Old Sheffield Picture Palaces

[willybite]

Sunday cinemas started about 47/8. I was 15/16 then & can remember going to the cinema with no problem. If there was an age restriction maybe it was 16 yrs old but can't vouch for that.

 

hiya, i thought it was 16 as i first went to the regent on a sunday i was 12 years old, i went with my uncle he paid of course, there was a restriction for "H"" films at that time.

[black eyes]

I recently went in the Weatherspoons Pub at Woodseats, The pub is called the Woodseats Palace, I was amazed to find out it was an old cinema and apparently there was another 2 on Woodseats itself, one was called the Chantry.

 

Which others do you know of in Sheffield ?

 

Abbeydale Pictures - Now a bar and snooker club

Heeley Pictures Palace - Where Ponsfords new building is on London Rd

 

Anymore, there must have been loads in the 50/60s

 

gaumont, cinima house,palace union street,news theatre, wicker,park pictures, norfork, heeley palace ,heeley colliseum, rex, essoldo,don,hippodrome,regal star,globe ,regal,oxford to name but a few

[MikeX]

I'm looking at a lot of emails relating to old Cinemas in Sheffield. Between 1956 and late 1959, my proud boast is that I worked in every one of them at some point, even if only for a day or two. I was still at school at the time, so worked mainly Sunday relief, holidays, sickness, which explains the variety of work that I did.

Take a deep breath - here they are:

Abbeydale Picture Palace

Adelphi, Attercliffe

Attercliffe Palace

Carlton Cinema Arbourthorne

Chantry Picture House, Woodseats

Cinema House, Barker's Pool

Coliseum, Spital Hill

Crookes Picture Palace

Darnall Cinema

Darnall Picture Palace (Balfour)

Don Picture Palace, West Bar

Essoldo, Sheffield Lane Top (formerly Capitol)

Forum, Southey (also Essoldo)

Gaumont, Barker's Pool (formerly Regent)

Globe Picture House, Attercliffe

Greystones Cinema

Heeley Coliseum

Heeley Green Cinema

Heeley Palace

High Green Cinema

Hillsborough Kinema House

Hillsborough Park Cinema

Hippodrome, Cambridge Street

Lyric Picture House, Darnall

Manor Cinema

Norfolk Picture Palace

Oxford Picture House

Palace, Wincobank

Palladium, Walkley

Paragon Cinema, Firth Park

Park Cinema, South Street

Pavilion, Attercliffe

Phoenix, Langsett Road, Hillsborough

Plaza, Handsworth

Regal, Attercliffe

Rex Cinema, Intake

Ritz, Parson Cross

Roscoe Cinema, Infirmary Road

Roxy, Page Hall

Sheffield News Theatre

Star Picture House

Sunbeam Picture House, Firvale

Palace, Union Street

Tinsley Picture Palace

Unity, Langsett Road

Victory, Upwell Street

Weston Picture Palace, St Phillip's Road

Wicker Picture House (Studio Seven)

Woodseats Palace.

A total of 49 cinemas open and running in 1956. An earlier count (1952, I think) listed 52, if memory serves. The information comes from a yearbook, still in as-new condition after 55 years or more.

I think that I have a book on Sheffield Cinemas somewhere, I shall have to look it out. In hindsight, I could kick myself; I was a keen photographer in those days, but never thought to take photographs of the places where I worked - does anybody? Such a set of photos would be a rich archive today.

[carosio]

That's astonishing, Mike! I remember that the Unity was the only one I went to that had plain, un-upholstered wooden seats.

[billiej]

The Asda store on South Road in Walkley used to be the Walkley Palladium. I remember it had a round flight of steps at the front, and if you'd got the money, you went up them to go and sit upstairs!! For the downstairs seats, you went up steps at the side of the wall, and up a slope which had big film star pictures on the wall at the side!

[MikeX]

I should have said that I worked as a projectionist, but you probably worked that out. As you might imagine, there was a range of equipment, nothing ubiquitous, ranging from totally-enclosed mechanisms to the open-path film path of BTH machines. There was a mixture of names, most prominent being BTH, Simplex, GB-Kalee and Philips (who made a jolly nice white projector). All lamps then were carbon arc, of course. At that time, you still got some film on nitrate stock, so precautions were understandable. As I look at today's Cinemeccanica projectors and platters, you could never have used those, then.

