Coventry Cinemas

I was an ABC Minor. I seem to remember the highlight was always if the projector broke down and then total chaos would ensue. Having said that I did win sixteen bottles of Corona in a colouring competition they ran.

Hi Mike That's a good description of the tanner rush at the Gaumont too, good old days

I remember being very embarrassed when I received a 16th Birthday card from the Gaumont Saturday Club (they stopped at 16 thank goodness). After all I was a mean and moody James Dean type (I thought so anyway). Having said that I had lots of happy times cheering the good guys on at the Saturday morning cinema. That bloke out of Lovejoy was usually in most of the films playing someone not too bright, Dudley someone.

Hi GVB, I'm sure that was Ian Mcshane you are on about. (Lovejoy) I stand to be corrected though. I think you are on about Dudley Sutton, he has the gift of many character parts.

While not wishing to cross swords with you, Dutchman, and not for one moment doubting your having seen the title sequence of THE LONGEST DAY "on a bonfire on waste ground behind the Palladium", it strikes me that something of jiggery-pokery may have been afoot here. The rental agreements between film distributors and film exhibitors have been strict since the birth of the motion picture. And the agreements are RENTAL agreements, not SALES agreements. I am not denying the possibility that THE LONGEST DAY (which opened in London on October 23, 1962, and would have been first exhibited in Coventry at some time thereafter) may have been shown at both the Alexandra and Palladium cinemas, I believe it unlikely that such shows were concurrent, or one following immediately the other,for such would devalue the movie so far as suburban cinemas were concerned. That said, I do recall that the Gaumont and the Odeon, upon occasion, would show "blockbuster" movies concurrently (and I have no idea whether these exhibitors were owned by the same principals, although - as first run houses in a major market - both probably belonged to one or other of the major cinema chains that existed in the U.K. at the time, and the major chains enjoyed some sway with the distributors that independent movie houses never enjoyed). Moreover, as your postings on this wonderful site would suggest, I know that you understand fully that the evidence you advance is purely circumstantial. That some detritus from the Alexandra wound up on a bonfire (you do not cite the year) alongside the Palladium, tells us nothing except what has been established; specifically, the common ownership. My "jiggery-pokery" comment aside, I believe that the owner of the Alexandra would not jeopardise his first-run status in a major market such as Coventry by an unauthorized exhibition at another cinema in the city centre concurrent with the run at the Alexandra. In all probability, the run at the Palladium was later. That said, no exhibitor may destroy by fire (or other means) any film at any time, for he/she does not own the film, but merely rents it under strict conditions. Nothing contained herein should imply anything other than the greatest respect for the erudition you have made available - through this site - to your fellows in Coventry today, to those outside of Coventry who remember their birthplace with fondness. As soon as our moderators create the Order of Historic Coventry, I shall be in there like a shot to propose your name for consideration. Damned well done!

Not the Bambo Club, Midland Red, but the Banba Club. Closer, I think than my offer of St Finbarr's as the place name, but an Irish club, notwithstanding. The club featured the new rage of Irish popular music - showbands. These showbands were dance bands that were not averse to putting a little oomph, a little "show" - into their presentations. My source for this information is the Coventry Evening Telegraph (May 6, 2013) - RAIDING THE ARCHIVES: REMEMBERING COVENTRY'S BANBA CLUB. So I had the locale right (The Redesdale/Roxy/then Redesdale again cinema), the function (dance hall featuring Irish "showbands") ditto, but I failed miserably on the club's name. Quite how St Finbarr's - located then in the former Prince of Wales cinema on the Stoney Stanton Road (a road I seldom travelled) - is beyond me, but there you have it, confirmed by the Telegraph just last year. (Still and all, my friend, the Banba Club does not resonate with me, says nothing.)

