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THESE USED TO BE THE PICTURES
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End of the films: demolition workers outside The Criterion on George Street in the early 70's. |
A look back at the golden age of Hull's silver screens
When Hull Fair rode into town in 1896, crowds flocked to a clanging, blaring, gaudy new attraction showing magical moving pictures of the Corporation Pier, Humber Ferry and Whitefriargate bridge.
Rival showmen watched greedily, spotting a new trend that could make their fortunes. But little did they predict how big a draw moving pictures would really prove to be.
These early shows, called Bioscopes, with their steam organs and dancing girls, were the brash, shameless forebears of Hull's elegant and fondly-remembered cinemas.
Now replaced by multiplexes and global leisure brands, Hull's former picture houses tell a tale of a bygone age, when once or twice a week people would swap the daily grind for a few hours of opulence, glamour and good old-fashioned escapism.
The shells of old picture houses still lie around Hull, their scale, architecture and detail hinting at their former grandeur. Their opulence was fully intentional - to distance themselves from the early film shows that had proven so popular in Hull. By 1907 seven travelling Bioscope shows noisily competed for trade at Hull Fair. But these no longer fed the public's hunger. Films began to be shown in public halls, such as the West Street Chapel and the Assembly Rooms in Kingston Square, and though these venues may have had higher standards than most, they helped to drive a growing scene of hastily-arranged cash-in picture houses.
Hundreds would pay a penny a time to be crammed into shabby benches, the movies' lack of sound an irrelevance as audiences chatted throughout, drowning out any piano accompaniment. As a result of these unlicensed shows, the Cinematograph Act was passed in 1909, laying down regulations to prevent injuries from stampeding hordes, and to halt the devastating fires that had burned down crowded, poorly-ventilated makeshift film halls.
As befits the birthplace of the Rank movie organisation's founders, Hull embraced the new age of public entertainment. Luxurious cinemas, taking their inspiration from music hall theatres, were built to accommodate audiences in almost every neighbourhood in the city. One of the earliest, and most revered, cinemas in the city was The Tower on Anlaby Road. Built on surplus railway land adjoining Paragon Station, the tile-faced, Art Nouveau picture house opened in June 1914.
It seated 1,200 people, with 850 wooden seats on the ground floor and 350 on the balcony. The Tower gave audiences a taste of extravagance, with elaborate cloakrooms and splendid décor beneath the building's distinctive, mosaic-tiled domes.
From a box beside the screen, an orchestra accompanied the silent films, until equipment for "talkies" was installed in 1929.
The pre-war appetite for movies was barely satiable. More than 200,000 people in Hull visited the cinema each week in 1935. At its peak, the city boasted 26 cinemas, spreading from the city centre to the suburbs. Some were tiny. Riding on the back of the early moving-pictures boom was the Electric Theatre, a converted shop that opened in 1909 at 44 Whitefriargate. Others were massive. Holderness Hall in Witham had three entrances, 2,000 leather seats, and three large cafés.
Another giant on Hull's cinema circuit was the Mayfair on Beverley Road, seating more than 1,850 people and built by Quibell and Son, the same firm that brought us the Guildhall and the old Hull Daily Mail building on Jameson Street. Opened in 1929, the Mayfair was hugely popular for a time, with its long leg-room and extra-wide seats for Hull's more corpulent film buffs.
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The Tower on Anlaby Road. |
Even the Second World War couldn't keep Hull people away from the pictures, even though many cinemas were bombed. Eerily, some of the venues that had fallen victim to German bombs on Hull were those that had recently shown Charlie Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator', poking fun at Hitler.
After the war, cinema attendance continued to rise, reaching a national peak in 1946. That year, as people sought escapism from their recent horrors and hardships, a record 1,650,000,000 cinema tickets were sold in Britain. That number was never again matched, as television became more prevalent and ticket prices shot up in a bid to recoup losses. By the 1950s, cinema attendance went into a sharp decline.
Even new advancements were not enough to stop the rot, although interest was piqued for a while. Technologically, Hull was a national leader. Cinemascope equipment manufacturers would bring potential clients to The Tower to show them the best layout in the country for the dramatic new way to see movies. The new Cecil cinema in Ferensway, built in 1955 to replace its bombed predecessor across the road, was said to have the country's biggest Cinemascope screen.
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Holderness Hall. |
But even with the best that cinema could offer, Hull audiences were shrinking, particularly outside the city centre. Slum clearances took audiences to distant neighbourhoods, and post-war rebuilding meant construction materials and corporation funding were channelled into house-building instead of cinema repairs.
In 1950 Holderness Hall was renamed The Gaumont, but showed films only for a further nine years before it gave up the ghost. By 1960 it was the Majestic Ballroom, hosting concerts by bands including The Beatles. After that, the building was used as a furniture shop, and now - apparently - lies unused.
The Astoria on Holderness Road, which featured a giant organ with interior lights that changed colour according to the mood of the music, now serves the east Hull suburbs with bingo instead of movies. Tucked away at Wilmington, The Cleveland was rebuilt after wartime bombing, only to be again razed when it outlived its cinematic usefulness. The site was turned into a garage, although part of the original cinema is thought to remain at the rear of the building.
Now it's bye-bye to the ABC (later Cannon) on Ferensway, once a modern upstart with its multiple screens showing five films at once. Originally called The Regal, this monster of a cinema was the centrepiece of a £95,000 development mixing leisure, retail and office units. Thrown up in 17 weeks, after 32 long months of negotiations over the site, the complex was opened in 1934 by the Lord Mayor of Hull, Alderman Arthur Shepherd.
'As chairman of the housing and town planning committee,' he said, 'I realise that this is the beginning of one of the most important developments in our city.'
A portentous speech indeed, as the site prepares to make way for another mixed-use Ferensway development, 21st century style.
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