Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22176 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| WE WENT TO THE PICTURES | 1989 | 1989-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: Super 8 Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 6 mins 4 secs Credits: Peter Dobing George Theaker Genre: Amateur Subject: Architecture |
| Summary A short amateur documentary produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker, looking back on the heyday of cinema in the town of Darlington and the problems facing the business in the late 1980s. The film begins with footage of the last day of the Odeon Cinema in Darlington which closed in 1981. This is followed by a history of cinema projection in the ... |
|
Description
A short amateur documentary produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker, looking back on the heyday of cinema in the town of Darlington and the problems facing the business in the late 1980s. The film begins with footage of the last day of the Odeon Cinema in Darlington which closed in 1981. This is followed by a history of cinema projection in the town using both contemporary film as well as historic images of the many cinemas. The film ends with a view of a local video shop, the latest...
A short amateur documentary produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker, looking back on the heyday of cinema in the town of Darlington and the problems facing the business in the late 1980s. The film begins with footage of the last day of the Odeon Cinema in Darlington which closed in 1981. This is followed by a history of cinema projection in the town using both contemporary film as well as historic images of the many cinemas. The film ends with a view of a local video shop, the latest threat to cinema attendance, but finishes on a positive note with regards plans for a new cinema for the town.
The film opens with a photograph of a large crowd which fades to a white square on a black background.
Title: Peter Dobing and George Theaker present
Title: We Went to the Pictures
The first sequence starts with a photograph this time of the Odeon cinema on Woodlands Road in Darlington sometime during the 1950s, followed by an article in the local Evening Dispatch newspaper dated June 1981 relating to the closure of the cinema. Other newspaper clips on the same subject follow. An invitation card to the opening of the Majestic Cinema, later to become the Odeon cinema, dates to 1932. More black and white photographs of the cinema follow.
A movie poster adverises ‘The Cannonball Run’ at the Odeon on its last day, 24th October 1981. Manageress Roz Glaze pulls up outside the cinema on her moped, unlocks the cinema doors and wheels her bike inside. A small queue of children and parents wait outside the cinema for the next performance.
In the projection room, projectionist Harold Alderson winds a reel of 35mm film in readiness for the final performance. The two projectors run together with one coming to a stop as its reel ends. The projection room clock reads 9.20pm. Downstairs in the foyer, a customer leaves the cinema after the final show.
General views of Central Hall on Bull Wynd where the first motion pictures shown in the town were presented in February 1896. A series of both colour and black and white photographs then show the Empire, Arcade and Court Kinema cinemas. Exterior views follow of both the Court Kinema and Arcade cinemas both on Skinnergate in the town with the Kinema now a small arcade of shops and the Arcade a bingo hall.
General views of the Regent Bingo Hall, formerly Regent Cinema on Cobden Street off Yarm Road, which the narrator says was demolished in 1989. Next, there are exterior views of the Eldon Bingo centre, formally Scala cinema, on Eldon Street. On the roof of the building, the Scala names can still be seen imprinted on the tiles.
A cinema arc light is turned off. Black and white photographs and newspaper images are shown relating to the Alhambra cinema on Northgate. The cinema also had an orchestra and the photograph shown includes Peter Dobing’s uncle George who was a musician.
Next a series of photographic images feature the Theatre Royal and then the ABC cinema, as it was later known, on Northgate, both interior and exterior views.
Inside the projection room on the ground floor of the ABC, reels of 35mm film are set up on three sets of plates known as the cake-stands, which form part of an automatized projector system. The camera follows the film, from the cake-stand to the single projector. General views around the projection room follow.
Finally, there's an exterior view of ‘TEAICS Home Video’ shop. A set of plans show a proposed new multiplex cinema to be built along Yarm Road in the town.
End title: The End
Context
Darlington native Peter Haliwell Dobing (1927-2018) began a lifetime passion for amateur filmmaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s producing 14 often humorous 9.5mm home movies featuring his extended family. Considerable thought and skill went into the production of home movies such as the hand-tinted Family Films: “Please to Remember 1948’ and A Very Happy Christmas (1950) which not only featured his parents, sister Ann, aunt, uncle and nephews in front of the camera, but also their...
Darlington native Peter Haliwell Dobing (1927-2018) began a lifetime passion for amateur filmmaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s producing 14 often humorous 9.5mm home movies featuring his extended family. Considerable thought and skill went into the production of home movies such as the hand-tinted Family Films: “Please to Remember 1948’ and A Very Happy Christmas (1950) which not only featured his parents, sister Ann, aunt, uncle and nephews in front of the camera, but also their contribution behind the camera. Sadly his early film making career came to an end when he contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalised for a year.
It wasn’t until he met his partner George Theaker in 1960 and together they became members of the Darlington Cine Club in 1975 that his passion for filmmaking re-ignited and together they produced a number of interesting amateur documentaries on various subjects of local interests including the 150th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway in 1975, Captain James Cook and the Tees Cottage Pumping station. The Darlington Cine Club was set up in 1965, a splinter group of the Darlington Camera Club established in 1936. According to statistics produced by the UK Cinema Association by 1984 the annual admissions to UK cinemas had dropped to 54 million, down from a historic high of 1.46 billion just after World War Two in 1946. This decline in turn led the closure of many local and independent cinema from 942 in 1980 to 737 by 1990. At its height Darlington boasted of having eight purpose-built town centre cinemas, plus another four venues. By the time Peter and George produced this film in the late 1980s this had been reduced to one. The film begins with the final day at the Odeon on Woodlands Road, a cinema fondly remembered by this writer. The ABC Cinema on Northgate was the only one to survive and continues to thrive today as the Odeon Luxe Darlington. However, it wouldn’t be until 2016 that the town got its first new cinema in 75 years when The Vue cinema opened on Feethams site near to the centre of town. Why the decline? Much of the blame can be attributed to the rise of television which boomed from the 1960s. The introduction of home video in the 1970s didn’t help the situation with the number of owned units rising from 400,000 in 1980 to 14,489,000 in 1990. The popularity and growth in video can partly be attributed to its ability to allow people to watch the films they wanted to see, when they wanted to see them, in the comfort of their own homes. Home video was also important in introducing viewers to much wider variety of content that, at the time, simply wasn’t available in their local cinemas. The turnaround in the fortunes of cinema came with the introduction of the American style multiplex cinema, the first being The Point at Milton Keynes which opened in 1985. These bright new multi-screen venues offered something more than just a movie. They provided visitors with a new experience, a leisure hub that would appeal to the whole family. The growth in independent cinemas such as the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, had proven there is also an appetite for different types of film to be seen on the big screen. This contributed to pushing up cinema attendance in the UK to 177 million in 2018. References: Information provided by depositor George Theaker Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s. Phil Wickham and Erinna Mettler, BFI Information Services, 2005. https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/uk-cinema-admissions-and-box-office/annual-admissions/ http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/20950 https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/14565924.how-many-of-darlingtons-cinemas-can-you-remember/ |
