Europa Cinemas 1 & 2

I was the second person through the doors on the day it opened and the first in the cinema-I went to see Papillon. The other person obviously went to see The Sting. I can remember that it was sloped but it was not stadium seating. The colour scheme for both screens was brown seating and the curtains and walls were clad with orange fabric.Both screens at cinemascope setting was approx 25ft and was wall to wall. The curtains never went behind panelling. There was no stereo sound in those days Dolby Stereo came in with Star Wars in 1977 and they did upgrade to it. They had 2 x 35mm Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 tower projectors capable of playing 2 hour films–anything longer had to have an intermission. There were no self looping cakestands which could have accommodated up to 3hr 15min long films but the projector reels could rewind a 2 hr film in 8 mins