Ep 4: The Ritz, Belfast - 1960s Pop Invasion, The Beatles and the Biblical Flood

In the fourth episode of the Wonder Cinema podcast, we look at how the Ritz responded to the explosion of youth culture in the 1960s and hosted some of the world's biggest musical acts.

As audiences continued to fall in the 1960s, cinema became more youth-oriented with The Young Ones, featuring Cliff Richard, breaking box-office records in 1962. In the following year, the Ritz changed to the ABC, a more functional name linking it to the chain which had operated the cinema since 1938. This decade also saw the cafe rebranded as The Rotunda, after a rotating refrigerated counter. Many of the stars who arrived in the 1960s came from the world of music rather than film, with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones among those who performed at the ABC. But the decade ended with the outbreak of the Troubles and a biblical flood that destroyed the once-almighty cinema organ.

Links:
NI Digital Film Archive - Rolling Stones Mania
ITN - The Beatles at Belfast Ritz for press gathering
NMNI - A view of the Ritz (ABC) on Great Victoria Street

Written and presented by Dr Sam Manning and Brian Henry Martin
Music by Score Draw Music
https://thewondercinema.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:54 How did young audiences and youth culture change cinema in the 1960s?
• 2:03 Which pop star broke the box-office record in 1962?
• 2:50 Why change the name of the Ritz cinema to the ABC?
• 6:00 Is the arrival of The Beatles the biggest night in the history of the cinema?
• 11:30 Where is the entrance to the cinema today?
• 13:41 Did John Lennon make a film inside the cinema?
• 14:54 What happened when The Rolling Stones played the cinema?
• 18:53 The folk hero goes electric in 1966, Bob Dylan in the ABC.
• 20:28 How pop music and big musicals dominated the decade.
• 23:51 What happened to the Ritz Cafe in the 1960s?
• 25:27 The beginning of the Troubles and a summer of violence in August 1969.
• 27:08 The day the organ music died due to a biblical flood.

Transcript

BHM
Welcome to the Wonder cinema podcast,

Dr Sam
where we wonder about cinema.

BHM
I'm filmmaker and film critic Brian Henry Martin, 

Dr Sam
and I'm cinema historian and author, Dr Sam Manning. 

BHM
We're going to tell the remarkable story of one cinema, but not just any cinema, the wonder cinema of Ireland, 

Dr Sam
A picture Palace from the Golden Age, which showed the greatest films and hosted the biggest movie stars 

BHM
For more than 50 years, it entertained 1000s of people a night, but then floods and flames would end its reign, 

Dr Sam
and where is it now? 

BHM
So join us on a trip which takes us from the Wizard of Oz

Dr Sam
to Reservoir Dogs 

BHM
to the Wonder cinema of Ireland,

BOTH
the Ritz, Belfast.

BHM
We are going downtown in the 1960s to the Ritz cinema and the arrival of some of the biggest pop acts in the world. Welcome to episode four of the Wonder cinema podcast. Dr Sam, there's something happening here. But what is it? 

Dr Sam
Well, Brian, cinema is changing. I think that's what's happening. In the last episode, we spoke about the decline of audiences and how generally it was becoming more youth focused. So for young people, the cinema still had this attraction of the big night out, courtship, going out with friends. Obviously, older people still go, but that kind of there's a shift towards younger people, and that is reflects what cinemas do at that time to kind of challenge that decline in attendances. So we see a shift towards youth programming and the catering for young people's interest, this explosion of pop music that's happening in the late 50s and early 60s, and the box office record is shattered in 1962 the film is the young ones. The star is Cliff Richard, 

BHM
the Peter Pan of pop. 

Dr Sam
Yeah. So the box office record was smashed. But there's a little caveat there. What? So it was the Saturday record, so the record for a single day in a cinema. But it's still very impressive. And part of the reason for this is that only the week before the young ones opens at the Ritz cliff, Richard himself plays at the king's hall with the shadows. This is very much fresh in people's minds. I'm sure many of them went to see Cliff Richard there. Now they're coming out to see his brand new film at the Ritz. But something was happening with the Ritz itself, and the very next year, the name of the cinema would change.

BHM
Dr Sam tell us about Dad and how significant is that? What is the meaning of this? 

Dr Sam
Well, we should firstly say what it changes to. It changes from the Ritz to the ABC. The ABC, which, as we talked about before, is the company that owns and operates the cinema. So to me, this is a much more functional name, just to Yeah, give the name of the company, rather than the Ritz. And we spoke before about what this indicates, at the time, that it did it open, that it signaled this kind of glamor, and yeah, the fact that it was an up marketplace where I think ABC is a much more functional name, which kind of fits more with with the 60s. This wasn't unique to to Belfast. ABC had this policy of rebranding a lot of their cinemas as the ABC, rather than the names that they had been given before. And actually, when you look at the the listings in the newspaper, what you will see is ABC Belfast, but the majestic and the strand also operated by ABC, a thing called ABC majestic and ABC strand.

