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Alum Rock - Capitol Cinema

hi paul and alan...i agree with you both it is heartbreaking to see the wanton distruction of a lot of of lovely buildings...i keep hoping that lessons will be learnt but unfortunately they are not...

lyn
 
Hi Astonian

My father had one of the shops (an ironmongers) opposite the Capitol Cinema (1938-ish to 1956) and he sold it to your wealthy builder friend. The builder (A.F.?) had a builders yard at the back of the shops and my father owned the lock-up garages that adjoined it. The purchase gave him a large plot of ground that ran from the railway embankment down to the gardens of the houses at the side of the Pelham Arms.

If he ended up owning all the shops that fronted the main road as well, that must be a valuable piece of property now.

Do I gather from the thread that the cinema is now being demolished?
 
According to the book "Dream Palaces of Birmingham", Chris&Rosemary Clegg, the Capitol was designed by Arcibald Hurley Robijson and opened on the 4th April 1925. Four years later it was enlarged to a design by Satchwell&Roberts this increased the seating capacity to 1,400 from the previuos 900.
In 1979 the Cinema was tripled according to this book it closed for tripling on 23rd December and re opened on the 29th December, I find this difficult to believe. It re opened with the films "Bear Island" in the 450 seat screen 1, "Love at first Bite" in the 280 seat screen2 and"Bedknobs and Broomsticks" in the 130seat screen3.

The afore mentioned method of altering the aspect ratio of the screen, for Cinemascope presentation, by dropping a mask from the top of the screen was not unusual and was either done to save money or perhaps because it was not feasible to widen the proscenium arch. Cinemascope should have also come with four channel stereophonic sound, on a magnetic sound track, with speakers to the left,centre, and right with rear effects speakers making up the fourth channel, this was often not fitted to save costs. The anamorphic lenses needed to unsqueeze the image on the film were very expensive as well, so in order to try to get people back into the Cinema, after the introduction of TV, cost the industry quite a lot of cash.
 
According to the book "Dream Palaces of Birmingham", Chris&Rosemary Clegg, the Capitol was designed by Arcibald Hurley Robijson and opened on the 4th April 1925. Four years later it was enlarged to a design by Satchwell&Roberts this increased the seating capacity to 1,400 from the previuos 900.
In 1979 the Cinema was tripled according to this book it closed for tripling on 23rd December and re opened on the 29th December, I find this difficult to believe. It re opened with the films "Bear Island" in the 450 seat screen 1, "Love at first Bite" in the 280 seat screen2 and"Bedknobs and Broomsticks" in the 130seat screen3.

The afore mentioned method of altering the aspect ratio of the screen, for Cinemascope presentation, by dropping a mask from the top of the screen was not unusual and was either done to save money or perhaps because it was not feasible to widen the proscenium arch. Cinemascope should have also come with four channel stereophonic sound, on a magnetic sound track, with speakers to the left,centre, and right with rear effects speakers making up the fourth channel, this was often not fitted to save costs. The anamorphic lenses needed to unsqueeze the image on the film were very expensive as well, so in order to try to get people back into the Cinema, after the introduction of TV, cost the industry quite a lot of cash.

The Clegg book was inaccurate The Building was designed by Satchwell and Roberts The front Facia they had Archibald Hurley Robinson design that and the quantity surveying. We used the same method at Our Tivoli Yardley in 1927.. 1964 we had a new Proscenium installed for the new 48ft screen for the 70mm format we were going to do. This was designed by Modernisation Ltd., The old Boss B T Davis delayed the installation of the Westrex 5000 projectors until the old Chief projectionist retired ... The 70mm market was problematic and the 70mm was not installed.. the 1964 refurbishment photo I have put on previously The seating ended up 1 350.. 2. 250. 3 127 plus 2 for the blind (right behind a pillar which we never sold tickets for.
 
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