Empire Cinema

dave on June 2, 2019 at 1:06 pm

Additional stuff from Long Eaton & Sawley Archive: On Thursday August 1st 1920, the Empire cinema opened, showing God’s Good Man and Roaring River. Seats were priced at boxes 2- each seat, circle 1-, fauteilles (whatever they were) 9d, stalls 6d and pit stalls 4d. There was room in the pit and circle for over 1,000 people. It included the Empire Cafe and a large room for private parties or Billiards. For some reason though, the Empire was not successful and closed on Saturday April 5th 1924. Five months later, under new management, the Empire re-opened.

Live acts would occasionally be engaged as an alternative to films. Talkies arrived on May 12th 1930 with King Of The Khyber Rifles. 1954-5 brought the Panoramic screens. The first Cinemascope film shown in Long Eaton was The Kentuckian with Burt Lancaster. Although successful for many years, the Empire was too large to be viable and closed on October 15th 1960 with Charlie Drake and Sands Of The Desert. Although several youths were searched for fireworks before being allowed in, many were sent out after several explosions during the evening, so the second half of the film played to an almost empty cinema. Vandalism caused the closure of many cinemas during the 1950s and 1960s.

The Empire was demolished to build a new Tesco supermarket. This was eventually replaced by Preedy and currently a W.H. Smith’s store occupies the site.