Odeon Mile End

Situated across the road from Mile End Underground (Tube) Station in the East End of London. The Odeon Theatre was built for Oscar Deutsch’s original Odeon Theatres chain. It was designed by the Andrew Mather firm, with Keith P. Roberts credited as assistant. It had a distinctive ‘Odeon’ style with a tower feature and the exterior clad in cream faiance tiles. The interior was streamlined Art Deco style that had a feature of large decorative painted floral panels on the side walls close to the proscenium.

It opened on 17th October 1938 with Max Miller in “Thank Evans”. The auditorium was extensively ‘modernised’, re-opening on 27th December 1968 with “The Sound of Music”. However this did not stop the slow decline in admission in what was such a large suburban cinema and it closed on 17th June 1972 with Alain Delon in “The Red Circle (Le Cercle Rouge)” and Jane Fonda in “Cat Ballou”.

It was converted into a Sundown concert centre/danchall which opened on 8th September 1972 with a concert by pop group Slade. The Sundown venture was a failure and it closed in January 1973. After laying empty for two years, it became a cinema again from March 1975, known as the Liberty screening Asian/Bollywood films and it finally closed in 1978.

After standing empty for a further six years it was demolished in April/May 1984 and a combined office/residential block was built on the site.

Recent comments (view all 5 comments)

KenRoe on September 18, 2005 at 11:36 pm

An exterior photograph of the Odeon Mile End in 1949 here:
View link

Another vintage exterior photo taken in 1952 here:
View link

The exterior in 1957 here:
View link

3 views from 1960 here:

View link

View link

View link

A 1971 exterior view here:
View link

lostmemory on December 26, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Here are new links to the seven photos:

Photo1

Photo2

Photo3

Photo4

Photo5

Photo6

Photo7

seymourcox on July 31, 2009 at 10:38 am

LIFE photo of Odeon sign,
View link

KenRoe on July 31, 2009 at 11:12 am

Great 1949 photo of Piccadilly Circus in London’s West End. The sign is pointing towards the Odeon Leicester Square, so not really the Odeon Mile End. Thanks for posting it though.

KenRoe on March 26, 2010 at 5:57 am

A set of vintage photographs of the Odeon Mile End:
View link