If you visit southend after a sunny bank holiday it closely resembles Glastonbury with the amount of debris left behind. Many yrs ago people had far more respect and took rubbish home. Camera's & hard nosed traffic wardens seem to be an issue too , so I'm told.
I used to go to the Odeon Southend Saturday morning picture club with my sister. Before the start of the film, a guy would be on the stage and shine a mirror around the audience and where it stopped, that person would win a prize. I won a Huckleberry Hound book.
Does anyone have any footage or pictures of The Fantasy Dome that used to be there?, it was my favourite attraction as a kid but all memories of it seem to have been lost, and there isn't much footage of it anywhere sadly
The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy was played at The Odeon Cinema in Southend-on-Sea. A whole new generation were able to rediscover Laurel and Hardy films in 1967.
Hi, very interesting video !! ..I was wondering what can you tell me about the marine bar, .. was there another underground area ? .. what was inside the tower sections on the left and right hand side of the face of the building and why was one tower left standing ?? Many thanks - Martin/DE-eVOLVED.
This brings back memories. I noticed the play boards before the place shut down for the refit in early 1970 was 'Ann of the 1,000 days'. I went with my family to see this film on Christmas Eve 1969. As we left the theatre it started to snow. Never forgot that.
Grew up here for a few years back in the early 50’s,my Dad & Brother were born in Southend.Loads of my Family still live nearby..Thorpe Bay,Westcliff,Shoebury…we moved from there to Toronto,then to Victoria B.C. then on to Southern California…Seal Beach.
Thanks very much Chris. These were brilliant as I’ve just bought a place in old Leigh. I was looking forward to living there, now I can’t wait. 🤞it all goes through. Kind regards, Jim.
Which year was this ? I think I see my windsurf board on my balcony on Eastern Esplanade at 9:40 minutes, during the raft race ! I live in Derbyshire now ... miss the coast though.
The Odeon Southend on Sea was indeed a great place to watch a film once in its then fine untouched auditorium before it was modernised beyond recognition by Odeon . I watch my films here in holiday and was so excited to go there . I have followed its journey through time to present like I have all Odeon Cinemas and my life work in doing so. Odeon inherited a fine cinema group through time only to destroy all their atmosphere by twinning and tripling them in the seventies . This video shows what once was a great entertainment place where romances was made and happy people sat in seats of dreams of their favourite idols.
There was an Izod shop in the early 70's i think along southchurch rd / ave. I dad bought me a pair of old flying goggles from there. Its a block of flats now. I'm not sure if its the same izod family that still has a hardware shop along southchurch rd .
This venue, which I can remember in it's pre- 1970 twin-auditoria days as a single auditorium theatre, should have been purchased by Southend Borough Council back in 1997 when the venue closed it's doors for the last time as a cinema, (and a fine one at that), and could have invested in converting it back to it's former 'dual' purpose role as cinema and class 1 theatre, (for which it was), as it had every front-line stage facility in place from the 1930's up until said restructuring in 1969/70 when it was reworked into a twin screen cinema with a supermarket below. The twin-screen cinema, it must be said, was very well executed and was not your usual cheap conversion; costing around £300,000, and gave the best large West End cinema's of the period, such as the Empire screen 1, a similarly 'plush' feel with decent levels of scale, and with excellent sight-lines toward a superb curved Cinemascope ratio screen. With the retaining of the original 1930's 'single' auditorium cove-lit arches in the ceiling inside Odeon Screen 2, it always felt like you were attending a special event in the most luxurious surroundings; especially on an opening night to see the latest James Bond film release when sat in the comfortable 'Pullman' seats. However, the original 1935 auditorium, stage, and the incredibly grand foyer spaces, (type in Southend Astoria and see the original black & white photographic images on Google), anyone will clearly see that these were far superior spaces to other auditoriums and represented the ultimate in restrained 'moderne' art-deco architecture that has never been repeated anywhere near as successfully since, - and especially when compared with the much simpler (and far smaller) Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff-on-Sea, and with the Astoria/Odeon theatre/cinema being right within the centre of the town, (which desperately needs restructuring from what is now a most empty and unsafe place at night), it would have infused some family life back into the High Street, instead of it merely being the stamping-ground preserve for the proliferation of nightclubs for adolescent drunks to tarnish. So much damage has been done by the encouragement of ill-judged decisions with lucrative contracts being pushed forward and put into practice by default in this once most fine of towns since the dreadful 1960's decade of post-war modernism using processed concrete all over the place for the kind of gains that no-doubt served the Council very well, but at the expense of such widespread destruction to the town's once rich and resplendent Victorian architecture that no younger member of the public under 55 will ever realise, simply because it's all been erased forever by certain tin-pot bureaucrats within local government. Rant over!
from an ex projectionist,this video is brilliant, i love what was found bricked up,especially the wage sheet,really intriguing. hope all goes well for the place.
i worked in cinemas for 20 yrs as a projectionist, i watched this video with a lump in the throat, glad i witnessed what showmanship was really like when the curtains opened on the big screen, today its like watching a big telly,no feeling of excitement whatsoever
The council have totally fucked southend, good memories of years ago, now its a shit hole and full of wronguns, well done southend council you bunch of morons.
The multiplex put an end to old chain town centre cinemas. A shame people never really what they had till its gone (everyone badly wanted a multiplex). I would much rather have these with their atmosphere and history than a soulless multiplex which our basically just food stands with films on. I know there are still plenty of old cinemas but most are independent and people must support them.
What has SBC done to Southend since those glory days? banned airshows, banned seafront bike shows, ruined the High Street, taken away seafront parking, ruined pier hill and driven the day trippers away, oh they must be bloody proud.
Hi there, we've been enjoying watching this. (especially as we make walks in soulful cities and have just filmed in in Leigh on sea and Southend), so it's lovely to see the contrast. It's also our home town. Thanks for taking the time to add it.
Spotted My family too at 10:20 ( trotters van/ Darby and sons contractors) 😮😍 Pretty sure I was there somewhere too but was only about 8 yo at the time 😂
I remember the high street looking like that, just seemed much nicer then. I also remember fishing on the pier that summer and it was hot. Southend just seems so gloomy now like all the hope has escaped, maybe it's just me or maybe it's just Britain in the 21st century.
Sadly all but gone now. I was a member of the 1985-6 British Film Year Committee that met each month in the basement Marine Bar of the ABC cinema with various members who formed the Southend chapter of Dickie Attenborough's national drive to reverse the parlous state of cinema-going in the UK around that time. Local people; such as those from the film industry, Southend Collecge of Technology, Southend Library, Deans School, local enthusiasts, cinema archivist writers and of course, the three cinema managers from the ABC, Odeon and Classic, all participated in putting on special events across the town's three remaining cinema's. I latterly had a chance meeting two years ago with Lord (David) Puttnam; being introduced to him by a client of mine in the House of Lords, Westminster, and brought this up, - recounting our public premier screening of 'A Shooting Party', which was James Mason's last film appearance. We also had Pete Townshend down to promote his new album and video of 'White City', which a member of our committee who was a sound editor worked on and who secured the deal to get him down to Southend. Somewhere I have a full photo album covering the former event, including the special guests of the event arriving in the entrance foyer, including the Mayoress that year. The latter event was, by contrast, quite an electric evening, - including a pre-film private function with our guest at Chesters night-club in the High Street, and post-film, another reception down in the Marine Bar. Essex Radio being in attendance.
