Odeon Haymarket
Haymarket (corner with St. James's Market),
London,
SW1Y 4SD
Haymarket (corner with St. James's Market),
London,
SW1Y 4SD
5 people
favorited this theater
The former Gaumont Haymarket was completely gutted and most of the space turned into offices, but a basement cinema was included in the rebuild, which opened on June 4, 1962 as the Odeon Haymarket. The opening film was an exclusive run of of Anthony Quinn in “Barabbas”, which was presented in 70mm and ran for over six months.
Seating 600 on a stadium plan, the cinema was designed by Leslie C. Norton. It suffered from having a fairly obscure corner entrance (facing away from Coventry Street), but was very comfortable and distributors would often hold a film over to open it here on an exclusive run.
The side walls sloped in at an angle of about 10 degrees, hung with panels of Thai silk, and the ceiling had a honeycomb pattern of holes.
The Odeon closed on 14th January 1999 for ‘renovation’. A new style ‘Odeon’ sign (one of the first) was placed on the front of the building, but that was all that happened. The sign was later removed, and after laying empty for several years, work began on stripping out the building. Work was halted for a long period of time when a huge amount of asbestos materals were found. Apparently it was gutted back to the bare brick walls and there were plans put forward in 2007 to open it as a lap-dancing club.
Contributed by
Ian Grundy
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Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
A b&w photograph of the auditorium taken on opening week in June 1962:
View link
A colour view of the auditorium. Image by Bridget Smith – 1995:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencta/149904482/
Hi Edd,
This is Fred here. Re: The (first) user comment from yourself (above). Rayne is actually spelt reign?
Cheers Fred
Another photo of the exterior whilst still open :–
View link
A view of the marquee and new ‘Odeon’ sign, photographed just after closing:
http://www.moviebunker.com/odeon_haymarket.htm
The new style Odeon sign went up on the building just weeks before closure! This is a good example of bad sign design as it can only be read correctly from one direction. Here we see it viewed from Piccadilly Circus with the letter ’D' reading correctly. Imagine aproaching from the other direction! A similar situation occurs at the Odeon Camden Town when viewed from the main Camden High Street the letter ’D' reads backwards….Ridiculous!!!
Can anyone tell me when it actually closed. Sad to see it go. Saw lots of films here in 70s Last saw here Regeneration in 1998, ironically what I would wish for here.
Two further exterior views from 1989 here:–
View link
View link
Hi Fred,
The use of the word rayne was a play on words
As many people know, Henry Rayne was a notable cinema engineer of the 1920’s and 30’s
He was most noted for his standardisation of procedures and equipment in British cinema projection rooms
Bill Gibb maintained many of these high standards at the Odeon Haymarket.
After Bill left the Odeon, to continue his work with Dickie Attenborough, we ran the projection department without a chief for approximately 6 months.
It was hard; however we persevered, and if anything, were able to maintain a high level of showmanship.
By early 1988 a new generation of management had taken over.
They were more interested in their ego than quality and presentation.
Less skilled projection staff were employed due to ignorant management (Apparently the new chief had only recently started work for Rank Cinemas, after loosing his job as a bus driver in Liverpool) Am I correct Fred?
Quality showmanship vanished as the standards were dropped to the level of the new chief and his staff.
This in turn led to a loss of patronage, followed by product and budget, resulting in the building becoming run down.
The rest is history!!!
Edd
I worked at this place in the late eighties in the box office, which was pretty shabby. Rank had a policy of putting certain films on exclusive presentation there, on my first day When Harry met Sally sold out 5 presentations on a single saturday. Rank underestimated the power of Meg Ryan faking and orgasm, and it’s effect on the zeitgeist….The box office was dead shabby, and while the auditorium looked pretty, I remember the seats were made of really itchy material. They also had a problem with fruit flies, due to crates of empty tomato juice bottles from the bar. That summer the air conditioning broke down, but still they squeezed 500 people underground on a sweltering August evening. Loads of people complained and got refunds. I am not suprised it closed down. But it did have a lot of character, and you will be hard pressed to find a cinema like it these days.
I saw a film there when I when the air conditioning was broken down,we saw the sign informing the patrons of the problem,we should have heeded it. I liked the cinema very much but we were just unlucky to have visited it at this time.
I’ve recently retired as chief projectionist in my hometown in North Wales,and having read edd’s remark that it was hard to work without a chief for six months. I started at the age of 15,and when the former chief became the manager I was on my own for many years,including running two machines (change-overs and all that)with carbon arcs,and I like to think I was very particular with the standard of presentation,and remember in a smallish town where most people know each other if only by sight,you had to face them in the street if you had suffered a technical fault the previous evening.
People could not understand how I could be called the chief if I was working on my own with no one below me.I was occasionally releived by the manager so I could go & see the local football team,to think there were three of us up in the box when I started.