Coventry Cinemas

The theatre in Smithford Street was the first purposely built in Coventry, just followed progress when it turned into a cinema. Coventry was well known for humour and all actors loved to act here for the warmth they received, but the man both in the theatre and cinema we owe so much to was the great Charlie Chaplin. A down and out, very poor, in London, he copied drunks, staggering, their expressions, sang and danced outside pubs to earn a penny or two. At a very early age he was taken on in the theatre. At 14 he was a page boy in Sherlock Holmes plays. He then joined a troupe called Fred Karno's who specialised in silent comedy, of expressions, and stupidity. Stan Laurel was also in the group and the two of them were top billing. The group toured the States, became famous. A guy called Mack Sennet had started to make ten minute films on slapstick, his best actor was Fatty Arbuckle, then he saw Charlie and hired him. But then films were silent and relied on expressions etc, and Charlie was the best and soon was in great demand. Cinemas opened by the dozen, but Charlie now wanted to direct films and teach actors the timing and how to get the best out of a performance, and he did, he made longer films and better films. To me Charlie was the beginning of films. Fred Karno's troupe were so chaotic, we always called anything that went wrong, "it was like Fred Karno".

There are a few mentions of this on this thread

Yes Neil, the famed showing of Gone with the Wind at the Rex cinema which was destroyed not long after it had opened. Was it a year?

The Rex's opening ceremony was 8th February 1937, and the heavy raid that damaged it, the day before Gone with the Wind was to be shown, happened on Friday 25th August 1940. Hope this helps.

I am not disputing the demise of the Rex but was the Empire taken 'with the wind' too as that was the version I had heard too over the years? I believe most of the side of it was blown away.

I believe you are right Dreamtime!

Dreamtime, Yes, the Broadgate side got damaged but the front remained intact - although the opposite side of the road got a direct hit, the two shops below the Empire were intact including the clock. They got hit with debris, I believe.

Dreamtime, 'Gone with the wind', brilliant film - famous last words, 'I don't give a damn, my dear'. Sam Goldwyn, was famous for his wrong sayings: 'Let's bring it up to date with some snappy 19th century dialogue'. 'It's more than magnificent, it's mediocre'. 'Hope you don't think it was too blood and thirsty'.

Thanks for your responses lads. I don't know why but I had nicer memories of the old Empire more than the rest. You would never have known there was a cinema tucked away there just around that corner. On the other hand the Gaumont was built on a more grandeur scale. Now here, they are built in packs of maybe 6 cinemas in one complex and you can take your pick of six titles. Not being on the end of the queue in the rain has knocked all the thrill of looking forward to seeing your favourite film star. Ah those were the days - even the organist doesn't pop up any more.

Dreamtime, Yes, and when the organ disappeared you had that horrible Pearl and Dean advert with the loud shuttering music.

Well, Coventry have always talked about the film 'Gone with the wind', and destroyed by the blitz, but it had also shown the film 'San Francisco', destroyed by an earthquake, so it did seem a little odd. I believe it showed many films by Paul Robeson, possibly 'Sanders of the river', where he sang "Ah yee oh koe, yae guh deh" - he also appeared at the Coventry Hippodrome. Yeh, I remember it well.

In the 1950's the cinema introduced a technical innovation of not one camera but three, so the scene was not only straight in front but on either side, so you felt inside the action with a wider screen, known as Cinerama. But it was really hopeless with thrillers and romantic films. Part of the razzmatazz, part of the free cinema but the novelty soon wore off. Even had Chris Barber playing 'Momma Don't Allow' in the background, but free cinema turned more to documentaries and conformist picturegoers started queuing to see Alfred Hitchcock or war films. By the 60's we had started mocking the war, Bilko and Tony Hancock doing a Army comic stunt. Yes, we've seen it all before.

For a girl born in 1920 the cinema played a big part in her life. The entire fabric of her life changed, sport and recreation came into their own - mighty football stadiums, palatial cinemas, women found new freedom, the vote, fashion, the drudgery of housework changed, new fashions, but the gramophone and talking pictures had advanced in the last decade. Marie Lloyd was on the stage, and Rudolph Valentino, film star had cast an extraordinary spell over women of his time, sent hearts fluttering, and cash flowing at the box office. He died in 1926 and the cinema tried hard to replace him until a few years later a new actor (Clark Gable) appeared, with his magnetic smile, handsome, a charming rogue - after a few years he came to fill Valentino's shoes, and the girls were swooning. The Rex cinema Coventry was a new and highly styled 1937 cinema, so to open it they had this new heart throb, he became a big success. So two years later with this new technique and highly coloured film, the powers that be in Coventry, brought him back again, but Gable served in the US Air Force in England and did many raids over Germany.

End of the Scala (Odeon)

As a youngster, my first visit was to the Standard on Fletchamstead Highway. How many cinemas did Coventry have?