Gaumont Bromley

44 High Street,
Bromley, BR1 1EA

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Alan Baker
Alan Baker on March 19, 2017 at 10:24 am

Rank had two cinemas in Bromley, the Gaumont and the Odeon. Until January 1959 there were separate weekly Odeon and Gaumont releases, but in that month Rank reorganised its cinemas into two new release streams, Rank release and National release. The best Odeons and Gaumonts were combined to form the Rank release, while the rest got the (usually) inferior National release. In Bromley the Gaumont took the Rank release, leaving the Odeon with the National. For years the Gaumont release had been generally inferior to the Odeon release, so this was a reversal of fortune for the Bromley cinemas. This, of course, only lasted for a couple of years as the Gaumont was sold off for redevelopment and the Odeon took the Rank release (the National release was in any case dying on its feet by this time).

bob dubery
bob dubery on December 12, 2015 at 11:50 am

I used to frequent the Victor Sylvester dance studio that was on the first floor of the Gaumont. Very popular in the late ‘50’s , early 60’s. Pat Deeley was the leader of the pack..No alcohol but a coffee bar was an integral part of the dance floor. Open every evening of the week, with a special Saturday dance when you were supposed to bring your weekday dance partner. Very difficult if you had a different partner Monday to Friday. I lived in Shirley, near Croydon at the time. The last bus (119) left Bromley for Croydon at around 10.15 p.m. So if you wanted to see your date home, you had to walk home, around 5 miles. No cars or even scooters for 17 year olds at that time.

Re cinemas, the other two were the Odeon at the other end of the High Street and quite near to the Odeon, the Pullman, often referred to as the flea pit.

patjk
patjk on January 27, 2013 at 10:29 pm

I was living in Bromley Common in the mid-1950s. My parents ran a grocery store there which, because it had a billboard for the Gaumont outside the shop, gave us free tickets each week. I used them to good effect. However, I seem to remember two other cinemas in Bromley at the same time. One was certainly the Astor (it was called something else by then), but there was a third, near the Astor, and for the life of me I can’t think what it was called. I saw “The Vikings” (1958) there. Does anyone know the name of this cinema?

Ken Roe
Ken Roe on April 6, 2009 at 9:12 am

Here a a couple of vintage photographs of the site of the Gaumont Bromley in 1935:
View link
A postcard view of Bromley High Street and the Gaumont in the late-1940’s or early 1950’s:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevp/2935054259/