New Coliseum Cinema
248 Whitley Road,
Whitley Bay,
NE26 2TE
248 Whitley Road,
Whitley Bay,
NE26 2TE
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Doctor Zhivago was of course in Panavision not Cinemascope. One Wide screen film that was very poular here was Zulu, which was shown several times. The last time that I saw it at the New Coliseum, the opening scene following the titles, which features bare-breasted Zulu women performing a dance, was missing. Were there objections to this scene, or could someone have removed it for their personal collection? Curiously, despite this scene, and the violence in some other scenes, it was still given a U certificate.
A Reminder.. Cinemascope Films could only be shown in Cinema Authorised by (20th Century Fox) As it was their Trademark… In the early days the sound was in 4 Track Mag. ABC and the others did a kind of Scope minus 4 Track.. to get around the situation. In most cases ABC also installed festoon Curtains and installed the screen as close to the front as possible. A number of ABC sites and Independants where budget allowed got Modernisation Ltd., to build New Larger Pros outside the small one.. The Original Cinemas Equipt with Cinemascope was Granada.. Essoldo.. and the leading Independant in a Town.. Rank would not invest in Cinemascope until later… When this happened 20th Century Fox then did the dirty and moved to scope release back to Rank except where there was no Rank Cinema in a town..
This cinema was the last ABC cinema in the region to be equiped for cinemascope pictures. From May 1955, Cinemascope pictures that would normaly be expected to screen here were shown instead at the Essoldo and the New Coliseum did not screen them here until October 1956 when an MGM picture “Viva Las Vegas” was shown. It is possible that because of it’s origins as a theatre, it was difficult to fit a reasonable sized Cinemascope screen, which may also be why it had a rising festoon curtain (which I think was red) rather than the more usual side opening tabs. It was certainly the case that the Essoldo had a larger screen. Nevertheless in the summer of 1967, Doctor Zhivago was shown here and ran for four weeks. The last programme to be shown was Dirty Dingus Magee + The Extraordinary Seaman.
A 2009 photo of the façade of the Coliseum, at which time the housing development on the site of the auditorium had not been started.
COLISEUM