The Wonder Cinema
Take a trip from The Wizard of Oz to Reservoir Dogs in the Wonder Cinema of Ireland, the Ritz, Belfast. Join hosts, filmmaker Brian Henry Martin and cinema historian Dr. Sam Manning in a new six-part series exploring the remarkable story of a long lost super cinema.
The Wonder Cinema
Ep 1: The Ritz, Belfast - 1930s Cinema Boom, the Grand Opening and Gracie Fields
In the first episode of the Wonder Cinema podcast we go back to the 1930s to discuss the cinema boom and the grand opening of the Ritz, Belfast’s largest and most upmarket cinema.
Cinema attendance grew rapidly in the 1930s and the Ritz, opened by British chain Union Cinemas, was one of many venues built to serve a growing audience of film fans in Belfast. We discuss the Ritz’s architectural style, cultural impact and the concerns many people had about this new ‘super cinema’. We then go back to 9 November 1936, the Ritz’s opening night, which featured a special appearance by Gracie Fields, possibly the biggest British box-office star of the 1930s.
Links:
Cinema Treasures - various pictures including the opening programme
NMNI - Ritz exterior (1936)
NMNI - Ritz interior (1936)
NMNI - Ritz projection room (1936)
Written and presented by Dr Sam Manning and Brian Henry Martin
Music by Score Draw Music
https://thewondercinema.buzzsprout.com
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: Welcome to Episode One, Dr Sam, how you doing?
Dr Sam: I'm very well. Brian, how are you?
BHM: Yeah, I'm doing good, Sam, and maybe we should explain to our listeners where we are.
Dr Sam: We are at a hotel in Belfast, which was formerly the site of the Ritz cinema.
BHM: So, we're actually in the location of the Ritz cinema. How exciting and Sam What is it like to be in this building, speaking about what happened here all those years ago?
Dr Sam: Well, I'm hoping that some of the magic of the site rubs off on on us. I think where we currently are. We're in the corner of the building, which might have been the very top of the screen.
BHM: Where I like to be. Sam, top of the screen. Well, in this episode, we're going to take you to the beginning of this cinema, the opening night, the ninth of November, 1936 but before we do, we're going to go back to just talk about the 1930s I mean, we know there was a worldwide recession. We know there was the rise of fascism across Europe, and dark clouds were forming. But yet Sam there was optimism, especially in architecture and entertainment. There was a cinema boom. Why was there a cinema boom?
Dr Sam: Well, cinema was growing. It had been growing during the 1920s and a catalyst for that is also the arrival of the talkies and the switch from Silent to sound cinema now, movies were never really silent. There was all always accompanying music...
BHM: ...What?
Dr Sam: I know we need a better term. But that shift, and the growing popularity of cinema, especially with more middle class people wanting to go to the cinema, leads this boom in cinema construction. So for instance, there were 17 new cinemas built in Belfast in the 1930s which I'm sure we'll talk about today.
BHM: 17 cinemas were built in 4 years in Belfast.
Dr Sam: Correct. From 1933 to 1937 17 new cinemas were built.
BHM: (Siren sounds outside) That's the cinema police come with the take us away. Sam, so I mean, that's quite extraordinary, 17 cinemas in four years. I mean, if that's not a boom, then I don't know what is
Dr Sam: Exactly, especially for a small city like Belfast. So you go from having, you know, 20 something cinemas to around 40 cinemas by the end of the 1930s in a really, in a really short space of time.
BHM: Just to place in the context, there were cinemas opening in 1936 in the same year as our super cinema opens. You know, there was the Troxy opened in May, but then and then the Ritz would open. And then something extraordinary happened on one day.
Dr Sam: Yeah, on the 12th of December, 1936 three cinemas opened. So the Curzon, the Broadway and the park all opened on the same night.
BHM: Wow. What a night that must have been. But Sam just give us some sense of the cinema as a structure, as a place itself. I mean, they had been around for about 25 years and and what kind of status was cinema at at that point?
Dr Sam: Yes, so cinema really emerged as a form of popular entertainment at the end of the 19th century. It really kind of came out of musicals and variety. It might have been part of a presentation at that time, and the first purpose built cinemas were in the first decade of the 20th century. There was a boom before the First World War, which was kind of interrupted by the war.
BHM: A silent boom.
Dr Sam: The introduction of sound into film really kind of created another boom. The arrival of the talk is so for instance, in the 30s, we get the first cine. Cinemas that are purpose built to accommodate the talkies.
