Park Hall Cinema
Park Place,
Cardiff,
CF10 3AL
Park Place,
Cardiff,
CF10 3AL
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Many thanks for the above information. I am currently trying to piece together information relating to the hotel as my grandfather was a director there many years ago. My mother was fortunate enough to attend some of the film premiers with my grandparents and met some of the greats such as Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Ronald Reagan. Sadly, I only have the photographs left now but continue the search.
Reply to Allan.e
All of the big halls in the city centre (Park Hall, Gaumont, Odeon, ABC, Capitol and Queens) were normally operated by three projectionists at any one time. The staffing being headed by the chief projectionist managing a second and a third. The main task of the very junior third projectionist was rewinding the reels.
On a chief’s day off, command of the box was usually given to the senior second projectionist. None of the big halls used jobbing part time projectionists such as myself.
I’ve just seen a new TV version of How the West was Won, not the usual TCM version. In this one the joins are very hard to spot and the weird “Bendy” effect when objects move across the join has been largely eliminated, as has the difference in colours between the panels.
Not Cinerama of course but no longer do the technical failures detract from what is now a rather dated film.
thank you editha, its facinating the information you leave on here,i saw how the west was won at the park hall in the 3 strip cinerama it was amasing, i heard somewher that it needed 3 progectionists to run the films in that format is that correct
One of the problems faced by this cinema during it’s Cinerama existence was the high cost of staffing the box.The cinema ran most days from about 2pm until approximately 10.30 pm. The operating system was complex and therefore beyond the skills and abilities of most South Wales jobbing projectionists. These part timers only had experience of the older Kalee, RCA and Westar equipment as used in the minor halls.For this reason the cinema was unable to make use of the many relief projectionists who worked the Cardiff and Vally areas.Thus the Park Hall box carried far more expensive full time,in house, trained staff than any other cinema.
I think I have a very early photo of this cinema. There is a car, buggies, bicycles, trolley, and police man, in the photo. I would love help dating and positively identifying the photo. Wish there was a place to post it.
The hotel is currently being reconstructed after fire damage.The former cinema foyer has for some time been used as a bar area.(Sep 2007)
The multi-purpose nature of the Park Hall in November 1909 is evidenced by a press ad showing a concert by Paderewski (Friday), “Unique Living Pictures” (Saturday), Religious Services (Sunday).
The South African Living Picture Company is regularly featured, is anything known about this company?