Canton Cinema

Canton Police Station (immediately adjacent to this building) is in the process of being demolished. I wonder whether that is likely to unearth anything from the cinema’s past…?

The Scope plans by D E Nye for all the group involved relatively minor alterations to the proscenium opening from (in most cases) William Wort’s 1930’s designs, removing decorative plasterwork to accommodate extra screen width.
The Canton by 1958 had no operating curtains and very little in the way of footlights, compared with the Regent’s full curtains and the Festoon curtain and lighting at the Plaza, (almost identical to the Odeon)

Outside of timing constrictions, managers had the choice of how the show was presented. That is to say how house lights, footies, breaks and interval music choices were operated and presented. For historical reasons nearly every Withers house was equipped differently and thus presentation routines were very varied. For example you could usually raise festoons while the silent BBFC certificate was showing and fade the music out in the few dark seconds before the feature came up.With drapes you had to open up the screen prior to the BBFC certificate being projected as it could not not be seen against the usual dark velvet material. Thus the footies were left on and faded out during the certificate to minimise the effect of a blank screen.

When four of the cinemas in the group, in this case “Gaiety, Tivoli, Canton, County” in 1958 showed the same programme the showing times advertised were identical.
Generally the main feature was shown at about 5.15 (depending on running time) with the “Last Complete Programme” at around 7 p.m. containing , at that time, Pathe News,an occasional cartoon and what was shown on the board as “Interest”(supplied by Pearl & Dean).
The history of the building, particularly the extension , is well documented.The alteration for ‘scope, designed by the office of David Evelyn Nye,left a number of the front seats, sold as “Pit” with a poor
view

Unlike other circuits, the Jackson Withers circuit did not lay down that many hard and fast rules as to how programmes were presented.These decisions were left to their individual managers. The only demands were that trailers and advertisements were shown during each round of the complete programme.Most of the Withers halls did two rounds of the programme each day starting with either the second feature or a one off showing of a short balancer. An example of a balancer being the “Look at Life ” series which lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes. All the Cardiff houses made a point of finishing by 10.35 pm as the last buses left the city centre at eleven pm sharp on their routes through the suburbs.

The Canton had a projectionist named Mac who was employed there for almost twenty years. After the Canton closed he did relief work for the local Withers circuit halls until his retirement around 1970. He often spoke about his time at the Canton, boasting of the high standard of presentation his cinema achieved when compared with the standards of his rivals at the nearby Coliseum.

At January 2008 it appears that a plan to re-open the first floor dance studio has failed as a poster stating it would open soon has been removed.

The Canton Cinema closed in late November 1960, the last film was “Strangers when we Meet”.
When bingo was legalised in the following year The Splott (still operating)and The Gaiety converted at once.