None of The Red Shoes supposedly ROH-set interiors are genuine (anymore than they are in Woody Allen’s Match Point). But an utterly forgotten film from 1957 starring Harry Secombe - “Davy”, concerning a boyo with operatic ambitions - was indeed shot inside the House, partly for his on-stage audition and partly during an enormous stage rehearsal for Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg” with a then-unknown Joan Sutherland in the cast and the full orchestra in the pit.
It’s not of usable quality visually for still extraction; but this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHFgxJ08bLk&ab_channel=ComptonLodgeStudios does at least show you what the Todd-AO adapted interior looked like in the 1960s.
By the way, the Austrian curtain, though invariably lit various lurid shades of red, was actually canary yellow, with orange swag overlays both horizontally and vertically.
Actually, this photograph is of the site of the wrong cinema and location, being that of the original Alcazar (later Bohemia) at 64 Ballards Lane, some half-mile away from the later, 1920s New Bohemia on Regent’s Park Road. The “old” Bohemia has its own entry on this site, where this picture belongs.
This cinema is featured extensively in the 1962 film “The Traitors” as the rendezvous point of spies, one of whom meets his end in the Dress Circle during a very noisy and unseen (presumably) war picture. Good shots of the exterior, and quite the tour of a very grand-looking interior, including a chase up the Circle staircase.
Actually, though the casino advertising awnings are on both sides of the main entrance, the Cashino slot corridor is on the LEFT of the main foyer, which – like the rest of the building – remains fully lit-up at night, sparklingly bright inside and with coloured lights washing the entire frontage. For a structure closed to the public for more than three years and otherwise inaccessible, this seems pretty bizarre….
After years of trying to track down a picture of the interior, I finally find one which ought to have been freely available – it’s one of Maltby’s pictures – but oddly doesn’t feature in the otherwise complete national archive collection of his work. Never mind: it’s now in the photo section above, so have a good long wander down memory lane….
There most certainly was a Circle! I sat there often enough (and indeed had several formative encounters there unrelated to film) It must have seated between 400-500, the rest being in the Stalls (around 800)the back of which had a semi-occluded view of the whole enormous screen because of the overhang. If you look at any of the surviving photos of what was a large building http://www.mawgrim.co.uk/cavalcade/hendon2.jpg
you will see that it was very high, with an giant tea-rooms/restaurant behind the windows on the first floor, which backed on to the Circle entrance through a single, central door. As far as I know, right to the end it retained its original, multi-drop curtains: and the decor was pure Art Deco. Do any interior shots exist?
None of The Red Shoes supposedly ROH-set interiors are genuine (anymore than they are in Woody Allen’s Match Point). But an utterly forgotten film from 1957 starring Harry Secombe - “Davy”, concerning a boyo with operatic ambitions - was indeed shot inside the House, partly for his on-stage audition and partly during an enormous stage rehearsal for Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg” with a then-unknown Joan Sutherland in the cast and the full orchestra in the pit.
It’s not of usable quality visually for still extraction; but this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHFgxJ08bLk&ab_channel=ComptonLodgeStudios does at least show you what the Todd-AO adapted interior looked like in the 1960s.
By the way, the Austrian curtain, though invariably lit various lurid shades of red, was actually canary yellow, with orange swag overlays both horizontally and vertically.
The four-storey brick building on the far left, where the small boy is standing, is, astonishingly, still there.
Actually, this photograph is of the site of the wrong cinema and location, being that of the original Alcazar (later Bohemia) at 64 Ballards Lane, some half-mile away from the later, 1920s New Bohemia on Regent’s Park Road. The “old” Bohemia has its own entry on this site, where this picture belongs.
This cinema is featured extensively in the 1962 film “The Traitors” as the rendezvous point of spies, one of whom meets his end in the Dress Circle during a very noisy and unseen (presumably) war picture. Good shots of the exterior, and quite the tour of a very grand-looking interior, including a chase up the Circle staircase.
Actually, though the casino advertising awnings are on both sides of the main entrance, the Cashino slot corridor is on the LEFT of the main foyer, which – like the rest of the building – remains fully lit-up at night, sparklingly bright inside and with coloured lights washing the entire frontage. For a structure closed to the public for more than three years and otherwise inaccessible, this seems pretty bizarre….
After years of trying to track down a picture of the interior, I finally find one which ought to have been freely available – it’s one of Maltby’s pictures – but oddly doesn’t feature in the otherwise complete national archive collection of his work. Never mind: it’s now in the photo section above, so have a good long wander down memory lane….
This is the original facade:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcinemaphotos/3589625706/
As of mid-2011, fifty years after its demolition, it is still a hole-in-the-ground car park. Progress….
There most certainly was a Circle! I sat there often enough (and indeed had several formative encounters there unrelated to film) It must have seated between 400-500, the rest being in the Stalls (around 800)the back of which had a semi-occluded view of the whole enormous screen because of the overhang. If you look at any of the surviving photos of what was a large building http://www.mawgrim.co.uk/cavalcade/hendon2.jpg you will see that it was very high, with an giant tea-rooms/restaurant behind the windows on the first floor, which backed on to the Circle entrance through a single, central door. As far as I know, right to the end it retained its original, multi-drop curtains: and the decor was pure Art Deco. Do any interior shots exist?
SJT