BRISTOL CINEMAS 1909-1983
1 ABC New Bristol Centre 1966**
2 Ashton 1914 to 1954*
3 Bto 1908 to c1918
4 Brislington 1913 to 1955*
5 Bristol Hippodrome 1932 to 1938*
6 Bristol North Baths 1922 to 1936*
7 Broadway 1938 to 1961*
8 Cabot 1933 to 1961 *
9 Carlton 1933 to 1959
10 Castle Street 1911 to c1926
11 Clara Street 1911 to 1927
12 Clifton Spa 1920 to c1921 *
13 Coliseum 1912 to c1924*
14 Dolphin 1910 to c1922
15 Embassy 1933 to 1963
16 Empire 1931 to 1939
17 Europe 1974''
18 Fishponds 1911 to 1922*
19 Gaiety 1933**
20 Gem 1909 to 1932
21 Globe 1914 to 1973
22 Granada St George's 1912 to 1961*
23 Hippodrome (Stoll) Bedminster 1915 to 1941
24 Hippodrome Eastville 1913 to 1959*
25 His Majesty's (Concorde) 1911 to 1980*
26 Hotwells 1915 to1939
27 King's 1911 to 1976
28 Kingsway 1928 to 1959*
29 Knowle 1913 to 1961
30 Magnet 1914 to 1937*
31 Metropole 1913 to 1968*
32 New Palace (Gaumont) 1912 to 1980*
33 News Theatre 1933 to 1956
34 Odeon (Ambassador) Bedminster 1936 to 1961*
35 Odeon Broadmead 1939***
36 Odeon (Ambassador) Kingswood 1938 to 1961
37 Orpheus 1938 to 1971
38 Olympia/Tatler 1910 to 1963
39 Park St. George 1911 to 1964
40 Picturedrome (Penny Pops) 1911 to c1919
41 Plaza (Academy) 1914 to 1955*
42 Portview Picture House 1912 to 1940
43 Premier 1914 to 1963*
44 Queen's Hall 1910 to 1933
45 Redclrff Hall 1911 to 1941
46 Regal 1912 to 1963*
47 Regent 1912 to 1949*
48 Regent 1926 to 1940
49 Rex 1939 to 1980*
50 Ritt 1938 to 1964*
51 Savoy 1933 to 1962*
52 Scala Zetland Road 1910 to 1974*
53 Studios One to Four 1973**
54 Studios Five to Seven 1973**
55 Tivoli Broadmead c1915
56 Triangle 1914 to 1940
57 Town Hall Bedminster 1909 to 1954*
58 Vandyck 1926 to 1973*
59 Vestry Hall 1909 to 1954*
60 Victoria Rooms c1919 to c1922*
61 Whiteladies 1921 to 2005*
* Building still standing ** Surviving cinema *** Temporary closed (1983)
Most of the city's cinema managers will talk in the same vein. A good film still packs them in, they say, pointing to the successes of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Jaws, ET and the other cult productions of the last few years.
But major attractions like that are rare these days, an annual occurrence at best. And the queueing stops when the big film moves on.
The list of closures may not yet be complete. Certainly, unless there is a massive change of public heart, Bristol has seen the last of its lofty, all-embracing picture palaces.
Now most of us watch our films on a television screen in the lounge or in a compact, uninspiring studio cinema. The magical medium that first took a bow in Bristol in 1896 survives. Its showcases, largely built 30 or 40 years later, do not.
As if to underline that gloomy conclusion, one more major cinema came under threat after the bulk of this list was completed. At the present time , the Odeon, altered once already with care/is about to close while the remainder of its old innards are ripped out to make room for shops and offices.
Three small film units are to be included on the top floor of the new development. Internally Oscar Deutsch's Odeon will be unrecognisable. Its exterior is to remain intact. That, at least, seems appropriate. It can stand there, on the edge of a rebuilt Broadmead, as a hollow reminder of the days when the picture palace was at the top of the entertainments tree.
Oscar Deutsch's grand Odeon picture palace and, until recently, Bristol's best surviving cinema from the boom days of the thirties. Now it faces a future as a shops and office complex, with three small film units tucked on to a top floor.
Memories of Bristol Cinema
THE pretty little Clare Street Picture House, which closed in 1927, may not have been the first cinema to open in Bristol, but was perhaps the first to offer a continuous performance. It was certainly one of the most comfortable and luxurious, opening in 1911, the year after the death of Edward VII in 1910. The film of the King's funeral was shown on a big screen at the Colston Hall, with everyone in black armbands, as they mourned the passing of this much-loved monarch. The great Colston Hall organ played Chopin's Funeral March , as his riderless horse and little dog Caesar, trailing his lead, ambled slowly along behind the draped coffin on the gun carriage. And when the lights went up, the audience were dabbing their eyes. But it was the Clare Street Picture House, with its interior covered in tapestries of 18th century ladies on floral swings beneath the trees, that was such a treat.
The foyer, with its dim lighting and soft carpets, led either downstairs to the Oake Cafe, or upstairs to the rosy glow of the Wedgewood Room, with its little sandwiches, three-tiered cakestands and dainty slices of thin bread and butter. The waitresses wore light grey, with white muslin aprons and headbands, and even the walls seemed to match with their grey surfaces and white garlands. Downstairs in the Oake Cafe you could have hot buttered crumpets or, if your preferred, a tray of tea and cakes, brought to your seat by a waitress during the interlude. In the pit there was an orchestra, as of course the films were silent. Not until 1929, with The Jazz Singer , would sound come to the cinemas.
A Clare Street Picture House programme for December 1911, in sturdy buff, price One Penny, lists these delights: The Rubber Industry in Malaysia; Beyond the Law - a nature film of rocky canyons and waterfalls; Gontran A Hero - a comedy; and The Trail of Books , a weepy about the adventures of a lost child.
But the highlight of the programme was exclusive coverage of Captain Scott's journey to the South Pole, from his departure from New Zealand on the Terra Nova, through endless ice floes to the unloading at McMurdo Sound, the stacking of Cardiff coal bricks outside the Expedition hut, and having fun with the penguins. All of which ended in tragedy, of course. The prices of admission to the Picture House were six pence and one shilling, with children half-price before 5pm. Up in Park Row, the Jack Horner panto at the Prince's Theatre was playing that December to crowded houses and hearty laughter.
Miss Winifred Ward was Jack, Doris Dean the Princess of Hearts, dancer Miss Stella was Charity, Marion Edwards the Fairy, Albert le Fre Simple Simon and Mr McNaughton the King of Hearts. Mr A Wellesley played the Queen, F Alandale the Knave of Hearts, Sam Polanski the Clever Teddy Bear and scores of pretty children danced and sang in the truly magnificent spectacle of Sugarland !
'An evening of wonder and delight, ' says the review.
Over at the Theatre Royal in King Street, the other panto was Dick Whittington with Ethel Hall back as the Principal Boy (after recovering from a bad throat), and Millie Denham as Captain Dreadnought, with a new song: I Call Him My Chocolate Soldier, Because He Works at Fry's . If panto wasn't quite your style, the top of the bill at the Empire in Old Market was George Gray and Company's elaborately-staged The Fighting Parson !
I remember going with my parents in the 1930s to see the great Harry Lauder at the Empire, which for some reason made a lasting impression on me, as with his rugged staff, swinging kilt and tam-o'-shanter with a bob on the top, he sang Roaming in the Gloaming with an invitation for us all to join in.
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Memories of Bristol over the past 100 years including 3000 photographs on-line
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