Theatre De Luxe (independent 1)

THEATRE DE LUXE 1910 - 1957

The Theatre De Luxe , or theer’a d’loo (the glottal stop is important), was in St Andrews Street and utilised parts of an existing structure when it was built, to become the first permanent cinema in Norwich, opening in 1910 and operating for nearly 50 years. It was a small cinema with 700 seats, squeezed between the massive post office exchange on one side, and shops on the other, but it retained its delusions of Edwardian grandeur in its still impressive frontage in the post war years when I knew it so well. Although the upper stories were bland, the entrance spoke of the halcyon days of decades before. The name "Theatre De Luxe Cinema" was picked out in mosaic tiles above four imposing marble columns, with stone steps leading into the foyer. In the fifties these were usually guarded by Jock, a red faced, impressively rotund middle-aged man, with an incomprehensible Scottish mumble, resplendently attired in a grand commissionaires uniform that was now frayed and dusty, but like the cinema itself, still determined to keep up appearances in an increasingly uncertain world. Despite his now slow moving bulk, he was a bull-dog of a man to us, and it was said that you could never get past Jock. He was reputed to have been a footballer in his younger days, and his legend lingered on after the cinema closed, when he moved to the Theatre Royal in its cinema phase, where he could often be seen asleep in the stalls. Jock was one of the characters that added flavour to our cinema going in the fifties, when doormen and managers could be identified with certain cinemas, which all had their individual character, unlike the bland franchises of today.

Once past Jock, the foyer was small, with the little box office directly ahead. Outside, the display cabinet was fixed to the wall with the obligatory front of house stills, and in the foyer the movie posters and lobby posters would be spread around the walls, enticing you in, and once in, never letting you go: the magic was already working. To the right, double doors led into a wide corridor leading to the cinema. On the right hand side a large staircase led up to the balcony, not often used by me or my mother, we preferred the larger main auditorium. At the bottom of the stairs on the left was a small alcove selling ice creams and drinks, the sweet smell permeating the air, my most abiding memory of the cinema, as we advanced towards the double swing doors that led into The Palace of Dreams.

I should mention here in passing, the ritual of the ice cream tub. On every visit we would factor into the price the cost of an ice cream , or Kia-Ora orange drink. The ice cream would come in a shallow waxed card tub, with a lid, and a wooden spoon to scoop out the contents. This was normally a trouble free exercise, unless we dropped the spoon into the morass of rubbish and cigarette ash, and sticky spilled Kia-Ora that had accumulated at our feet. Retrieving the spoon in the dark was out of the question, even for us, and so we would have two options: the best option was to fold the lid, if we still had it, into a V shape, and use it to scoop out the ice cream. The problem with this was that after two or three scoops, the card would be saturated, and no longer rigid enough to make any impact on the solid ice cream. The next step was to use a finger to scoop out the frozen ice cream, but this soon led to a numb and aching top finger joint, until the ice began to melt, at which point the finger was no longer any use anyway. A lolly would have solved the problem of course, but I was, and remain, firmly an ice cream man.

By the mid-fifties, the Theatre De Luxe was competing at the lower end of the market with those cinemas in the city outside the national chains. It would show the usual double bill Monday to Wednesday, another Thursday to Saturday, and another on Sunday. It acquired the nickname "The Ranch House" because of its predilection for Western films, but in later years has been referred to as "The Flea Pit", mainly I suspect from commentators who never went there, and are reflecting the false image of all little cinemas of the period as run down dives. They were certainly regarded in my time as somewhat disreputable, compared with the ornate Palaces of the major chains, and frequented by the lower end of the social scale; but they were usually clean and well run, and the Theatre De Luxe was no exception to that general rule.

The Theatre De Luxe was a favourite of mine, and of most of the boys from my generation; it showed lots of westerns and was a little less strict in some of its policies. The Theatre De Luxe was a favourite of mine, and of most of the boys from my generation; it showed lots of westerns and was a little less strict in some of its policies. The atmosphere was generally relaxed and during a long programme if I became a little bored or cramped, I would often wander to the back of the cinema to the lavatories.  These were in the right hand corner, well way from the swing doors on the opposite side, and behind all the seats. The great attraction for me was the secluded area outside the lavatory doors, in the middle of which stood a splendid metal "hitching post", which I assume was for the ushers to lean on during the show, but which I utilised to great effect as a climbing frame, on which I could swing, ride and hang, and I would often see parts of the film hanging upside down at the back of the theatre, while always on the lookout for an usher who might spot my antics.

