Empire Cinema Odeon Cinema | |
---|---|
General information | |
Architectural style | Art Deco |
Location | Sutton Coldfield |
Country | United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 52°33′23.868″N1°49′33.064″W / 52.55663000°N 1.82585111°W grid reference SP 11904 95435 |
Opened | 1936 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Harry Weedon, Cecil Clavering |
The Empire Cinema, formerly the Odeon Cinema, is a cinema in Maney, Sutton Coldfield in West Midlands, England. Built in 1936, it is notable for its Art Deco style. It is a Grade II listed building. [1] It closed in 2020; its future re-opening, as the Royal Cinema, was announced in December 2023. [2] [3]
The cinema is situated on Maney Corner, at the junction of Holland Road with the A5127 Birmingham Road. [2]
It was built as one of the Odeon Cinemas of Oscar Deutsch. The architect was Cecil Clavering of the Harry Weedon partnership. The style, by the same firm, was first produced for the Odeon, Kingstanding, and further Odeon Cinemas in similar style were built in York, Harrogate and Scarborough. The listing text describes that the foyer, staircase and auditorium are "each defined as a separate block in a complex, carefully massed and expressionistic composition" inspired by the Titania-Palast in Berlin, built in 1928. [1]
The cinema opened on 18 April 1936; the first film shown was First a Girl . It seated 1028 in the stalls and 572 in the balcony. From April 1972 there were three screens: one was viewed from the balcony, and two, each seating 132, were created in the rear stalls below. A fourth screen was created in 1987 in the former front stalls. [2]
In 2006, Empire Cinemas took over this and several other Odeon Cinemas, and it was renamed the Empire Cinema. It closed in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic; after briefly re-opening later in the year, it closed in November 2020. [2]
In December 2023 it was announced that the cinema had been bought by PDJ Management Ltd; it would be restored and re-opened in 2024 as the Royal Cinema. [2] [3]
Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south of Lichfield, 7 miles southwest of Tamworth and 7 miles east of Walsall.
The Odeon Luxe Leicester Square is a prominent cinema building in the West End of London. Built in the Art Deco style and completed in 1937, the building has been continually altered in response to developments in cinema technology, and was the first Dolby Cinema in the United Kingdom.
The Odeon Luxe West End is a two-screen cinema on the south side of Leicester Square, London. It has historically been used for smaller film premieres and hosting the annual BFI London Film Festival. The site is on an adjacent side of the square to the much larger flagship Odeon Luxe Leicester Square.
Oscar Deutsch was a British businessman. He was the founder of Odeon Cinemas in 1928, with the flagship cinema, the Odeon, Leicester Square in London, opening in 1937.
Odeon Cinemas Limited, trading as Odeon, is a cinema brand name operating in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway, which along with UCI Cinemas and Nordic Cinema Group is part of the Odeon Cinemas Group subsidiary of AMC Theatres. It uses the famous name of the Odeon cinema circuit first introduced in Great Britain in 1930. As of 2016, Odeon is the largest cinema chain in the United Kingdom by market share.
Harold William "Harry" Weedon was an English architect. Although he designed a large number of buildings during a long career, he is best known for his role overseeing the Art Deco designs of the Odeon Cinemas for Oscar Deutsch in the 1930s. Influenced by the work of Erich Mendelsohn and Hans Poelzig – the Odeons "taught Britain to love modern architecture" and form "a body of work which, with London Underground stations, denotes the Thirties like nothing else".
The Rex is a cinema in the town of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. Designed in the art deco style by David Evelyn Nye in 1936, the cinema opened to the public in 1938. After 50 years of service, the cinema closed in 1988 and became derelict. The building was listed Grade II by English Heritage, and following a campaign to save the Rex by a local entrepreneur, the cinema re-opened to the public in 2004.
Maney is an area of Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. It is situated close to the town centre of Sutton Coldfield and is also near Wylde Green and Walmley. The main thoroughfare is Birmingham Road, which runs through Maney.
Empire Cinemas Limited was a multiplex cinema chain in the UK. Prior to the company entering administration in July 2023, there were 13 Empire Cinemas across the country, with 128 screens in total.
Athena is a Grade II-listed events venue in the cultural quarter of Leicester City Centre, England. Built originally as an Odeon Cinema in 1936, it closed for most of the 1990s and remained vacant up until 2005, where the building was restored as a multi-discipline events venue.
Sutton Coldfield Town Hall is a former hotel and council building in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. The building is Grade A locally listed.
The Odeon Marble Arch was a cinema in London located opposite Marble Arch, at the top of Park Lane, with its main entrance on Edgware Road. It operated in various forms from 1928 to 2016, and is most famous for once housing a vast screen capable of screening films in 70mm. The machines were Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 models.
Bradford Odeon is the name applied to two different cinemas in central Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. One, in Godwin Street, was built in 1930 and survives; the other, in Manchester Road, was built in 1938 and demolished in 1969.
Holy Trinity Parish Church is the parish church of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, England. It is Grade I listed and gives its name to the ward in which it stands, Sutton Trinity.
The Odeon at Kingstanding, Birmingham, was a 1930s cinema in the Odeon chain. Though closed as a cinema in 1962, the building survives as a bingo hall, and is Grade II listed.
The Odeon Cinema, Manchester was a former Odeon Cinema located on Oxford Street, Manchester, England. It was close to St. Peter's Square, within the Civic Quarter of Manchester city centre. It was demolished in April 2017, and replaced by Landmark, a 14-storey office building, as part of a major transformation of the area.
The Odyssey Cinema is a film theatre in the city of St Albans, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. It is a locally listed Art Deco building, located on London Road, around 0.7 kilometres (0.43 mi) east of St Albans Cathedral. Originally built in 1931 as the Capitol Cinema, the current building stands on the site of an earlier film theatre, the Alpha Picture Palace. This former cinema was of particular historical significance as it was opened in 1904 by the film-making pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper and is considered to have been the first cinema in Hertfordshire.
Scott Cinema was a cinema in Bridgwater, Somerset England. Built in 1936, it was notable for its Art Deco style.
The Odeon Cinema is a Grade II listed building immediately west of the city centre of York, in England.
The Odeon Cinema is a cinema in Harrogate, in North Yorkshire, England. Built in 1936, it is notable for its Art Deco style. It is a Grade II listed building.