Gaumont State Kilburn

JimRankin on June 28, 2004 at 8:03 am

The GAUMONT STATE theatre is one of the largest if not quite the grandest in the world, and is best seen in this vintage photo from the excellent British site of Louis Barfe: View link

I was hoping an Englishman would add this theatre to the CT site (though Ross did as well as an American probably could in adapting from Allen Eyle’s book), since he would likely have the most intimate and wonderful memories of the 4800-seat theatre with room for 500 more standees according to the wonderful reminiscence by Allan House in “Marquee” magazine of the Theatre Historical Society of Oct. 1969, pages 4 and 5 concerning his days working there in the 40s. Among many interesting details he says: “The proscenium was a gorgeous arch, 60 ft. wide by 75 ft. high, masked by the pelmet [lambrequin], or Grand Drape [a sequence of ten dark velour swags separated by galloons terminated by six-foot-long tassels, the whole of which formed an arc above the lambrequin of gold satin underneath it which was in 30% fullness], to a height of 40 ft. We used a black velvet frame to reduce the opening to accommodate our scenery, which never looked better. The screen in use at this time was fifty feet wide, as they still used the Magnascopic projector at least once during a performance, but of course was usually masked down to standard size. The house curtain, whose fringe alone was ten feet high [!], was in gold satin, and weighed three tons. It few apart at two controlled speeds at the touch of a button, requiring two stagehands to keep under control when persons were on the stage, for on one occasion it caught a dancer off guard and smashed him into the proscenium! Behind this was the silver contour curtain, which could be swept up into any desired swag or frame at the touch of a button, the design set on a peg-board arrangement in the prompt-corner [a la RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL]. When the theatre was first opened, there were a dozen complete sets of drapes made, velvet on one side, lined with a contrasting slipper-satin. Each panel was wired internally so that they could be swagged in any manner by attaching ropes to the necessary wire. Only about three of these sets were still in the theatre when I was there, others having been loaned out or mislaid.”

“The switchboard seemed to be a city-block long, but the principal lighting feature I remember was the overhead battens, in the usual four-colour circuits, but each with a long drum arranged so that, by remote control, the drum would revolve and replace each of the four circuits with four different colours! There were no stage mechanics [elevator sections], as it was a solid slab due to underground springs, but I saw pictures of a complete band-stand flown from the grid, masked in front to look like a cloud.” He goes on to describe the “Prompt Corner” as having switches to control the curtains, the Orchestra Lift, the once rising pipe organ console on its turntable, as well as phones to all parts of the theatre, and even “a red phone that had been an open line to New York during the ‘Golden Era’s’ heyday.” Much more information is in his article, but just these excerpts serve to demonstrate that not all the great movie palaces were in the USA! The photos on the Barfe site: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~lfbarfe (select CINEMAS, and then GAUMONT STATE) will help anyone appreciate this, one of the world-class theatres still among us, if only as a bingo hall, as the photos show it to be today. Interestingly, the interior photo shows the organ console at extreme house right in the pit, but it looks like nothing so much as one of Wurlitzer’s ‘Spanish’ themed cabinets, though the auditorium is a restrained neo-classical in theme.