After the war there were two main classifications of film, “U” and “A”; there was also an “H”, which became “X” in 1951, but they weren’t much used at that time, so our only problem could be trying to see a movie that had an “A” certificate, which meant that you had to be accompanied by an adult. Our practise on those occasions was to wait outside the cinema and ask the next man or woman who came along if they would take us in, we would give them the money and they would buy a ticket for us. It didn’t always work and we would often be told to “clear off”. This is where the Theatre De Luxe had the edge, as, if business was slow, they would be less concerned about our age, and would let us in on our own. I know this to be the case, because I have a diary entry for when I was twelve, that states that I visited the Theatre De Luxe alone, to see "Ten Little Niggers", which was definitely an "A", and deservedly so as I found it genuinely terrifying. We could happily spend all day there, and on one occasion that’s exactly what I did. I clearly remember sitting in the dark, sleepily watching the film, when I was jolted awake by a torchlight dazzling me, as it picked out my startled face; “There he is” someone whispered, "that's him", and I was hauled out by the manager, and marched to the foyer where my mother was waiting for me. It was about 10 o’clock at night, and I had left home at Midday, saying I was going to the pictures. I had spent all day and evening there, until my frantic Mother had finally tracked me down, and embarrassingly dragged me home. My only regret is that I don’t remember which film I was watching – it must have been good. 

The Theatre De luxe was very much the home of low grade adventure movies in my day, and I usually went there with friends or alone, my mother didn’t normally find much in their programme to interest her. The exception though was Sunday nights; the Sunday night double bill was for an adult audience, and my mother would often take me, despite the fact that Sunday night cinema going was still frowned upon in the early fifties, especially in the Roman Catholic school I went to. Heigham Road school was where I took the 11-plus, and was run by the ferocious Mr Judd, a fat, round faced man who terrorised everybody, including I suspect, the staff. He decided to make an example of me one day, and made me stand in the aisle while he questioned me remorselessly, until I finally admitted that I had been to the pictures the night before – a Sunday. He subjected me to a red-faced rant that stunned the classroom into silence, and threatened me with dire, if unspecified, consequences if I ever repeated such sinful behaviour. Although I was shaken by this nonsensical assault, I would have shrugged it off more easily, if he had not also said he would inform my mother that such behaviour was not acceptable in his school, and it was not to be repeated. He carried out his threat, and, although he had no means of enforcing his diktat, it made my mother think twice about taking me again on a Sunday. The pull of the cinema was too strong though, and we continued our excursions, albeit a little more circumspectly, and under strict instructions never to mention it at school.

Sunday night at the Theatre De Luxe was an experience not shared by any of my friends, and frowned upon by their parents, and even some of my own family. Sunday night cinema going was considered slightly improper, and the Theatre De luxe was always faintly disreputable, even in daylight. My mother was not oblivious to this disapprobation, but thankfully disregarded it, and our Sunday night adventures continued. 

The Sunday programme would be aimed at an adult audience, and consisted of vintage thrillers and horror. One memorable, if terrifying, night for me was watching “Scared To Death” a 1941 Bela Lugosi film narrated, bizarrely, by a corpse lying on a marble slab; at key moments the action was punctuated with a piecing violin screech, the memory of which kept me awake for many a long night. Watching it now it seems risibly innocuous, but young imaginations need little prompting, and many a scene in a now classic movie resonates with me in a way that takes me back to those rapt hours with my mother when I was entranced and chilled in turn by those magical movies. “The File On Thelma Jordan” is an adult film noir, that I still watch with great pleasure, but the last scene, when the Barbara Stanwyck character dies, and her eyes are closed by the cop's hand, while he picks up her chiffon scarf, embedded itself deep in my subconscious as a child, for no reason I can think of, and lurked unsettlingly within me for many years, until I finally tracked it down well into the eighties, and exorcised its strange spell by watching it again. These two memories are among many spells cast by that dingy, yet potent, Dream Palace. It retained its power for me despite the fact that Sunday night movies were often only glimpsed through an all pervading haze of cigarette smoke from an audience of mainly young men with their girlfriends, many of them American servicemen, and the constant background of light chatter and movement, as the interest of the patrons was often elsewhere than on the screen.

