The Futurist Cinema, Liverpool

Coordinates: 53°24′22″N 2°58′44″W / 53.4061°N 2.9788°W / 53.4061; -2.9788

The Futurist Cinema was a Cinema located in Lime Street, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

History

The Early Years

A view of the cinema's facade taken in 1938. Note the differences between this and the modern viewpoint.

Opened on 16 September 1912,[1] the ‘Lime Street Picture House’ was a very upmarket city centre cinema, with a Georgian styled facade & a French Renaissance interior. The grand entrance foyer had a black & white square tiled floor and the walls were of Sicilian marble. It housed a luxurious cafe on the 1st floor and the auditorium was designed to have the effect of a live theatre with an abundance of architectural features, embellished by plaster mouldings. It provided seating for 1029 patrons. The cinema also boasted a full orchestra to accompany the silent films.

On 14 August 1916, the cinema changed its name to ‘City Picture House’ [1] due to another cinema opening in Clayton Square which was called ‘Liverpool Picture House’. And in October 1920 a new company was formed ‘Futurist (Liverpool) LTD’ to purchase the cinema and the two shops for £167,000.[1] The building was a leasehold from Liverpool Corporation [2] and from this time The Futurist (and the Scala, adjacent, now X in the City) were both controlled by Levy Cinema Circuit, they also had cinemas in Birmingham.

The era of silent films ended in 1929 [2] at the futurist and new ‘Western Electric Talking Equipment’ was installed. By the 1930s cinemas were popping up everywhere, The Forum in 1931 & the Paramount on London Road in 1934. This obviously affected The Futurist’s business and resulted in the cinema showing second runs of leading films.

Showing and making the news in Wartime Liverpool

Damage done to two of Lime Street's cinemas on the night of 3/4 May 1941

The outbreak of war saw an initial closure of cinemas due to fears that large groups of people congregated in one place was inviting trouble during an air raid. This ban lasted less than a week though, as it was soon recognized that cinema had a valuable role to play in keeping civilian morale high, and keeping people up to date with the latest news on the war effort. Television was virtually unknown in this country, so people relied on newsreels shown in cinemas for a visual confirmation of what they read in their newspaper, or heard on the radio.

The 25 April 1941 [3] saw the visit of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to the city. He was driven around in an open topped car and cheered by the local people wherever he went. At one stage he passed along Lime Street, as can be seen in newspaper articles that appeared the next day.

May 1941 saw both The Futurist & the adjacent Scala cinema suffering bomb damage. The exact date in unclear, but a newspaper cutting [4] from the period suggests a date no later than the 5th, and the area is known to have been very badly damaged on the 3rd.[5] It was rebuilt and reopened in minimal time & was showing films by June that year.

The end of an Era

A view of the facade taken in December 2012

In 1954 ‘Twentieth Century Fox’ leased The Futurist & showed cinema scope films for the 1st time in Liverpool showing wide screen movies,[1] This continued until 1960 when they relinquished control & ABC took it over for £135,000; they spent a further £50,000 on upgrades, reducing the seating capacity to 870.[1] ABC reopened The Futurist in July 1960[2] and kept control of it until its closure in 1982.[2] ABC owned 12 cinemas in Liverpool including the Scala & the Forum. Both the Scala & The Futurist were closed to make way for the Forums new multi screen cinema.[1]

The closures were blamed on the shortage of good films, video market, the recession and unemployment. Since then the building has fell into a state of dilapidation. There have been a few plans for The Futurist and also Lime Street as a whole including Bolton Street (Behind) however nothing has come to fruition.

Examples are:

Recent Developments

In late 2012 a campaign was set up to try to save at least the facade of the building so that some of the iconic cinema can continue on into its second century.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 The Dream Palaces of Liverpool: Harold Ackroyd,
  2. 1 2 3 4 Picture Palaces of Liverpool: Harold Ackroyd
  3. ↑ Liverpool Post Newspaper Cutting, 26 April 1941
  4. ↑ Daily Dispatch Newspaper Cutting, 6 May 1941
  5. ↑ Port in a Storm, John Hughes

External Links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, October 04, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.