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Birmingham Cinemas

1931.jpg
Does anyone know where this is. It was in a folder of old Birmingham bits and pieces but I do not remember where it came from..
 
I don't know where the cinema is but the film title 'Lottery Bride' intrigued me!

I just looked it up - it was a film from 1930
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Stitcher said:
View attachment 118313
Does anyone know where this is. It was in a folder of old Birmingham bits and pieces but I do not remember where it came from..
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According to the book by Chris and Rosemary Clegg, this is the Villa Cross. This picture is in the book, I ploughed through the book page after page and the book is presented in Alphabetical order and there are not many cinemas after the letter V.
Bob Davis
 
Bob Davis said:
According to the book by Chris and Rosemary Clegg, this is the Villa Cross. This picture is in the book, I ploughed through the book page after page and the book is presented in Alphabetical order and there are not many cinemas after the letter V.
Bob Davis
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It is of course the Villa Cross that opened in 1915 as The New Picture House and it closed as a cinema in 1970, and served as a bingo hall and social club until demolished, it's now a car park I believe.

Lozells Villa Cross.jpg
 
Hi Eddie, thanks for the memories regarding the Piccadilly Cinema on Stratford Rd. This was our usual Thursday night family treat as Dad was a Head Waiter and this was his night off. Do you go as far back as when you bought ice cream there they had a large bowl in the foyer into which you donated a helping of sugar. Mom took ours along in a paper bag (a little one) and the bag was emptied into the bowl in full view of all present, most unhygienic but it made us what we are.
Regarding the pictures of those coming attractions I remember that often they were in glorious Technicolor but the actual movie was in black and white and this maybe the start of my distrust of the advertising industry.
My other memory is of standing in the queue that went way the corner and when you finally got to the front it was a case of "Standing Room Only".
Cheers Tim.
 
Radiorails said:
It seems strange that Nelson Eddy is not on that poster. Maybe that was before they teamed up.
https://maceddy.com/
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Apparently Jeanette Macdonald was a star long before she met up with Nelson Eddy and it was only in a 1936 film, where he wore the mounties uniform that they first sang together, but even then they were not automatically coupled and she continued to make films in her own name and then in the forties they came together after she moved studios.
Bob
 
Hi Tim... I remember going to the Picadilly Cinema on Stratford Road Sparkhill to see the film Ben Hur.It was a school trip as part of our history lessons. I remember it as a nice day out of the classroom...It must have been about 1960....Roy
 
tim eborn said:
Hi Eddie, thanks for the memories regarding the Piccadilly Cinema on Stratford Rd.
Regarding the pictures of those coming attractions I remember that often they were in glorious Technicolor but the actual movie was in black and white and this maybe the start of my distrust of the advertising industry.
My other memory is of standing in the queue that went way the corner and when you finally got to the front it was a case of "Standing Room Only".
Cheers Tim.
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Hi Tim. To be honest I cannot recall the sugar bowl experience. My mother used to take me to afternoon tea dances above Burtons, the tailors, situated next door to the Piccadilly, around 1943, and that was when I first became interested in the drums. Sometimes, I would sneak out to look at the photographs on the Piccadilly forecourt.

I well remember the cinema queues. sometimes stretching around the back of the cinema, onto Poplar Road.

In the40s/50's, one could pay at the kiosk at any time during a performance, enter the cinema, find a seat, and sit there, watching the film, right through to the next performance, until the film reached the point where you first went in. If it was a good film, I would try to make the first evening house, and then sit through the whole thing again, for the second house.,

No TV in those days.

Eddie
 
Eddie,

I remember sitting through more than one house too - somewhere comfortable to sit when it was either cold outside and/or we had nothing else better to do. I also remember going to the Piccadilly on several occasions, or though it was more often the Rialto or the Robin Hood,and occasionally the flea pit on the Warwick Road - can't remember its name, but it frequently showed the same double bill of Ali Baba and Hellzapoppin. Of course, all the local kids knew that programme inside out and our main purpose was to irritate the staff! The manager would on almost every visit get the projectionist to stop the film because of the din we were making, walk down to the front of the auditorium, and tell us that if we didn't stop the noise he would cancel the performance and throw us all out. I don't think we were ever actually ejected. :)

Maurice
 
Hi sospiri,
The flea pit on the Warwick road would be the Tyseley picture house next to Watsonian sidecars , spent many Saturday morning watching Flash Gordon & the like there.
Ogri
 
Thanks, Ogri, I think that was the one. I know we used to walk there from the far end of Knowle Road, Sparkhill, and many's the time when we also walked to Tyseley Station too. I think the cinema visits would probably have been in the school holidays, when we had too much time on our hands!

Maurice
 
Myself and a friend or friends used to walk to The Robin Hood, The Rialto, The Olton or The Warwick. We used the bus for the Piccadilly or The Tyseley.
 
Between the time when I finished school and started National service, less than two years and then I had some money in my pocket, I graduated to using the city centre cinemas and deserted the locals. I mainly used the Scala, the Forum, and the Futurist, and it was always in the evening.

Maurice
 
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I have no idea where this one might be , it was in a folder labelled Birmingham.
 
Victor Price's book Birmingham cinemas says that the Picture House, Witton Road was renamed The Empress in 1916, but the photo of the Picture Hoiuse looks only vaguely like the Empress picture here.
Sorry missed later addition
 
It is the Empress Sutton, the 107 bus used to leave from outside as its start point, it was actually on the lower half of the Parade, where the High Street split into two, with a huge landscaped area and those old fashioned town centre acroutrements - Public Toilets - one or two older members may remember what they were.
Bob
 
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Bob Davis said:
It is the Empress Sutton, the 107 bus used to leave from outside as its start point, it was actually on the lower half of the Parade, where the High Street split into two, with a huge landscaped area and those old fashied town centre acroutrements - Public Toilets - one or two older members may remember what they were.
Bob
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I used to do Management Relief here from 1968 till it closed.. Designed By Satchwell & Roberts The Interior was Identical to The Odeon Kettering The last Manager was Harold Price My big memory was David Lean's Dr Zhivago I was sent because I could do the Moss Empire system of Advance Booking.
 
"Fort Algiers", the film advertised on the side of the Scala Cinema, was released in 1953 therefore the photograph could be from around that period. Dave
 
The chap up the ladder has a long way to fall! no one holding the bottom. These days they need scaffolding to work 10 foot of the ground.
Is it Dell boy with his van
 
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