Lumiere Cinema

press ad from august 1982 when the cinema was in its short lived The Lane guise
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/5448307814/

I rememeber seeing Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams in the late eigties. The inside of the Lumiere felt like it had been designed by Habitat, there was a cool and classy feel about the place. It was probably THE place to see arthouse movies at the time. Shame to lose it. Like the Odeon Haymarket and the Curzon Soho, these 600-700 seat cinemas couldn’t make it in modern London.

I saw many of the Disney presentations here and the the front of the cinema looked great all dressed up with the Disney logo and castle etc. I didn’t realize it was a home to Disney for as long as 5 years. It was a great place to see any movie, as was stated above, the rake and screen were perfect. I saw my first movie in a cinema with ‘subtiles’ at the Lumiere- ‘ThE Big Blue’. London lost a great cinema when this closed. Another being the Odeon Haymarket- what were they thinking?

Finally a scanned photo of the cinema when open (as the Lumiere) here :–

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The doors opened on the 7th Jan and are still open! Unfortunately to allow access to builders who will be converting it into a gym.I walk past every day.

Does anybody know whether the auditorium is actually in use as a coference venue?