I was back Finchley way today for a school reunion at Bishop Douglass in East Finchley and it got me all nostalgic for the locale I grew up including the Gaumont Odeon in North Finchley. My time was after Shamus’s as above as my family first came to the area in 1972 but I can remember so vividly the films we saw there.
First thing to note was that it was ENORMOUS, seating over 2,000 and the screen size was huge. I mean, even at the back of the cinema it almost filled your whole field of vision, but then there were also these huge big lobby spaces. By my time, the likes of the restaurant were no longer open, but what must it have been like to have been in that auditorim when films were supported by shows with dancers and orchestras. My goodness, at that time you really did enjoy a gala night at the movies.
I’m 50 now but every now and then I will dream that I’m back there and I rerun the films I saw then. My memory is faded perhaps but I know they included Bryan Forbes ‘The Slipper and the Rose’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ (possibly one of the last films shown with an intermission) ‘The Four Musketeers’.
It’s simply astonishing to me that no one had the wit to reinvent that cathedral of the motion picture. Maybe its a wonder that we’ve just about clung to the Muswell Hill Odeon, but special as it is, The Gaumont Odeon in Finchley was a palace. Even as a kid with so many of its areas closed off, you could see that; and as for Rank’s sneaky restrictive covenant? How shabby was that?
I better quite now before I burst an atery but before I leave let me link you to two pictures I’ve not seen before. One is a great view of the interior at its hey-day while the other is an excellent floor plan for the original building.
I was back Finchley way today for a school reunion at Bishop Douglass in East Finchley and it got me all nostalgic for the locale I grew up including the Gaumont Odeon in North Finchley. My time was after Shamus’s as above as my family first came to the area in 1972 but I can remember so vividly the films we saw there.
First thing to note was that it was ENORMOUS, seating over 2,000 and the screen size was huge. I mean, even at the back of the cinema it almost filled your whole field of vision, but then there were also these huge big lobby spaces. By my time, the likes of the restaurant were no longer open, but what must it have been like to have been in that auditorim when films were supported by shows with dancers and orchestras. My goodness, at that time you really did enjoy a gala night at the movies.
I’m 50 now but every now and then I will dream that I’m back there and I rerun the films I saw then. My memory is faded perhaps but I know they included Bryan Forbes ‘The Slipper and the Rose’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ (possibly one of the last films shown with an intermission) ‘The Four Musketeers’.
It’s simply astonishing to me that no one had the wit to reinvent that cathedral of the motion picture. Maybe its a wonder that we’ve just about clung to the Muswell Hill Odeon, but special as it is, The Gaumont Odeon in Finchley was a palace. Even as a kid with so many of its areas closed off, you could see that; and as for Rank’s sneaky restrictive covenant? How shabby was that?
I better quite now before I burst an atery but before I leave let me link you to two pictures I’ve not seen before. One is a great view of the interior at its hey-day while the other is an excellent floor plan for the original building.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5053/5419245129_327eed0421_z.jpg
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BWXqmeqdE2Fnkv—TfdP_slna8HoJTuqwdce-cjbEH8?feat=directlink