Coventry Cinemas

What sort of films did they show at the Rialto in Coundon ? I don't remember it as a cinema. My mum played bingo there in her later years and I know they were trying to show films a few years ago but it did not seem to get going. I think it is a furniture showroom now.

The Imperial/La Continental Earlsdon photoss from Coventry Evening Telegraph site

It was a dance hall - ballroom in the late 50's Anne and probably into the 60's. A great time was had by all.

Now that's a double-bill to cherish - a Doris Day/Gordon McRae musical, and a Randolph Scott/Phyllis Thaxter western. A musical for the date, which - I am sure would have been there for the Doris Day flick as the feature film, the movie shown last in the evening, and a western for the guy, whose hero was Randolph Scott, and this Coventry guy - out on a date - would have seen the Scott movie to the end, only to lapse into a semi-comatose state when Doris and Gordon came on in full laryngeal flight. I would have been too young then to have taken a girl to the movies, but not too young as to misapprehend what was up on the screen in both movies. A dream of a double-bill. Thank you.

You wouldn't Anne. The cinema section was bombed in 1940 and never rebuilt: The neighbouring dance hall was used as a cinema for a short period between 2006 and 2008.

There has been some talk on BBC-CW this morning that the old Theatre One building is being cleared with a view to it being demolished. A local group is hoping to save the building, restore it and convert it to a "cultural home". I only caught the tail-end of the conversation - anyone have any further detail?

The planning application can be viewed here. It was granted last year subject to various conditions.

Do you have memories of the TheatreOne cinema, it's recent incarnation as the Mustard, or even before that? If so, then Coventry Culture wants your stories as part of a feature.

I'd not seen the old photo before from this BBC piece that have picked up the story.

I'm sure I read a book many years ago concerning the history of the Labour party in Coventry and their early meetings were held in a coffee house in the early 1900's that later became the Alexandra cinema. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks

There's mention of it in the Coventry Telegraph article here

It is mentioned in "Pioneers to Power" by John H Yates 1950 "So, in 1902, a handful of men walked down Ford Street, Coventry, to a popular working-class cafe. It was a cafe where they sold "a good working man's dinner with meat and two veg. - 6d". The Alexandra Cafe (now a cinema) was the general meeting place for trade unionists, and the trade unionists of Coventry were going to set up a Labour Representation Committee. It was a cold day, December 6th 1902, and the gathering was a small one."

Let me establish my credentials: a) for me, when I had enough disposable income (aged 12 or so - running errands and such) to watch movies in the city centre, I chose the Alexandra because is showed CinemaScope films, and the first sighting I had, walking in from Ford Street, of a Cinemascope film made me a devotee for life; well, for the life of CinemaScope, that is, for now I watch Panavision films, and Panavision was/is the heir of CinemaScope; and, b) I have read PIONEERS TO POWER I know not how many times - more often in my youth (a couple of time while living in Coventry), I admit, than latterly. The little nugget of information you posted, Annewiggy, the gem (to mix metaphors) you shared with us, was a surprise, something I had missed completely. Thank you, and ain't life grand? You reached right across the Atlantic with this information, travelled through Newfoundland & Labrador, the Maritime provinces, and Quebec to reach me (and MikeH in London, Ontario) in Toronto with some social history of the city of three spires. Well done, that poster, well done. P.S. Shall dig out the "P t P", the old Yates, and confirm - just for the joy of it.

The front half was a coffee house (built by the owner of the General Wolfe in Foleshill). The rear section wasn't added until 1917, for the specific purpose of showing newsreel reports from the Great War. Up until then films had been shown at the Sydenham Palace diagonally opposite. This is how they looked in 1888:

Then the Sydenham Palace, still around when I lived in Coventry - though certainly not as a cinema then, was - as we would say in Canada - KITTY-CORNER (diagonal opposite, probably from CATER-CORNER, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English - first edition 1998) from the Alexandra. Now, I recall that the Sydenham Palace had a large "concert hall", though nobody used it that much as such that I recollect). I cannot recall its being a jazz/folk/whatever club, for all that its size would have commended it as such a location. Excellent historical foraging, both for the origins of the Alexandra Cinema and the Sydenham's purpose at one time. Across the road from the Sydenham - at the start of Lower Ford Street - is the still-active - so far as I know - Elastic Inn. Someone once told me - perhaps Jack Ashby (author: Coventry's Pubs) - that this pub was once owned by a manufacturer in the area that paid its employees in company tokens - rather than coin of the realm - negotiable only at stores/pubs and such owned by said manufacturer. This practice became illegal by dint of passage of Truck Act (1965?) but it persisted, it seems, for many years thereafter. Any thoughts on this, Dutchman? (This much probably as more to do with the PUBS thread.)