Odeon Cinema, Chester.

Odeon

 

Owners: Odeon Theatres (Chester) Ltd,  Chairman- Oscar Deutsch.

Architects:  Robert Bullivant, associate of the Harry Weedon practice.

Main Building Contractor: Percy Hamer, Manchester.

Construction cost:  £35.000 (estimated).

Original capacity:   1628 seats     (stalls 1,080 – circle 548).

Date opened: – Saturday 3rd October 1936.

Opened by: – The Mayor of Chester, Councillor T. Davies-Jones, J.P.

First General Manager: Harry Yorke. 

First Chief Projectionist: Ernest Hall.

First feature film shown: ‘Two’s Company’ starring Ned Sparks and Gordon Harker.

Guests present at the opening night Gala: Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, Oscar Deutsch.     

1976 alterations: – The building was altered into a three screen venue, opening on Saturday 10th April. Re-branded as the Odeon Film Centre. Seating 802 in screen 1, & 122 in both of the smaller screens that had been formed under the balcony. Total project cost- 80.000.

Grade II National Heritage Listing: – Tuesday 7^th February 1989.

1991 alterations: – In March screen one was divided in to three auditoriums. Screen 1 seated 406, the two newly formed screens held 151 each.  The screens under the balcony remained the same although now known as screens 4 & 5. Further details at the base of this page. 

2002 Re-branding: – to new style signage/ new canopy/ colour scheme.

Last General Manager: Andrew Elvis. 

Last Chief Projectionist: Peter Davies.

Date Closed – Thursday 14th June 2007     

Building extant. Internally restructured for use as a cultural centre (Storyhouse). 

 

 

The site chosen for the new Odeon cinema was partly occupied by Northgate House, a fine residence that was then turned into offices and finally as lodgings for the Judges at Chester Assizes.

Chester Odeon was not to be typical of the style associated with a Harry Weedon designed cinema. In many aspects the buildings design differed from the adopted house design of other Odeon cinemas. It’s close proximity to Chester Cathedral, led to local interference at the initial planning applications.  The Royal Fine Art Commission ruled that a tiled facia should not be used. Instead, slender blue bricks with banded rustication to the entrance canopy level, and largely buff bricks above were used on the front elevations of Hunter Street and Northgate Street. A prominent tower was situated on the street corner, one storey higher than the rest of the building. At both ends of the auditorium block, were two shorter towers with shaped vertical ribs, surmounted by an angled green glazed tile roof that led onto the expanse of the auditorium flat roof.

In charge of the Chester Odeon planning was twenty five year old architect, Robert Bullivant, of the Birmingham based Harry Weedon Partnership. The cinema was built, furnished and equipped under the supervision of Cinema Service Ltd, of Cornhill House, Bennett’s Hill, Birmingham, who were technical advisors and managers for the owning company.

Eventually on opening there were just ODEON signs either side of the tower. The local council also insisted that the signage was to be in the Trajan style of letters, as seen on this illustration. This style was copied the following year at York.

In comparison to the ornateness of the other two ‘Super Cinemas’, the Gaumont and the ABC Regal, the Odeon’s interior was plain, with a leaning to art deco in design. What you see is what you have, a long narrow building with most of the area taken up with the auditorium. Offices, staff areas and storage areas being very small, accessed by one stair well that eventually leads you to the projection room and roof. The main entrance end of the building seemed to dominate the far end of the Town Hall square. The large red neon sign was placed high on both sides of the brick-built tower and could be seen several miles away.

The Odeon had a modest square entrance hall. Two staircases, situated either side of the built-in paybox, joined onto a single landing, which then formed a single staircase to the impressive large foyer that had a sweeping centre ceiling cove that spanned from the stairs and stopping short of the high pink frosted glass window. The glass had been specially imported from Sweden, and cast a warm glow to the foyer.

Entering the circle crush lobby, which had cloakroom facilities on both sides, you came to another two sets of double doors, which led to a vomit staircase and the circle. There was a main cross over which spanned the width of the circle and divided the rear and front seats. The seats were arranged into several blocks. The rake was moderate, with a problem of customers at the back of the circle being able to stretch their arms up to touch the projection beam.

The walls of the circle and stalls had polished two-toned wood panelling dado, approximately five foot high, which protected the stippled fibrous plaster. Dotted around the walls were small art deco chrome sidelights, which provided maintained primary and secondary lighting, with low wattage orange lamps, these stayed on when the house lights were dimmed. Apart from the vomit stairs, the other exits were at the left and right of the rear circle, there was no mid-way side exits. The stalls held 1080 seats, with a further 548 seats in the circle, making a total of 1628.

Although not very wide, the length of the stalls made up for it. The ceiling at the rear of the stalls was low with several recessed light fittings. The full floor in the stalls was raked from back to front and was T & G floor boarded.

