Coventry Cinemas

dreamtime, sorry, as soon as I submitted the title, I knew I was wrong, had no idea how to delete, please forget I mentioned it, and kind regards Kaga.

That's ok Kaga, we all make bloopers sometime especially me, all is forgiven. Actually there was a film made with that title starring Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek, don't ask me when because I have never watched it.

Hi all What lovely folk on our forum. Makes it all so worthwhile. Thank you so much

Well, let me tell you this much, Mike H, not all buildings in Coventry can rise to the dizzy aesthetic heights of the Gas Showrooms, but the Standard came pretty close. Of course, the Standard did not boast an alleged restaurant serving mixed grills, sausage, egg & chips, and other such delights. But I believe the Standard was a remarkable example of the architecture of its time, as were most of the Coventry cinemas of the 1930s. Moreover, most of them were more compelling buildings than any public buildings on offer at the time, or even later. I still think the Godiva/Peeping Tom clock piece in Broadgate to more worthy of Annette Mills and Muffin the Mule than a public building attempting to assert the seriousness of postwar civic achievement. N'est-ce pas?

Can't say that I ever swooned over the Gas Showrooms either.

It was the style of the times, and the size was determined by the two 'circles', upper and lower, but for those who didn't like cinemas, that thing appearing at the end of the street would not have been overly welcomed. Having said that, the owners managed to turn something which did have some style into what looks like it should be attached to an ocean going freighter now. We never miss anything until it's gone, even Annette Mills and the dumbest mule ever.

You're all thinking today your time, I doubt very much, people were so interested back sixty/seventy years ago about buildings, when toilets were buckets down the garden, and they painted the ceiling with chalk, way back then the only building I ever heard discussed was the gas works, I never ever glanced at the Standard cinema building, but I remember the films. The Rivoli, Lyric were ugly buildings, gas showrooms, but that was the style in those days. Yes in the fifties you would have thought they could have done better with the Godiva clock, but who was asked, it was up before very few people knew there was to be a new clock. Today you have the internet and all manner of debates etc, and people are more aware but way back most people were in the dark about such things. LongfordLad, look at the street you grew up in and your early days, and what people put up with those days. We tend to forget.

With all due respect to you Kaga, and I do respect your extensive knowledge and memory, I must disagree that the Dovedale/Rivoli/Ritz cinema was an ugly building. OK it does not measure up to the likes of St Paul's Cathedral but the it was only a cinema, but with its stone steps leading to the entrance through its stone pillars, to us kids it was magnificent. For a building of its time I really don't think that it should be criticised too harshly. I have seen recent photos of its demise, and am saddened that this building that gave so many of us such immense pleasure should fall into such a state of irretrievable repair. I believe that there are many of us who would like to have seen this building well maintained and used for its original purpose.

johnwright, you're so right. After I posted that, I thought, no it wasn't that bad a building, I tend to write before I really think these days, maybe Pixrobin was right about the brain getting slower. Yes had good times there, do you remember 'Flash Gordon' or was that before your time, trying to remember if the Lone Ranger was back then, 'ha' now 'Tonto' comes to mind, the Three Stooges, what fun just for two pennies. Ha now was a joey threepence, tanner sixpence, and those try to 'kiss' times, long before the world went mad. And the chip shop across the road, and my long shorts handed down from my brother, happy as a lark all day long. Oh my, do get carried away.

I suspect they were delighted that a modern picture palace had been built virtually on their doorstep? (Not that there were many houses in the immediate vicinity when it was first built).

Oh what memories the photo of the old Standard Cinema brought back to me. My parents moved to Tile Hill in 1957, and my friend and I were regulars at this nearby cinema on Friday nights, in the one and nine's if I remember correctly. If you sat towards the back there were double seats, but I think they were dearer, but worth it if you fancied a lad and could sit together. Mind you, my friend and I didn't really give a toss about the films, only the lads who were there, and we must have been real nuisances to any cinema goer who had actually gone to watch a film! One Friday night we made so much noise chatting to the lads that the cinema owner, who we knew as Major Dent, leaned over the seats, grabbed my friend by her long ponytail and said, in his very posh voice, OUT and don't come back! That put an end to our flirting for quite a while.

To say the the former Standard cinema was ugly is a bit over the top. Basically it was on the wrong site. It was not in keeping with the surrounding buildings. If it had been placed on the site of the Torrington Company then the bridge over the railway would have made the cinema less overpowering. The site used was really too constricted for the erection of a cinema in a suburban environment. And, remember, the general public judge a building merely from its facade. Most buildings are designed from the inside not the out. Architecture is about enclosing spaces to serve a specific purpose. A cinema, concert hall, or theatre is an entirely different proposition to a pub. As a lad queueing in the rain outside the Standard for the Saturday morning matinee I wondered why the row of doors at ground level didn't allow us inside. They are not entrances but emergency exits. Much of the space in a cinema is devoted to getting the audience out safely in case of emergency.

Kaga Simpson, yes you are a little older than I. I must have followed in your footsteps going to the Rivoli later to be called the Ritz. You brought back memories of the Three Stooges and The Lone Ranger, what about the Bowry Boys, Abbott and Costello etc etc . Every Saturday morning at the pictures was great, kids today don't know what they are missing. A long gone era I'm afraid.

There were many different versions of Flash Gordon made over the years Kaga, each generation will remember a different incarnation. What I thought was the 1954 version of 'Flash Gordon' turned out to be the very similar "Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe" (1953) which I saw at the Gaumont in the early 1960s: It was accompanied by the 1949 version of "Batman and Robin"

Dutchman, morning, No, I didn't know there was so many versions, guy with moustache, think he was in a lot of gangster films, was he Basil? My first visit to that cinema, was 1933/4, believe it was the Dovedale, seem to recall a lot of animals so could Weissmuller have made a Tarzan picture around then? I had cousins in Hen Lane then, the Lyric had a different name, could have been a nickname, can't remember. Since I posted about the French film, 'Wages of Fear', on Thursday last I received an email completely in French, an advert for a French holiday camp. There was a chip shop we visited after the cinema in Windmill Road a few doors down from Longford Road, therewas a chip shop in Hurst Road a few doors down from Longford Road, there was a chip shop in A/Green Road a few doors down from Jackers Road, I thought as a kid there was some 'official' reason for them to be like that. (Weird) Harmless chit-chat. Regards, Kaga.