Odeon Marble Arch
10 Edgware Road,
London,
W2 2EN
10 Edgware Road,
London,
W2 2EN
14 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 49 comments found
I saw “Ghandi” here.
The best projection I have ever seen.
A pity it is now a multiscreen.
Of all the theatres I have ever worked being a projectionist here was a privilege and a joy. Perfection was the only standard they knew. Martyn Butler
i live in New York City and visited London in August of 1972. i
attended an showing of “Nicholas and Alexandria” at this theater.
it was the first movie theater i had seen with a coffee bar and
cafe rather than just a concession stand selling soda and popcorn.
Some scanned images from 1988 of the auditorium here:–
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4940530709/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4940530501/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4941117620/
Thanks Ken Roe!
Slim, I have amended the introduction to give the opening details. Thanks for your interest.
Many thanks Kirk
2 Feb 1967
Hi,
I just wondered if any of you could tell me when this cinema opened?
Hi just to clarify.
Star Wars ran for 2 days in D150 then reverted to STD 70mm I was there 2 days later. View link
If you follow the link above you will also see that no films had there D150 openings at Marble Arch but both The Bible and Patton opened at Casino Cinerama. While I worked at the Arch I was told that there were never any D150 films screened there due to delays in building.
The deep curve screen was replaced by a much more shallower screen for the run of Lawrence in 1989 at the request of David Lean.
Contrary to an earlier posting, I believe the entire second run of Star wars was presented in D150 – it was Close Encounters that had to be shown in ‘standard’ 70mm, though there was NOTHING very standard about the sight of the mother ship when it came over the top of the mountain for the first time….. the whole audience gasped!
I saw the restored Lawrence Of Arabia here in the mid-1980s on that marvelous curved screen. What a shame they ruined the theatre.
This is a recent exterior view.
I was wondering about pics from the 50s.
I worked here for a few months when they were showing, Terminator 2 and The Silence of the Lambs. The place used to take your breath away from the top of the rear stalls, where I would frequently nip into the fire escape and have a cheeky fag. It was impressive. When the lights went up however, the seats were all shabby and looked a bit moth eaten. The manager was a bit of a tyrant.
herewith some pictures from 1967 featuring D150 : somewhat conflicting screen size : 62 feet …to er 79 ft later being nicer and er more accurate !
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevp/2930889819/
View link
View link
Pre-refurbishment and plexing, this was a great single screen experience. A great shame that London could not support it as a single screen once the 90s kicked in. Had a great time here for Terminator 2 and The Doors…both pictures which had the right scale for the place. It is now a plex with very tight stepped seating suffered thru Speed 2 and enjoyed Full Monty and Tailor of Panama in spite of the discomfort
Are there any photos of the original auditorium before it was demolished?
I agree with you both, I made many, many visits to the Odeon Marble arch in the 80s and early 90s, while it still had that huge screen and feeling of being in a true cinema, for such ‘Special Engagements’ as ‘Mary Poppins’ etc- THE place to see a movie. I always used to enjoy movies there more so than at the Odeon Leicester Sq or Empire.
Lavish ‘for the time’? In terms of technical content it was far superior to the mouldy old Regal it replaced. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s better! On the contrary, the new Odeon Marble Arch was brute force sixties modernism at its best. Quite aside from the huge screen and other presentation facilities (which were impressive), you wouldn’t believe how much effort was put into acoustically isolating the whole place. In fact the purpose of that fibreglass rockface effect in the auditorium was acoustical as well as aesthetic. Yes, the Odeon Marble Arch really was a kind of high water mark in terms of big screen entertainment (to use a Rank Organisation slogan of the time). It even cropped up in contemporary architects journals as an object lesson to others and elements of the design were to copied in Rank’s other big projects at the time. Shame it’s glittering, utopian, deep-curve D-150 moment was so short lived!
D150 only ran at the Odeon Marble Arch, and the Coliseum had only Cinerama
I only visited that cinema once, but it was a very memorable visit. It was in 1989, and I went to London from Brighton (where I lived at the time) just to see the restored 70mm print of “Lawrence Of Arabia”. Lines were around the building for an early noon screening but I went in very quickly. I sat in the rear stalls, just under the balcony, and I fell in love with the theater right away: It had a feeling of a real cinema. And then the film began. WOW! Until today I regard that screening as one of the best I have ever attended. It was high Definition at it’s best, much better then any HD Digital screenings we might have today. And the movie itself was perfect, still is one of my favorite films ever. It was a stunning expirience and I am very sorry I would be able to visit that cinema again or see another 70mm screening over there. The Odeon Marble Arch before the division was one of the best cinemas I have ever been in. And I have been in a lot before that 1989 visit and after.
I saw “Jurassic park II” there with my wife (then girlfriend) in 1997, she was taking a “study abroad” course in London that summer and I went to visit her. The cinema-box we sat in wasn’t very large, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see the nice 60s mod original auditorium.
We roomed at the university of London dorms on Brown road nearby.
Article spotted on “Cinerama.topcities”. Go to “Cinerama want to be” on Home Page, then Click on “Dimension 150” then Odeon, Marble Arch.
Number of my own pressbook cuttings are on this site, mainly on the “In Cinerama?” page.
exterior shot taken Aug 2007
View link