BHM
So why not ABC Ritz, exactly. But let's just take a moment to mark the death of the name Ritz, you know, because we talked about how glamorous and luxurious and everything that that name represented, I'm going to the Ritz, and now I'm going to the ABC. It sounds like I'm going to nursery or something. It just doesn't have the same ring to it. But it does sound modern. It does sound fresh. ABC, of course, Associated British cinemas made a statement to say the change in name does not mean a change in policy. We will continue to bring the best films to Belfast. So the big three, as we call them, the big three, is. Entertainment institution side by side, the Opera House, the Hippodrome, the Ritz.

Dr Sam
In the 1960s they become the Opera House, yeah, so the opera house stays with the same name, still the Opera House, the Hippodrome becomes the Odeon, and the reds becomes the ABC, that's right. And the other cinema, which we talked about across the road, which was the Mayfair in the 50s, that becomes the news and cartoon cinema, which is an interesting phenomenon. And then the 60s, again, switches to the classic the other cinema down the road, the Coliseum that closed in the in the late 50s, early 60s, fleethead, yeah, that would that was the one that fell by the wayside. So, yeah, places like the Ritz or ABC now, they're still doing quite well. They're able to draw people in, but the smaller cinemas kind of fall by the wayside.

BHM
Okay, so we have spoken in previous episodes about the biggest nights in the history of this cinema. Dr Sam, is it November 1963 the arrival of the Fab Four on the stage of the ABC The Beatles. How big a night was this? 

Dr Sam
Well, it was certainly a massive night for, you know, young people in Belfast who came out to see them. Yeah, they did two performances on that night as Yeah, it was often the case then, rather than just a single performance, so in one single night in Belfast, you have over thought 4000 people coming out to see the Beatles. And the idea of seeing a band like that in a cinema is a relatively new concept. This is something that was trialed a year before by the cinema when they invited Helen Shapiro to come and play. So this, this is kind of a concert that they'd copied. So walking back to, yeah, okay, yeah. So the idea of having pop stars playing cinemas was a relatively new concept. It had been something that had been tried in the UK, and the Ritz ABC felt that they would bring this over to Northern Ireland, so they trialed it with Helen Shapiro. Eden came, played alongside her, and it was so successful that they decided to carry on. So when the Beatles come in 1963, this is where they they happen to play.

BHM
Obviously, the Beatles show mass hysteria amongst the teenagers. Many fainted. St John's Ambulance was on hand. But do we have any kind of testimonies of what this show was like? 

Dr Sam
Well, firstly, I think it's important to mention what happened before the show even started. So there was this great sense of anticipation. You know, it's really reported on in the press a lot, the fact that the Beatles were coming, they went out and talked to the people that queued up to get tickets. They spoke to the two girls who were first in the queue. So these were Diane Halley and Rosemary Stewart. If you're listening, please get in touch. Imagine being, you know, the first people in Belfast to get tickets to go and see the Beatles. Yeah, how incredible. Yeah, they, they're queuing up. You know, the night before, they reported that people had kind of flasks of coffee. They'd come with radios and sandwiches. They'd come very well prepared. And I think that's kind of part of it as well, that that anticipation of excitement of going to see the Beatles, because we know from the reports at the time when they were actually in the venue, they could probably barely hear what was, you know, happening at the at the time. But in a way, that's not really the point, isn't it? It's just getting to see the Beatles when they are, you know, the biggest band in the world, and they're really exploding. You have two separate shows, so obviously you have to get people in. You have three different acts playing. You have to get people out, get people in again, set the whole thing up again. So yeah, and that was the standard kind of way that things were set up at the time.

BHM
Now, as you say, they play two shows. Now, I've been at events where it's been difficult to get 100 people into a cinema, so to get 4000 in and out of a cinema, and maybe 4000 more outside. I mean, what an extraordinary effort that was. Now we're used to concerts these days. How long would the Beatles have performed for? What was the kind of time that they would have played? 

Dr Sam
Well, probably only about 20, 25 minutes. Half an hour.

BHM
20 minutes?

Dr Sam
Okay, so firstly, it's not just the Beatles playing. There's a whole program of different at. So we have the brook brothers and Peter Jay and the Jay walkers playing alongside them.