In reply to Longford Lad's response to Irish Show bands, here is the Pat Gissane show band next to the Barracks Car park. Photo from Coventry Hobo website

Thanks Dreamtime. You are quite correct about Ian McShane being Lovejoy but it was Dudley Sutton I was referring to in the early films

I think our friend in Perth set aside the notion that the Lovejoy actor (Ian McShane) was the actor you saw in so many pictures shown at the Gaumont on a Saturday morning. McShane was born in 1942 in Blackburn, so - given your age (67) as of last October - you would have been sixteen or so when McShane made his debut on the British screen in a 1962 film release. Dudley Sutton, the still active character player, was born in 1933. He, like McShane, made his film debut in a 1962 release, but he had appeared on television for the first time in 1960. In my humble (well, not really) opinion, neither actor could have been "in most of the films" (indeed, in any) shown at the Gaumont Saturday morning cinema when you were a kid in the audience. The dates just do not match. Mind you, Dudley Sutton, later in his career, did make several appearance in film and television where his character appeared "none too bright", for all that his character in the LOVEJOY series was that of a savvy antiques dealer, hidden beneath an amiable and work-shy appearance. At my local cinema, the Longford Rivoli, seeing a British movie - save for a "short" - on a Saturday morning (at the Chums' Club) was a rarity. The films almost always were older releases from second-tier to minor Hollywood studios, and the Flash Gordon serials - there were three or four, all filmed in 1935/36 and released in 1936 - seemed to last - each one of them - for an eternity, and they frequently were repeated. However, I also recall a Captain Marvel serial that unfolded over far fewer episodes. Best regards.

My dad was telling me he used to work in a cinema in Earlsdon as a projectionist and they had to get on the bus to take the newsreel from one cinema to another. I'm not sure which cinema it was, I will have to ask him

@SkyBlueRocker: It was most likely the Astoria in Albany Road as that was part of the Orr-Philpott chain of cinemas?

Deano, Thanks for this. I think the Pat Gissane band comprised mainly ex-pats (forgive the pun liberty) who lived in or near Coventry, but there is no doubting that the musicians were in the Irish "show band" tradition. The manner in which they presented themselves for the photograph - John Collier suits and all - suggests as much. Such bands were tremendously popular in Ireland in the '60s and even later. In part, at least, those Irish folk groups of the same period - including THE DUBLINERS - were a reaction to this type of American-style music. Ah, popular music...

All these years later, the junction you refer to, pursuant to the Dovedale/Rivoli/Ritz/& Dovedale again, was Dovedale Avenue, Windmill Road and LONGFORD ROAD, the Foleshill Road having ended at the New Inn Bridge. Of course, the New Inn is no longer there, but the canal is still functioning as a canal. At the bridge thereabouts, the road to Bedworth & Nuneaton from Coventry became the Longford Road. and was named thus until it reached the next canal bridge, where it became the Bedworth Road, the main feature of which being the ENGINE INN, a Phipps house in my childhood, but that is another story. Having clarified as much, I must say that - for me as a child from Longford - the Foleshill Road had so many fine (even exotic, to me) things. Getting off the bus at the General Wolfe opened up a vista that included the Co-op Emporium, lifts (elevators, we call them) to each floor, each floor full of exciting products, and the REGAL CINEMA, modest enough with its exterior, magnificent in its interior. At the Regal a cinemagoer could watch movies in VistaVision, the poor man's CinemaScope, but he/she could watch the VistaVision in comfortable seat and surroundings. But the Dovedale's main road was the Longford Road.

Only just spotted your post, Mike. I wrote "palaces of delight", a reference to the ambitions of those who built cinemas in the early days of the motion picture industry, and who called their buildings - and, in my opinion, rightly so - "picture palaces", a term used pretty well all around the Anglosphere from that point to this. Your reference to my post used "places of delight', and I have no problem with that, save for the sarcasm inherent in your asserting my phrase's being "a novel description". To develop what you describe as a "novel description", you then go on to say: "The old Hertford Street Empire on a Saturday Morning was like doing a day at St Trinians. Many of the kids were still shouting 'We want the film' a good five minutes after the start... " Do you suppose for a moment, Mike, that this phenomenon was not characteristic of kids experiencing delight? The kids were in a state of delight in the cinema - not only in being a mass unit demanding entertainment - but at the possibility of being powerful enough as a "kids only" assembly to get the projectionist up and running, even after he clearly was up and running. These kids delighted in the notion that they were in charge, an unaccustomed position for them. My main point, however, was to describe "picture palaces" as "palaces of delight". Clearly, on this score, I failed miserably with you, but I do not believe that what I said was inaccurate in describing the cinemas and/or their d