A feature of the cinema that all patrons remember is the ritual of the disinfectant spray which would be enacted at the close of a programme when the lights were up. A member of staff would walk down the aisles with a spray pump, which they would use to discharge either disinfectant or air freshener high into the air, to finally settle gently on any remaining audience who were waiting for the next show to start. I would guess this was mainly to dispel the stale smoke which would otherwise permeate every part of the cinema.

Another feature of the old cinemas, especially the independent ones would be the "hands on" approach of the managers, in complete contrast to the anonymous money processing machines that the modern cinema has become. If there is a technical problem in a cinema today, it is difficult to find a real person who can deal with it; in the great days of the fifties the manager and his staff were always on hand. I remember in the fifties sitting in the front rows waiting for the main feature "Rocketship X-M" to begin. The lights went down, the projector fired up, and the curtains began to slowly draw apart as the bright, square window illuminated their heavy folds. And there they stopped, caught at the bottom, and producing a large V shaped aperture that the film's title and then credits appeared on. This unexpected development produced immediate, good natured cat-calls, and within seconds the manager appeared from the wings and strode across the rickety stage to firmly grasp the recalcitrant curtain and drag it open. In his eagerness to ensure the show must go on he stepped on what must have been a loose plank and disappeared from view with a muffled crash, provoking shrieks of delight from his unsympathetic patrons. For a moment there was silence, and then an undaunted arm reached up from the depths into the flickering light, and yanked the curtain free, to a great cheer from us, as we settled down to finally watch Lloyd Bridges battle the Martians.

These were the last great days of the Theatre De Luxe, as the fifties advanced, and the interest in mass market cinema waned, with smaller audiences putting terminal pressure on independent cinemas. My last visit to this emporium of dream and excitement, and sometimes nightmare, was on Tuesday, 5th of February 1957, when I went alone to see a stunning double bill of “The Bride Of Frankenstein” and Lon Chaney Jnr in “Man Made Monster”. This would have been an appropriate end to nearly half a century of pleasure giving, but real life, unlike the movies, often favours the anti-climax, and so it proved in this case. Four days later, on Sunday 10th of February, after a showing of a dire movie called “Outpost to Morocco” the cinema closed for good, and what happened next has gone down in Norwich folk history. Archie Gibbs the manager had been involved in the cinema business since the silent days, and had previously been the organist at the Carlton; he knew all there was to know about running a cinema, but still made a crucial mistake: he announced a week before that he would be closing after the Sunday showing. In other times this may not have been a problem, but by 1957 there was an undercurrent of rebellion among teenagers, there was a restlessness and excitement in the air that only the young could feel, and society was changing inexorably in ways that would come to full fruition in the next decade. That night in the Theatre De Luxe there was a sense of unease among the staff even before the show began, as they spotted some of the audience were already damaging the seats. By the end of a very rowdy showing, restraint disappeared, and the mindless vandalism that accompanies a breakdown of authority took hold. Although destructive, it wasn't the full blooded riot of legend, but it was more than an apprehensive staff could cope with. One hundred seats were damaged, costing £300, and the pieces thrown at the screen, causing more damage; a lavatory door was ripped off its hinges, as the crowd of milling teenagers looked for more trouble. At that moment the police arrived, and immediately took control, stopping the violence and getting the crowd into the street. For many years after, it was considered a badge of honour to say that you were there on that night, but the cinema would have had to be three times its actual size to contain all those making that claim, and in reality few were. It was a sad end to a great institution, and unfortunately only served to confirm to most people the unsavoury reputation that had grown up around it.

THE NORVIC 1912 - 1961

"The Electric” was Norwich’s first purpose built cinema and opened in 1912. It was a large cinema with a wide frontage, and an imposing white stone fascia with ornate plasterwork. It stood at the bottom of Prince of Wales Road a few yards down from where the Regent would be built ten years later, and was an impressive building, dominating that area of the city. It must have been a magnificent place to visit in those early years, and throughout the boom years of the twenties it showed all the major Hollywood movies, including the great D W Griffith masterpieces.

 In 1949 it was acquired by the entrepreneurial Harrison to add to his mini empire, and was renamed “The Norvic”, the name by which it is generally known today. This truly independent cinema had a lot of competition, but fought its corner well and still attracted big crowds for big films, and in 1954 became the first cinema in Norwich to show genuine Cinemascope films, as opposed to the badly masked monstrosities that the Regal inflicted on its patrons. This period though, proved to be the pinnacle of its success, and from the mid-fifties onwards it struggled to keep up with diminishing returns.

