Part Two: The cinema craze that swept Darlington

“IT has been proved, and there can be no doubting the fact, that no other form of amusement in modern times has so many fascinated followers and so many ardent devotees as the world-wide kinema shows,” said The Northern Echo 100 years ago.

“We may even go beyond the modern era to the time when Rome was at the height of its prosperity when thousands flocked to the stadiums to see the gladiators wield their weapons in the fierce bull-fights and say that even that did not have the allurement and fascination of the modern kinema shows.”

The stupendous excitement offered by the cinema gripped the nation before the outbreak of the First World War, and nowhere was more gripped than Darlington.

In just six months from August 1912 to March 1913, four new purpose-built cinemas, each with at least 800 seats, opened – an amazing rush of activity considering that the new Vue multiplex which has just opened at Feethams is the town’s first new cinema for 75 years.

And that rush is even more remarkable because those four new cinemas had to compete for an audience with the town’s first proper cinema, the Empire Picture Hall off Crown Street, which had opened on June 23, 1911, as Memories told last week.

Plus there were plenty of makeshift cinemas that were also showing films in venues like Central Hall (known as the Central Palace), the Temperance Institute in Gladstone Street (known as the Picturedrome), the Hippodrome in Parkgate, the Theatre Royal in Northgate, the Mechanics Institute in Skinnergate, the Drill Hall in Larchfield Street and the Astoria hall in Northgate.

Yet such was the confidence in the silver screen craze that it was thought that another four cinemas would be financially viable.

The first of these was the Arcade Cinema. It was built on an old shopping arcade by a London firm of cinema proprietors at the north end of Skinnergate, although the posher, more expensive, seats were accessed via Bondgate.

“Both entrances are of beautiful design and illuminated by two immense electric arc lamps of 2,000 candlepower each,” said the Echo.

Its lofty auditorium was 104ft long and 40ft wide and painted ruby red, with on the ceiling and the walls “white fibrous plaster worked into a hundred and one designs, each rivalling the other in beauty and brilliance”.

Plus there were “whirring electric fans which will ensure a sweet, cool atmosphere during the warm months”.

The best one shilling seats were a couple of rows in the centre near the rear of the hall – you could tell which they were because they had “cosy-looking yellow plush”.

The opening night was August 3, 1912, for which “a veritable bevy of exceptionally fine films has been secured”. These, of course, were silent films, accompanied by the Arcade’s resident orchestra.

The bill that night included a “magnificently coloured film of travel entitled Marseilles”, plus two dramas, The Lumber Camp Boss and A Western Triangle, and a sea story, Marooned. And there were three comedies – The Poisoned Adder, Percy’s Pipe and The Section Foalman.

The Arcade was soon joined on Skinnergate by the Court Kinema, at the southern end of the street, and it drove the Echo wild with cinematic excitement. It was, the paper said, the “pinnacle of perfection…a wonderland of constructive art for the showing of films”.

It was opened by the mayor, Alderman WJ Stewart, on February 12, 1913, before an audience of 1,000 guests. “Referring to the fact that some people thought there were too many picture halls in Darlington, the mayor said he could scarcely agree – he thought the more good places of amusement they had, the better it would be for the town.”

The opening night programme featured “Flower Studies (educational), a thrilling drama, The Smouldering Spark; Behind the Mask, another absorbing drama; Birds’ Nests, a wonderful nature study, and a remarkable internal complication, The Stolen Treaty”.

The Echo continued: “There has been booked for February 24 a marvellous film from Victor Hugo’s celebrated novel, Les Miserables. This film is no less than 11,500ft long and should prove a fascinating attraction.”

It was now boomtime for cinemas. Just a month later, on Monday, March 17, another 1,000-seater opened. This was the Scala, which catered for the growing north end of town.

“The new hall is a finely-built structure, in Eldon Street, and has been entirely constructed by local labour,” said the Echo. Unfortunately, the proprietors of the establishment, which was known in later life as the People’s Palace and the Essoldo, had not paid for an advertisement celebrating its opening, and so the Echo was not as effusive as it had been about the Skinnergate palaces, merely noting that the Scala was “elegantly decorated, and promises to have a record run of success”.

But in cinema land there was barely time to draw breath. Five days later, on March 22, 1913, a third 1,000 seater opened. It was the Alhambra, in Northgate. Just its name, taken from the sumptuous Moorish palace in Spain, evoked exotic promise.

“’Picture Palace’ is a term that is often very incongruously used, but it is an exact description of that beautiful and luxurious cinematograph theatre, the Alhambra, which has been erected at great expense on the site of the old Liberal Unionist Club,” said the Echo, rediscovering its enthusiasm.

The Liberal club was an old, ivy-coloured building on the corner of Gladstone Street, opposite the Technical College. It is believed that the proprietors of the cinema were later successfully sued by the council for encroaching onto the road and had damages awarded against them.

Not that such niceties worried the Echo on opening night. “A lofty and artistic front gives dignity to the exterior, while the interior arrangements, carried out in delicate shades of green, with carpets, curtains and upholsteries of the same colour, give a peculiarly rich atmosphere.

“New and delightful effects, too, are provided in the lighting, the roof being fitted with concealed lights, while the heating and ventilation are by the latest scientific methods.”

The Alhambra, which was later known as the Gaumont, was considered to be the most luxurious of the pre-war wave of cinemas. It was owned by George Fenton, a picture pioneer – he had been Buffalo Bill’s agent in the late 1880s when the Wild West showman toured Europe, but Mr Fenton had settled in Darlington, converting the Central Hall into an early cinema in 1909. The Alhambra was his 14th cinema in his chain – he also had the Garrison and the Ritz at Catterick.

So, even though the advent of the Alhambra caused the immediate closure of the Picturedrome round the corner in Gladstone Street, in the 21 months since the Empire Picture Hall had opened in 1911, Darlington had gained 5,218 new cinema seats – not bad for a town whose population was 55,631, particularly when all the other film-showing venues are added to the equation.

Tragically, the outbreak of the First World War brought an end to this wave of cinema-construction. But, as we shall see next week, a second wave began in the 1930s so that by the time the Second World War broke out, Darlington had more cinema seats per head of population than any other town in the country.

LAST week, we mentioned that the Empire Picture Hall, which is where Wilkinson’s supermarket is today, had a unique facility for courting couples.

“There was a double seat tucked away at the back of the theatre,” remembers Barry Chapman of Norton. “Unfortunately it was not always possible to talk a girl into going in one as it could indicate she was ‘up for it’.”

There was probably more than one double seat – some people reckon there were as many as six along the back row.

“My girlfriend and I were on a blind date to the Empire double seats with two lads,” says Dorothy Shaw, who is now 83 but remembers when she was 16. “We both decided we preferred the other one’s partner, so when we came to sit down, we quickly managed to sit with the one we liked in the double seat. The lads did not seem to mind, and we went out as a foursome for quite a few months.”

Those were very different days. For a penny, the Empire kiosk sold an orange with a sugarcube shoved into it, and punters would suck the juice out of the orange through the sugarcube.

Many thanks for all the cinema memories – if you have any, please send them in (details at the top of the page).