The most fasinating of all was the old Carlton Cinema, on Eastern Avenue, Arbourthorne. This theatre had a lighting system that I never saw anywhere else, but was not used often, because of the sheer cost of running it. The auditorium was deeply ridged plasterwork, illuminted forward and backward in different colours. A swing of a pointer in the projection suite changed the colours gradually, so that you got a light show like no other. The whole thing was so complex, that the mechanism had a room to itself. At the time, the chief projectionist was called Billy, who was (as you might say today) vertically challenged. He stood on a box to see through the portholes, but was one of the most professional men I ever met; he knw his craft inside-out, and I learned a lot from him.

The majority (pretty well all) Cinemas had some sort of upholstery on the seats, but I do remember one that had wooden benches.

Whilst we're on the subject of wooden benches, a bit off-topic, the trams that were built in wartime also had wooden seats - hardly the most comfortable. Thank goodness most journeys were short!

Edited September 24, 2012 by MikeX
add info

[carosio]

Can you remember the types of sound amplification systems, those valve amps and cinema speakers command high prices today.

[MikeX]

Main sound systems were either Western Electric or RCA (mostly WE), although BTH did have their own systems. Remember that at this time, CinemaScope was on its way in, but most suburban cinemas couldn't afford to instal the 4-track magnetic equipment for stereophonic sound, so made use of optical prints. The narrower magnetic oxide tracks meant the the ratio could be 2.55:1 rather than the 2.33:1 that allowed space for the (wider) optical tracks. Some sort of optical/stereo hybrid appeared called 'Perspecta' sound, but this was short-lived, I believe.

So most cinemas still made do with their old sound equipment; the size of the screen made large horns possible, given the right front end, the sound could be amazing.

Apart from this, the 4-track stereo setup had left-centre-right sound sources behind the screen, the 4th track driving a number of satellite speakers around the auditorium (these were known as 'ambions'). If you saw 'The Robe' at this time, the thunder effects were very effective.

Interestingly, modern systems appear to have gone back to optical tracks in Dolby-equipped theatres, presumably these can produce a digital signal that can be manipulated through the decoders. I'm a bit unsure of THX - some theatres are now totally digital, the film appears on a hard drive, and presumably, this will give more overhead to the sound source in term of frequency- and dynamic-range. It seems to me from what I see and hear, that the digital picture cannot yet compete with film in terms of quality, so the old girl's not dead yet. But there are financial gains for the studios in using digital material, so the demise of film is, surely inevitable.

The rise of multiscreen theatres and the demise of the old picture palace with its occasionally stunning architecture and fittings is not to my taste. Even the 'Kinema in the Woods' at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire now boasts 2 screens - signs of the times, I suppose.

To your original question - I've no doubt that they will be valuable, as you suggest, but not very useful in today's world. The valve amplifiers were modest, given that they did not need wide frequency range, and the behind-screen loudspeakers could be just enormous. Everything for reliability, performance didn't matter all that much.

[trastrick]

...The most fasinating of all was the old Carlton Cinema, on Eastern Avenue, Arbourthorne. This theatre had a lighting system that I never saw anywhere else, but was not used often, because of the sheer cost of running it. The auditorium was deeply ridged plasterwork, illuminted forward and backward in different colours. A swing of a pointer in the projection suite changed the colours gradually, so that you got a light show like no other.....!

 

Absulutely fascinating, Mike. We, who spent a lot of our young years in those cinemas, were not really aware of what went on at the back, unless the film broke in the middle of an important scene.

 

My uncle worked at the Carlton so we were there (on comp tickets) twice a week for 2 or three years.'50 - '53. Never saw the light show you referred to though. In those days they showed mostly B-pictures (Republic) and we got very familiar with their stable of players (Vera Ralson was in almost every movie, I recall)

 

To see a flashy A picture we went to the Heeley Palace, or the Abbeydale and occasionally downtown.

 

In between were the Heeley Green and the Coliseum, that showed a wider range.

 

One of the bonus's at the Carleton was the pop hits of the day, played before the film started, on that great sound system.

Edited September 24, 2012 by trastrick
spelling

[carosio]

Thanks for the detailed description of the sound system. I have read that some Hi-Fi enthusiasts use these large speaker drive units in their domestic (horn loaded) systems driven by low powered valve amps as horns have high efficiency.

 

I remember that the sound systems at the Odeon and ABC were particularly good.

 

The last time I went to the cinema was at Crystal Peaks when 101 Dalmations was showing, I was disappointed as the screen was indistinct and lacked brightness and contrast. Previous to this it was "Star Wars" either at the Odeon or ABC. When I sat down to watch 101 Dalmations I was wondering why there was no projection beam across the cinema!