I can’t remember visiting it much, if at all, in my early years, as I had other cinemas much closer that I could visit; but, as a teenager it was a magnet for me, and most of the other young people in Norwich. Due to the competition, and dwindling audiences, The Norvic tried all kinds of novel programming to attract the punters, and in doing so made itself into a magnet for not only young people, but also movie buffs, of which, uniquely among my friends, I was one.

 By the late fifties it was becoming a bit run down, and was regarded as on a par with the Theatre de Luxe as a haunt for the rowdier element; but it persevered in showing an eclectic, and apparently random, programme that included vintage classic movies, sci-fi and horror z-movies that were bursting out of the American drive-ins and that no one else would touch; foreign art house films and American independents. This amazing smorgasbord of cinema fare was the kind of programming that attracted cult followings to some now legendary London art house cinemas in the sixties, like The Scala, Tottenham Court Road, and The Hampstead Everyman; cinemas I had to expend a lot of time and money to visit in the next decade, but which was being served up on a weekly basis in Norwich in 1958 and 1959, to a largely indifferent audience. I was one of the few who appreciated what was on offer, and used to visit the cinema in two distinct personas: I would go alone during the week to see movies like Joseph Strick’s “The Savage Eye”, an American underground documentary which I have never known to be shown anywhere since, and which few people, even cineasts, have ever even heard of. I also saw John Cassavetes first movie “Shadows”, another movie which few people had ever seen, before the advent of the DVD, and which is still a very rare event on the big screen. I would usually be a lonely figure in a nearly empty cinema , but still the gems kept coming. Some weeks it would be the turn of movies like the great Ealing comedies, David Lean’s “Great Expectations”, or Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which would attract larger, although still sparse, audiences. The only time the cinema could hope to be full was when the programme plumbed the depths of banality, and so attracted what had become its natural audience; although this proved to be a mixed blessing as you shall hear.

My other persona, the Mr Hyde character, would be loosed on those riotous weekends when the low grade science fiction output of Roger Corman and his ilk were showing. These would include such delights as: “The Brain From Planet Arous”; “Attack Of The Crab Monsters”; “The Giant Leeches”, and made The Norvic a Friday night meeting place for all the older teenagers in Norwich. We would either make arrangements to meet, or just turn up, secure in the knowledge that everyone we knew would be there, lots we didn’t, and plenty of girls. We would take a regular girlfriend, if we had one, to the pictures, but not the Norvic on a Friday night; this was a time when we had no restraints, and we treated it much like a clubhouse where we made the rules. There would be much hooting at the screen, and a steady crackle of conversation and laughter, as we climbed over seats and wandered the aisles to talk to friends or chat up girls. The thought that there might be others there who didn't appreciate our convivial meanderings, and wanted to watch the film, never crossed our minds, and if it did, we ignored it. The manager though, a harassed middle-aged man, obviously had other ideas, and one night, provoked beyond endurance, he had the house lights turned up in the middle of the film, and rushed down the aisle. He turned to faced us and screamed "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! - there are people trying to watch the film - SHUT UP!". His performance was more fun than the film we were watching, and he achieved a temporary respite while we smirked condescendingly, but the writing was on the wall for the Norvic, the times were against quirky little cinemas, and society was fracturing.

The cinema finally closed on Saturday 30th September 1961 with a showing of Elvis Presley’s Wild in the Country. It had been intended to close at the normal time of 10:30pm after the last showing, but the management had been informed of a projected Saturday night display of rowdyism and vandalism by a gang of “Teddy Boys” and so made hasty arrangements to close at 6pm instead, after the afternoon performance. This meant that when the gang turned up at 7pm the doors were locked and the lights off, a sad and undignified postscript to fifty, often glorious, years.

V. E. Harrison, who still controlled the cinema, had once had an interest in eleven cinemas, including five in Norwich, but was now left with only three, in Cromer, North Walsham and Stowmarket. He added a damning, and somewhat bitter, epitaph to what was effectively the end of the independent, repertory cinema that had flourished in Norwich for over fifty years: “I’m more interested now in my travel agency—Ladbrooke’s Travel Service,” he said, “Travel’s a growing industry, not a dying one.”