mum died in '89, so I can't ask either.

[Beagle 2]

So you are a Rossendalien by birth?
Have you managed to escape?

After I was born we moved to Accrington, and eventually to Yorkshire, so I don't know that area too well. My Dad's side is all from around there though.

Very weird coincidence. She always spoke of working there as being the time of her life. I'm still in touch with the projectionist from when she worked there, who still lives in Rossendale. I shall tell him of this spooky incident!

[Johnny Townmouse]

Staines ABC/Regal Cinema
A glorious deco modernist masterpiece of a building that had me pissing my pants with expectation as soon as you walked through the door. The smell of cigarettes and popcorn, and the muffled sound of films reaching their climax, would envelope my head. Sometimes there was a massive queue outside, which somehow made it all the more exciting. My main memories are of seeing ET (twice), The Empire Strikes Back and Goonies.





Here is what it looks like now:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=staines+cinema&hl=en&ll=51.433745,-0.515199&spn=0.011571,0.033023&oe=utf-8&channel=rcs&hq=cinema&hnear=Staines-upon-Thames,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.433831,-0.515398&panoid=vGpAAtg9KhYMJ33lPStnaw&cbp=12,240.41,,0,0

[billtheburger]

After I was born we moved to Accrington, and eventually to Yorkshire, so I don't know that area too well. My Dad's side is all from around there though.

Very weird coincidence. She always spoke of working there as being the time of her life. I'm still in touch with the projectionist from when she worked there, who still lives in Rossendale. I shall tell him of this spooky incident!

Was he a red headed chap called Freddie?
Ask him if he remembers Vera Rickards.

[Bored of Canada]

Aw man. Excluding the whole coincidence of you guys both having mum's who owned the same cinema, which is brilliant, I'm finding this thread increasingly depressing. Cinemas disappearing for flats. What's the point in having a flat if there's no cinemas or historical buildings about. My life's already utterly pointless and depressing as is, why would I want to move into a flat if there's nothing interesting about, except for the dedicated entertainment zone of the Shopping Centre with it's own generic multiplex.

I know romanticising the past's a poor thing to do, but surely we need these old unique places with their own stories.

[Mildly Diverting]

Couldn't agree more. My childhood cinema on Exeter High Street is now a Waterstones. Can't get enough of them, eh?

[Mister Six]

This one's mine - the Odean, on the Headrow in Leeds:



Yeah, it was a multiplex, so not as romantic as the wee lovely things elsewhere in this thread, but seeing those big red neon letters and that rather spartan white hoarding - Christ, that was cinema to me as a kid, as much as anything on the actual screen. They seemed to have the posters for Robin Williams's Toys and Eddie Murphy's Coming to America up for fucking years, too, which was odd. I didn't see Toys until ages after it was in cinemas, but the nostalgia rush was enough to make me love it for life.

Not sure what the first film I ever saw there was. I think a re-release of The Aristocats? I remember watching Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Wayne's World 2, as well. And Back to the Future III, but I think maybe that was just a trailer.[nb]Apropos of very little, seeing the poster for Back to the Future II on a bus-stop outside Woolworth's in Pudsey was the first time in my life I was aware of the concept of a sequel. I remember almost physically recoiling, and thinking - "Oh! You can actually do that with a story? Wow." I would have been seven, I guess.[/nb]

Now it's a fucking Primark. What makes it worse is that it actually looks better now than it did in the '80s:

[billtheburger]

Staines ABC/Regal Cinema

Here is what it looks like now:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=staines+cinema&hl=en&ll=51.433745,-0.515199&spn=0.011571,0.033023&oe=utf-8&channel=rcs&hq=cinema&hnear=Staines-upon-Thames,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.433831,-0.515398&panoid=vGpAAtg9KhYMJ33lPStnaw&cbp=12,240.41,,0,0

That's the one I used when I lived in The Kingfisher pub in Chertsey.

I saw Land of the Dead, The Epilepsy Exorcism of Emily Rose & Wallace & Gromit's Curse of the Wererabbit there.

[Johnny Townmouse]

This one's mine - the Odean, on the Headrow in Leeds:

Given the presence of the Hyde Park Picture House I think it is reasonable for Leeds to have a multiplex. It's when there are no options that multiplexes seem so unpleasant. I always heard about that cinema when I lived in Leeds - although your picture has also reminded me about that area generally, such as the very cramped health food shop nearby (they supplied my wedding cakes - three vegan chocolate things of beauty) and also the curry house further down that has such large nan breads that they have to hang them vertically on the table using a sort of simplified mug tree.