BHM
Nobody cares…

Dr Sam
I don't know if they cared at the time, not that I have any get anything against either of those acts, but people were definitely here to to see the Beatles. 

BHM
There's a there's a headline in the newspaper the next day, which does make me laugh. It says the Beatles beat it out. I don't know if that's if they quite understood what they were writing, but anyway, it says four young men take Belfast by storm, literally, by storm. It also shows the status of the Wonder cinema itself, in terms of it being a stage, in terms of its lighting and sound and the seating, that this was the best venue in Belfast.

Dr Sam
Yeah, absolutely. And like I said before, the cinema was really well set up to cater for them, maybe not in the seating, but in terms of the lighting and the stage, you know, they have these big spotlights, these big arc lamps. They have this big stage that, in the 30s, was able to accommodate different types of performers and stage shows, you know, and it's in that way, it's very well set up just to transfer to pop and cater for this new explosion in popular music amongst young people, especially

BHM
Dr Sam. We're back outside again, and this is a very nondescript location which seems to have no significance whatsoever, apart from people waiting to cross the road. But explain to me why this is a very significant location. 

Dr Sam
Well, we're standing at the corner of a hotel, but previously would have been the main entrance to the Ritz. So we're standing, I think where about you would have walked up a short flight of stairs into the main vestibule, if that's what we wanted to if that's what we want the vestibule,

BHM
Don't forget about the vestibule.

Dr Sam
And the significance of this site is this is where lots of the stars who came to the Ritz would have come through, and this is the way they would have come into the building. So we are standing on the site where people like the Beatles would have walked into the rich cinema. We are standing a couple of yards away from where Cary Grant stood. We have a picture of him standing right in front of where we are now in front of the assembly buildings.

BHM
It's hard to imagine. It really is very difficult to imagine. I mean, I'm looking at a very ordinary piece of concrete here, a very noisy road junction. The pavement itself is a little bit icky, to say the least, and yet, and yet, this is touched with real magic here, real silver screen magic. I mean, how strange is it, Sam, that this was the place. 

Dr Sam
It's strange for me. I'm not sure anyone else walking around is aware of the the significance of this, this site. It's amazing that the hotel has chosen to put the entrance of the other side, because it does seem such a natural location for an entrance right on the right on the corner. Unfortunately, we cannot enter the Ritz today.

BHM
We are just hitting big lumps of stone. But anyway, it's pretty amazing be in this place and in this location.

BHM
Now I have an iconic photograph here of the Beatles, which I'm holding showing Dr Sam. So this photograph is of the four Beatles, John Paul Ringo and George sitting in the seats in the stalls of the ABC cinema in Belfast. Now, there's two things to look at with this photograph. One is George has got an iPad. Do you see that he looks like he's looking into the screen of an iPad? Of course, he's not. He's actually fiddling with a harmonica holder. But, but very interestingly, John Lennon has got a cine camera and is filming inside the ABC cinema. Now look at that. Isn't that incredible. So where is that film Sam?

Dr Sam
I wish I had an answer to that. Again, if the estate of John Lennon is listening. Please feel free to send that over to us. Wouldn't that be amazing to find that film that John Lennon shot in the Wonder cinema in 1963

BHM
Now the there is no film of The Beatles on stage in the ABC. But there is film of the Rolling Stones. So tell us about that. Sam, when the Rolling Stones played at the ABC in 1965 they came with a camera crew. 

Dr Sam
The footage from that would later be featured in a film called Charlie as my Darling. That film wasn't widely released at the time. I think it was shown at a couple of film festivals or circulated to a few people, but unfortunately, it wouldn't have been seen by the people who went to that that gig. It was later restored and re released. DVD came out. It was shown on BBC about 10 years ago, so fortunately, we were able to see that footage, and it is. It's some of the best footage of the auditorium that we that we have, especially in the era that we're talking about in this episode. Yeah, Sam, you and I are two of the few people who watch this film and are not listening to the Rolling Stones or looking at them, but we're looking at what's happening behind them and what we can see, yeah, I mean, like, you know, you can see, and you get a really good sense of what the auditorium was like and some of the decorations. You also see images of the foyer and the kind of advertising that was there at the time. You see the chandeliers in the foyer, which is a bit strange, because it's a kind of odd combination of this, all these young people here to see the biggest band of the time, and you have these chandeliers which kind of look more like something out of the Edwardian era than they do in the than in the 60s.

