Picture House
26 Reform Street,
Blairgowrie,
PH10 6BF
26 Reform Street,
Blairgowrie,
PH10 6BF
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In Blairgowrie, Perthshire, the Electric Picture House had been opened in September 1913 by Henry Quinn and his family (see separate Cinema Treasures entry). This conversion of two old cottages was a very modest affair, and the family soon realised they needed a larger, better cinema. So, in May 1925, the Electric Picture Palace was closed, and then demolished, to make way, on the same site, for the Picture House.
The Art Deco style Picture House, which opened around 1927, was reported to be very much ahead of its time with every comfort and convenience for picture-goers. It is not clear how many stalls seats there were, but there was a 128-seat balcony.
The opening matinee performance was “The Great White Silence”, a documentary about Scott’s Antarctic Expedition, with a special orchestra directed by Alex C. Guild, which played to a capacity audience.
By 1928 there was one show nightly and three each Saturday, at prices from 4d up to 1/3d, the programme being changed each Monday and Thursday, unless the film was extra special and demanded a longer run.
By the end of 1930 the Quinn family had fitted their cinema with a Western Electric(WE) sound system. In 1937, the cinema was extended so it could seat some 700 patrons.
Mr Henry Quinn Junior took over the Picture House after the death of his father.
In 1950 the Picture House is listed as having 520 seats.
In 1955 a panoramic screen was fitted for CinemaScope films.
The cinema continued into the 1970’s, now being run by Mrs Loretta Quinn after the death of her husband around 1969, and, after her death in 1982, others ran the cinema until its closure in 1983. The final film was “Annie”, starring Aileen Quinn and Albert Finney. The cinema had 370 seats at closure.
The building gradually decayed over the years. In the late-1980’s there had been a plan to transform it into a nightclub, but this did not go ahead.
When I visited, in March 2009, it was still boarded up. It was demolished a couple of years later, and Picture House Court flats now occupy the site.
Contributed by
David Simpson
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Recent comments (view all 1 comments)
In the 1944 KYB, there is a cinema listed as Quinns, Reform Street, Proprietor Henry Quinn, 520 seats, proscenium width 25 ft., this will be the Picture House, a British Acoustic sound system is noted as well. The postcode is PH10 6BF. The façade to the flats has been styled to look like the old Picture House, but it is much wider than the original.