Scala!!! (2023)

[steveh]

Finally got round to watching this on the Blu Ray. It's an enjoyable 90-ish mins but a bit heavy on anecdote and light on the story. Some bits that I found interesting only feature in the extras, such as the collection of objects from the cinema including the books that show the takings for different screenings with what worked and what didn't work with their audiences.

It misses out that the Scala as remembered came out of a coup where Richard Branson and Nik Powell from Virgin, who originally co-owned it in Charlotte St, pushed out the other people involved so they could install Stephen Woolley to run it more along the lines of of a mixed American-style repertory cinema instead of just showing the more serious fare it had played before, which was losing money. It then became part of Palace Pictures when Powell left Virgin, originally with Palace's production company offices based there and for a time where they ran their mail-order VHS business. Palace and all its madness deserves its own documentary though.

Best of the extras on the Blu Ray is a half hour portrait of the cinema made for Cable London's community channel in 1990, which I felt gives you more of a feel for the place and and the kind of environment in which it existed than the main doc. There's also an extra hour of interviews, though in some cases the stories drag a bit.

[Mobbd]

a bit heavy on anecdote and light on the story

Each to their own but I'm very okay with that. The anecdotes are the interesting thing to me: they're the very meat and texture of what happened there. There's not much of a story really beyond "there was an edgy cinema that eventually closed because of cheekiness." That said, I see what you mean about omitting the story of the business side of it.

[Brundle-Fly]

This might be of interest. The makers, Jane Giles & Ali Catterall plus Mark Moore are interviewed by Steve Furst and Martin Green on their groovy Soho radio show. Scala themed tunes galore too.

https://sohoradiolondon.com/show/steve-martin-show-22-01-2024/

[Lewman]

Screening in Bristol with a Q&A after with the directors -
https://cubecinema.com/programme/event/scala,13665/