That's the one I used when I lived in The Kingfisher pub in Chertsey.

I saw Land of the Dead, The Epilepsy Exorcism of Emily Rose & Wallace & Gromit's Curse of the Wererabbit there.

It was kept open later than I realised. It was a beautiful majestic thing throughout the 40s to the 80s, and then I think after that it sort of fell into a bit of disrepair so many people were happy to see a big flashy Vue opening up instead. My ex used to work in Staines Cinema and pinched some very old film posters that were languishing in the basement. I managed to get this beaut:

[Beagle 2]

My first movie-going experience was Honey I Shrunk the Kids at Studio One in Pontefract. It was quite grotty even in 1989, and closed down four years later. Here is was back then:



And here it is now:

[Swoz_MK]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Point,_Milton_Keynes

First Multiplex in the UK.
First film I saw there was Santa Claus: The Movie
Later I worked there for 10 years, the majority of that time spent as a Projectionist.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I saw The Little Mermaid here in 1990 with my mum.

On the hoarding in this picture you can see classics like Big Daddy, Runaway Bride and Deep Blue Sea, so this is 1999, just before it closed. Here's a website about it with some photos of the inside. They have brought on a real rush of nostalgia for me. I saw Jurassic Park here. It's now a casino.

The other main cinema in Plymouth was the ABC, which is still going:

Lovely old massive main auditorium. The Beatles played here in 1963. I saw Babe here and I cried. What a history.

In 1999 a big Warner Village multiplex opened outside of the city centre. The first film I saw there was Star Wars Episode I. The death of cinema.

[werfvgbhnj]

http://www.electricpalace.com/

[Beagle 2]

Was he a red headed chap called Freddie?
Ask him if he remembers Vera Rickards.

Unfortunately not, but he seems to think the place was haunted (I do remember my mum telling me tales, but she had somewhat of a penchant for exaggeration...)

I don't know the names but the cinema was haunted and everyone said the ghost was called Fred, how they came up with that name I have no idea but a friend of your mum came one day (she was a medium) and said she could see this ghost terrified me at the time as I was only 17 and spent a lot of time on my own in the building.

[billtheburger]

If he was 17, he'd have started after my mum had left. She was always fascinated with ghosts and witchcraftery, too. I think it's just the valley mentality.

A few years ago I considered buying it and making it "The Secret Cinema" where I'd specially select obscure & strange films from around the world to show - the stuff you couldn't see anywhere else. Just to resurrect the building back to better times.
Unfortunately, Rawtenstall isn't really the place for such avant garde thinking.

[Beagle 2]

I still don't fully understand why all these places have closed down though, it always seems to be in towns where there's fuck all else to do. Surely you can make these operations profitable?

[Steven]

[Kane Jones]

This was our local cinema in Lynton.  I saw Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Staying Alive, Tootsie and Superman III here;



Well, it's actually the Town Hall but back in my day, this was the Town Hall, the Cinema, the theatre and the venue for discos/parties.  We also had our wedding party there when we got back from New Zealand last year.  Here's the main hall.

[thenoise]

I still don't fully understand why all these places have closed down though, it always seems to be in towns where there's fuck all else to do. Surely you can make these operations profitable?

Sure I read somewhere that cinemas make almost no money from the films as they cost so much to rent, and make all their profits on overpriced popcorn.

So we killed cinema by smuggling in cans of lager and supermarket crisps.

[Johnny Townmouse]

It's a sobering thought that in 30-years middle-aged people will be bemoaning the days of the multiplex cinema, which you could get into for under a tenner, free toilets, and you could smuggle in food and drink. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn and Ben & Jerry's ice-cream, and the adverts only lasted for 25mins.

We probably have more in common with children now, in terms of enjoying a simple cinema experience, than whatever is left in 2043.

[imitationleather]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Point,_Milton_Keynes

First Multiplex in the UK.
First film I saw there was Santa Claus: The Movie
Later I worked there for 10 years, the majority of that time spent as a Projectionist.

Wow, that building is incredible. Is it still there?

[Gulftastic]

The Lounge in Leeds. Happily before they opened the shit bar next door, and obviously before it shut down.

Always a special place in my heart as it was where I first saw Star Wars.