Purposely your eyes were drawn towards the stage area. A polished wood barrier enclosed a dropped band pit, which matched up with the wooden panelling around the cinema and on the foot light valance.

The theatre had little interest as far as decorative plasterwork design. It had two-tear duct coving that ran either side of the ceiling, leading to their widest point half way down the proscenium where they terminated. This coving had three circuits of lighting for colour changes. Two large display boxes were situated halfway up the splay-walls by the proscenium, lit in orange. Bands of concealed cove lighting ran towards the front of the building. At the rear circle there was a small oval cove feature with concealed lighting.

A plain proscenium opening had a raised-edging border that separated it from the walls. The stage itself was designed purely for film entertainment. It had a horn chamber, (loudspeakers), recessed into the rear back wall, that could be accessed from the outside. This was because the original screen frame was attached directly onto the back wall. There were series of lines for tab tracks, borders and legs. These were to enable additional presentation to the build-up of the feature film.

The Opening Gala Evening took place on Saturday 3^rd October 1936. According to local press reports, hundreds of people stood outside the new cinema that was lit by rose tinted floodlights, witnessing the arrival of the V.I.P guests.

So much interest had this theatre aroused in the city that people formed a huge queue to book for the opening performance as early as 7.30am on the previous Monday morning.

For over an hour before the official opening ceremony, musical selections were played by the band of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. On arrival, the Mayor of Chester (Councillor T. Davies-Jones, J.P.) and party were led by a piper down the central gangway of the theatre to the stage.

The party on the stage included: The Mayor of Chester, Mr & Mrs Oscar Deutsch (Odeon chairman), the Right Hon. Earl Winterton, M.P. (director), F. Stanley Bates (director), W.G. Elcock (director), Harry W. Weedon, A.R.I.B.A. (architect), Percy Hamer (main building contractor), Jack Payne (band leader).

Declaring the building open, the Mayor of Chester remarked on the benefits which the corporation would derive through rates and increased electricity consumption. He hoped that the company would keep up with the standard of programmes.

Earl Winterton spoke of the energy and enterprise of Oscar Deutsch, and remarked on the fact that the theatre, although modern, was in harmony with other buildings in Chester.

Oscar Deutsch humorously commented that he hoped the benefits derived by the corporation in respect of the rates and electricity would not be “too great”. He also mentioned the items of archaeological interest, discovered as the foundations were being prepared. If the archaeologists had continued to uncover more, then the building could have been considerably delayed by a further couple of years.

These had been unearthed by a team led by Professor Robert Newstead, F.R.S., the first curator at the Grosvenor Museum and widely acknowledged as one of the most important figures in the discovery of Roman Chester. The items were mounted by Professor Newstead and displayed in a glass cabinet in the circle lounge. Deutsch had presented the Roman artifacts to Chester corporation.

Having recently secured the Leicester Square site for his proposed flagship cinema, Oscar Deutsch stated: “There will be little there that you have not got at Chester”.

Jack Payne and his orchestra took to the stage with their first number, appropriately called “Celebrating”.  This interlude was interrupted briefly when film star, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, who had arrived late, made a speech before the capacity audience. His then girlfriend, Marlene Dietrich, was also supposed to make an appearance, but is not documented at being at the Gala Performance.

The first feature ‘Two’s Company’ starring Ned Sparks and Gordon Harker was played, followed by a reception in the circle lounge, hosted by Mr. & Mrs Oscar Deutsch.

Securing this site was a significate achievement by Odeon Theatres. Its central position meant that it was assured of being well patronised. It was worth all the design concessions made to Chester corporation in relation to its close proximity to the Cathedral and being within the famous Roman walls.

The Odeon’s popularity throughout the heyday of cinema in the 1930s and 1940s was constant. Its prime position meant that even when the decline in audiences began, the cinema regularly attracted larger audiences than its other local competitors.

The equipment in the projection room was kept updated. During 1947 the original eleven year old BTH type B projectors were replaced with two BTH Single Unit Projector Assembly-SUPA projectors. A new screen frame was installed, facilitating a much larger picture.

CinemaScope was introduced in the 1950s. Disappointingly, due to the proscenium width restriction, the side masking opened little more than a few feet and the deep variable top masking reduced the impact of a large wide ratio screen.

Modernisation of the entrance hall took place during the 1960s. Fortunately, this was kept to this one area, with the remainder of the Art Deco design left untouched.

When the Gaumont Cinema closed on 9th December 1961 it was decided that the Kalee 21 projectors and Duosonic sound system be transferred and installed at the Odeon.

However, during 1966 an expensive choice of new projection equipment was made. Two Italian manufactured Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 projectors, with xenon lamps housed in converted Cinemeccanica 400 arcs were installed, together with a Cinemation automated console, designed by Bernard Bentley. This piece of sophisticated kit was put in place to decrease the amount of two projectionists per shift, to just one. In theory, the projectionist just needed to lace the film, focus and rewind. All auxiliary equipment, such as boilers and switching general lighting around the building was controlled via time-clocks from the console.

