My Early Cinema Experiences

By the time I was little, Chorlton-cum-Hardy was down to one solitary cinema: the Classic. It was originally named the Rivoli,iopened in 1936, damaged in World War II and later restored and reopened. In 1955 it was renamed the Essoldo, then renamed again in 1972 to the name I knew it by - the Classic.

It was the first cinema I visited and the one of the first movies I saw there was 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' in 1974. I was a bit of a handful it seems; when the lights dimmed I yelled out 'Innit dark. Turn the lights on, daddy!' Later on, as the strains of 'heigh-ho!' rang out I shouted 'Look! Look!It's the Seven Warfs!' You can't take some people anywhere, can you? I saw quite a few Disney movies there; in common with many cinemas, the Classic used to show childrens' movies during school holidays. I remember a double bill one afternoon of 'The Jungle Book' and 'One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing' (it would be a few years before I wondered why Peter Ustinov was playing a Chinese man.)

Then there were saturdays, the children's matinees. It was a badge of honour to sneak in without paying (not that I ever did this heinous thing, of course . . honest . .). Once inside, we behaved appallingly, shouting, fighting, throwing popcorn . . occasionally there would be threats to stop the movie and we would pipe down for maybe five minutes before starting up again. How the staff must have hated us.

I first saw 'Star Wars' there. 'Star Wars' wasn't released in the UK until the end of December 1977, so I saw it in 1978. Very exciting; I couldn't wait. Walking home afterewards I was full of the images I'd seen and felt bursting with electricity. I said to my dad 'Dad? I feel the Force.' He looked at me, made a face and said 'Don't be so bloody stupid.' He had a way of bringing me back to Earth! (There were other times when he fired up my imagination no end, such as the infamous Flying Saucer Hoax he tricked me and my sister with, but more of that another time!) I also remember seeing 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'at the Classic. My mum and sister both were sobbing wrecks at the end and it's possible I had some dust in my eye myself.

So many movies, so many memories. I don't know how many films I watched there but I did notice that attendances weren't great. Ona (e screen was converted into a roller skate arena (a very small one) and the cinema was renamed again to Shalimar. It eventually closed and was bulldozed in 1991, a victim of the mass destruction of a generation of period art deco cinemas as attendances plummeted. Since then we've had a revival for cinemas with the advent of multiplexes, which are great in their own way - comfortable seats, excellent sound and picture quality - but a bit soulless.

Those cinemas we lost had character, bags of character and, belatedly, the remaining examples are being preserved and restored. Quite right, too. There is nothing like watching a movie in an old theatre; the red velvet seats, the decor, the gleaming brass, the smells, the generations of memories. These buildings are an integral part of movie history, the outlets in which our dreams took flight and we delighted in thrills, spills and buttered popcorn.