BHM
So the Rolling Stones had played in Belfast in January 1965, they come back in September for an Irish tour, which comprises of playing at the Adelphi cinema in Dublin, then getting the train to Belfast. Now that was a big part of all of this Sam, wasn't it that the fact that you could play these two Irish cities, but what is electric about this concert is it's September 1965, Satisfaction, one of the Rolling Stones is greatest songs, biggest songs I can't get no, no, no, no. Has just been released. You know, it's number one in the UK. It's number one in America. It's going to break them in America, and they would play it live on the stage of the Wonder cinema, the classic stones line up, Jagger, Richards, Brian Jones and his pomp and the cinema would go crazy. Sam, what do you think when you look at the faces of the teenage Belfast audience? 

Dr Sam
Well, firstly, I don't know how much attention they are actually paying to the the music. They seem more interested in creating their own kind of noise. And, yeah, they're definitely just so caught up in the moment of it all, this kind of a rush to the the front, which I'm not entirely sure how that works, because we have this traditional cinema seating in rows, which almost doesn't seem to exist. It just feels like people are cascading forward to the to the front. So yeah, I don't know if there was a kind of damage bill that the cinema had to foot afterwards, but it feels like there might have been. 

BHM
It's pandemonium. It's complete and utter pandemonium. And you can tell that when the Beatles return in 1964 they play the king's hall so they don't play the cinema anymore, because, for this reason, nobody is in seats. You cannot see seats and high people did not jump or fall or fling themselves from the balcony. I do not know. Maybe they did. Maybe they did, but it's quite incredible now, during this period then, I mean, it's brilliant to have this film of the Rolling Stones at the ABC, but who else was playing during this golden age of pop music in the cinema?

Dr Sam
Bob Dylan came to the the ABC in 1966 there's a brilliant picture.The really amazing thing about this picture is not just that Bob Dylan is on the stage, at least for me, it's what's directly in front of the stage, which is the old organ under what looks to be a tarpaulin. Oh, no. What's happened to the old organ? Which, you know, is amazing how this thing that was such a big part of the experience at the Ritz now the ABC went in 1958 was occasionally brought back, but is now just kind of sat looking rather sad at the front of the stage covered up. And I think it kind of symbolizes the switch from the old to the new, doesn't it that that old style of of organ entertainment to, you know, Bob Dylan going electric, you know, in a picture. I think it really captures what's going on in the in the 1960s

BHM
Sam, you are the only person in the world who would look at this photograph and see Bob Dylan in 1966 holding an electric guitar, which was so controversial, earth shattering at the time, and you're interested in the tarpaulin in front of Bob Dylan holding an electric guitar. The folk hero has gone electric. Forget about that. It's the organ undercover here. And you know, we also know that The Ronettes, The Beach Boys, Roy Orbison and even Ella Fitzgerald, played the cinema at this time, Sam, were there any films being shown in Belfast in the 1960s?

Dr Sam
When you look at the poster for the Rolling Stones, there was a line on it that says, instead of the usual film program, see, you wonder if someone has walked up to the cinema hoping to see something like how the West has won and been forlornly turned away because there are 1000s of teenagers there to see the the Rolling Stones. Oh no, there were, there were, there were obviously still films being shown most nights of the the week. The most successful film that played at the ABC in the 1960s was My Fair Lady, which opened in 1965 and was at the cinema until February 1966 so it had a record breaking run of 16 weeks. 

BHM
Okay, so it opened, when did you say October 1965 and we're still playing four months later. Now, I would argue Sam that the reason for that was because it only played maybe about five times it was pop music.

Dr Sam
Maybe, maybe, yeah, this apparently broke the record of 12 weeks for South Pacific, which, if you remember from a previous episode, open on Christmas Day 1958 now these films might not necessarily have drawn in as many people as some of the big films in the 1950s but they were definitely playing for for longer. There were fewer films being produced in the 1960s but there was greater emphasis on the kind of the big films and and spectacle and these big musicals, so things like My Fair Lady.

BHM
But here's the thing, Sam, when you take a step back from this, okay, so you have music acts coming and playing on the stage, the same music acts are making musical films as well. So the Beatles, of course, famously make hard days night and help and other pop acts are also making movies, but And yet, the most popular films at the time, whether it be My Fair Lady or The Sound of Music or Oliver or musicals. So what has happened here, that music has just exploded. 

Dr Sam
Well, I think part of this is that I've spoke about, or we've spoke about, the fact that cinema is, in general, becoming more youth oriented. But the films that do the best and are able to stay at the cinema for a long time are the ones that still have this cross generational appeal. So My Fair Lady, is something that is bringing people from all parts of society, and it's still very much a family centered film. Um, as for the attraction of the music, you'd have to talk to the people who went at the at the time. You know, musicals have been a genre that have always done very well at the Brits then the ABC, you know, ever since they were introduced after, you know, the emergence of talkies in the late 20s and early 30s.