Despite healthy business during the 1960s, with numerous films such as ‘Westside Story’, ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, regularly filling the auditorium to capacity, the owners did not refurbish seats and carpets as they had done in nearby key cities. Leading into the 1970s, the general appearance of the cinema could only be described as “tired”.

 

In 1976 the Odeon was tripled with the circle extended forward to provide 802 seats that formed screen one. In the stalls area two new cinemas, screens two and three were formed in the rear stalls, each seating 122, making the capacity to 1046, a reduction of 582 seats off the original capacity of 1628. During these alterations, refurbished seating and new carpets were fit throughout all screens.

A new projection room was constructed in the centre stalls area servicing all three screens, the original projection room was not in use at this time of the cinema being a triple operation. On Sunday, 4^th April 1976, the two Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 projectors and other large equipment were lifted by crane from the top projection room and installed to serve screen one.

Two other refurbished Victoria 8 projectors from the Odeon Hanley were installed to serve screens 2 & 3.  The original large picture size in screen one remained the same with the projector throw now being only 50′ away. The two small screens were rear projection, the film was projected onto a translucent screen via a mirror, set up at a 45-degree angle behind the screen.

Despite major construction/alterations, the cinema remained open for evening only performances in the balcony area, closing completely on Saturday 3rd April 1976 for just six days.

The ODEON FILM CENTRE was officially opened on Saturday 10th April 1976. The general public were admitted free of charge to explore the new development, and to watch selected trailers shown in Odeon 1, the largest theatre.

Later that day an invited audience attended the opening film, ‘THE ROMANTIC ENGLISH WOMAN’, which was surprisingly shown in screen 3.  The following day all 3 screens opened with Walt Disney’s ‘THE JUNGLE BOOK’ (screen one) ~ ‘THE TOWERING INFERNO’ (screen 2) ~ ‘THE ROMANTIC ENGLISH WOMAN’ (screen three).

The Odeon was the first cinema in Chester to show a film with Dolby Stereo Sound, ‘Santa Claus the Movie’ in December 1985. Earlier, in the 1970s, it had trialled the Dolby noise reduction system.

For the Golden Jubilee of the cinema, a major refurbishment took place in the summer of 1986 that included a complete redecoration of the building. All screens were replaced, along with new curtains(tabs), seating and luxurious carpet fit throughout. Culminating towards the 50 year Gala Evening on 3rd October.

On Tuesday 7^th February 1989, the building was given a Grade II National Heritage Listing, thus giving protection against alterations being made without consultation.

Losing out to the first Chester multiplex site to Cineplex Odeon, who then quickly dropped out of the lease, which was taken up by Cannon Cinemas, Rank decided to add further screens to the Odeon.

In March 1991, Screen 1 was divided into three screens, giving seating capacities of two 151 seat screens at the rear and one 406 seat screen at the front, leaving the 1936 proscenium intact. The two ground floor screens remained untouched, although re-named Screens 4 & 5. The capacity was now only 960, reduced by a further 86 seats from the 1976 conversion. The original projection room was put back into use, serving the two new screens.

With the divisions for extra screens in the seventies and nineties, the main internal fabric and structure remained intact, thanks to the National Heritage Listing.

During 2002, Richard Segal, Odeon Cinemas then C.E.O. challenged Chester City Council planners who had refused permission to allow a rebranding exercise that involved replacing the famous red neon signage and canopy with a new style of blue and silver. When Segal stated that he would close the cinema if permission was not granted, the planners reluctantly gave way.

With serious new multiplex competition at Wrexham and Ellesmere Port, the cinema relied on dwindling passing trade that gradually declined. The building was sold with a lease back arrangement, which meant that the cinema remained open until the new owners achieved planning permission for their night club business, which did not materialize. However, the business was given notice to vacate the building and the Odeon closed on Thursday 14th June 2007, ending over seventy years of solely film entertainment.

Recent alterations have seen the original circle removed completely, with most of the plaster work lost as the building is integrated into a library/arts centre, mini cinema, and the new theatre that is attached at the back of the building which is now re-named Storyhouse, and opened in May 2017. Many Cestrians had strong views on the building remaining for public use, and with the council’s vision of a cultural centre, and selecting the building for the new project, the doomed Odeon has been saved from certain demolition, and brought back to life.

HM Queen Elizabeth II officially opened Storyhouse on Thursday 14th June 2018, by coincidence eleven years exactly to the day and date that the Odeon closed.

 

 

Click on the above picture to view the Odeon filmed by David A Ellis a few weeks before it finally closed it’s doors on Thursday 14th June 2007.

 

 

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