BHM
Okay, so the Ritz has had its name changed to the ABC, the mighty organ is under a tarpaulin. But Sam, tell me, please tell me that the Ritz cafe, with its fine dining and dance floor, is still in operation in the 1960s 

Dr Sam
Well, the good news, Brian is that it is still there, but it's changed. It's moved on, and it's adapted. It's modernized for the 1960s so the name of the cafe changes from the Ritz cafe to the rotunda.

BHM
Oh, that's branding for you now. Why is it called the rotunda? What's that got to do with it?

Dr Sam
Well, it's not because the cafe itself is round. It's because it has a rotating display in the center of the cafe. 

BHM
You're talking about refrigerated revolving cakes.

Dr Sam
I am talking about, well, I'm talking about revolving Refrigeration at. Not necessarily cakes. The things it describes are kind of meat, fish, salads. I think it's kind of a buffet style where you can pay six shillings and you can eat whatever you want off this revolving stand, which they are, I think, rather elaborately calling a rotunda rebranding as the returned, I think, is really an attempt to kind of kind of pull the ABC, kicking and screaming into the 1960s

BHM
There was obviously a party going on at the ABC in the 1960s and everyone was invited. But yet outside, things were changing. You know, it was the beginning of social change, you know, the move for civil rights in Northern Ireland. And then in the summer of 1969 when the world is watching the moon landing, we have the eruption of sectarian violence in Belfast and Derry, British troops are deployed onto the streets to maintain law and order, and then the shit hits. That's gone, and we have the outbreak of what we regard as the troubles, a conflict that would last for the next 30 years. And Sam this was going to have massive impact going forward, on on cinema, going in general?

Dr Sam
In other parts of Britain and Ireland, as I've already said, cinema is in a long term decline for various reasons. You know, TV, I suppose, is the mostly sighted one. But what the troubles does? It really speeds up that process. It exacerbates these trends that are already happening. So, you know, just after the outbreak of the the troubles, you know, some of the smaller cinemas in Belfast, you know, kind of immediately closed because they just can't kind of cope with this, you know, extra burden on top of what's already happening.

BHM
Yeah, and you know, when the troubles broke out, people thought it would last a summer. It would last a year or two, things would go back to normal. They didn't, and they wouldn't, and many cinemas were became the casualties of this. But first the ABC was to be hit by something else of a biblical proportion. What happened Sam well, so on top of the troubles in September 1970

Dr Sam
There's a massive flood that hits Great Victoria Street and Fisherwick place, after a period of intense rain, even the canopy couldn't prevent this. Couldn't prevent this downfall from impacting the building. What happens is the interior of the cinema is generally fine, but the real damage is to the basement of the building. So there's eight feet of water in the basement of the building. And you might be thinking, well, that's okay, yeah, that's okay. We can get over this, even though they aren't using the organ anymore, all the inner workings of the organ are located in the basement, so any chance of resurrecting the organ in the future are dashed because the basement is flooded, and a lot of the organ is ruined in that flood, unfortunately.

BHM 
And there is some really devastating images of this, and we see that the organ pipes are basically filled with sludge, sludge from this flood, and it would never play again. The organ would never play again. And how did the iconic organist feel about this? 

Dr Sam
Well, they they came back to the the cinema to…

BHM
Joseph seal and Stanley Wiley

Dr Sam
Yeah, they both came back to the to the cinema to, well, it was described in one interview as kind of performing the last stripes that former organists kind of came back as a as a final goodbye. And from the comments in the press, there's an obvious sadness that you know an organ that was one of the, the best, you know, if not the best organ in Ireland, has suffered this, this damage, and again, it just kind of marks that shift, you know, that's happened in such a short space of time, from 1958 when the organ finally stops as part of regular performances, There was such a massive part of the cinema from when it opened in 1936 when it came out of the floor, you had sing alongs. The words were on screen to it then being put aside because it was seen as old fashioned. It kind of didn't fit the modern times. Younger people were less interested in that sort of music. And the final death knell is this, this flood that destroys the inner workings. 

BHM
So the ABC would be confronted with fire, sectarian violence in the city of Belfast, and then this biblical flood. Surely, it can't get any worse? But in the next episode, there's horror outside and more horror inside.

BHM
Hey, thanks for listening. You have been a great audience.

Dr Sam
If you've enjoyed your visit to the Wonder cinema. Let us know

BHM
Our theme music is composed by the wonderful people at score. Draw music.

Dr Sam 
Check out the links below and visit our website, where you can see pictures and leave your thoughts and comments. 

BHM 
So until the next screening,

BOTH
the Wonder Cinema is closed.