BHM: The talkies, of course, arrived with Al Jolson, you know, you ain't heard nothing yet, all of that. So these cinemas that were being built in the 1930s were talkie cinemas. That's a key element of this sound was, you know, really instrumental in the whole presentation?
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the other thing is that people are hearing voices for the first time. They're hearing different types of voices that they wouldn't have heard before. So most films that people are watching are American, so they're hearing American voices for the first time. So there's this big kind of concerned that the population was becoming Americanized. And these are kind of, yeah, if they watch too many films, that might lead them to kind of give up their traditional values and become too American.
BHM: So there was a moral panic in Belfast, you know, like the newspapers were full of this in 1930 that we were going to be Americanized. I mean, I've always been on the verge of being Americanized. You know, anytime I get in front of a microphone, you know, my voice goes halfway across the Atlantic. I'm even becoming more Americanized as this podcast continues. But this was a moral panic. But obviously cinema as well, represented the future, and the architecture of cinema was very much Art Deco. So give us a sense of what cinemas as buildings represented.
Dr Sam: Yes, so in some of the older cinemas in Belfast would have been former musicals or, you know, variety theaters. And they came out of that tradition, and they were really kind of more in a more Edwardian style. So they were the last cinema built before the 1930s was built in 1923 so it was a bit of a gap up until the 1930s where you see the emergence of these more modernist, Art Deco style cinemas.
BHM: And certainly in terms of art deco and cinema. I mean, you know, it was about travel, it was about luxury, it was trains, planes, ocean liners, the exotic places that the imagination could go to. So how did that impact the architecture of cinema?
Dr Sam: Well,I guess a famous example in Belfast would be the Strand which was built with portholes to represent the ship industry at that time, I would say the Ritz was a little bit different. So I read one article which described as restrained modernism, so it had some kind of art deco features like the neon lighting on the outside. But I think when you look at the pictures, it kind of looked back a bit as well. It kind of was supposed to be more kind of sophisticated glamour.
BHM: Now, going back to that sense of the cinema as an as a single building, as a single structure, and the names of cinemas was very important. What these cinemas were called, what they represented in the name, the name Ritz. Now, what would that have represented to the ordinary people of Belfast?
Dr Sam: Yeah, good question. I guess the association that first comes to mind is the Ritz Hotel, and I'm assuming that that would come to mind for many other people. There were no other riches in the whole of Ireland, not that I found before the Ritz Belfast was built, union cinemas with the chain behind it built several other riches throughout the country. So you can not only go to the Ritz Belfast, you could go to the Ritz Larne, the Ritz Newtownards, for instance. So none of which, I think were quite as glamorous as the Ritz in Belfast.
BHM: And of course, the Ritz I'm thinking the Ritz Paris, the Ritz London. I mean, these were named after the Swiss hotelier Caesar Ritz. Now, when you think of Ritz, you think of hotel?
Dr Sam: I think of hotel, or maybe cinema.
BHM: I think of neither. This is what I think of. I have a prop.
Dr Sam: You're holding up a box of Ritz crackers.
BHM: Now, what's incredible about Ritz crackers is these were first produced in 1934 so only two years before our super cinema arrived on the scene. So again, it's using the name to somehow entice people into buying a product or visiting a cinema like these were advertised as offering people a bite of the good life, you know, because it was the depression and any little morsel of luxury you know, would have made. A lot to people. So Sam, I'm going to offer you a bite of the good life right now. Okay,
Dr Sam: That sounds good to me.
BHM: So I'm opening the packet. Okay, Sam, try one of these. What do you think bite of the good life?
Dr Sam: Definitely. So am ceremonial breaking of bread.
BHM: I think they need cheese. But anyway
Dr Sam: We're not sponsored by them, I should say.
BHM: Dr Sam, we have stepped outside onto Fisherwood Place. We're opposite the Wonder cinema, and I'm looking along Great Victoria Street. Give us a sense of what else would have been here.
Dr Sam: So this would have been one of Belfast's main entertainment hubs. So at the time the Ritz opened, you had the Kelvin cinema opposite. If you go in the other direction, you would have had the Hippodrome, which was a cinema at that time. You would have had the Grand Opera House, which later became a cinema. And if you turned around the corner into Grosvenor road, there would have also been the Colosseum cinema.
BHM: So, we're in the very epicenter of the cinema boom. Was there any backlash to this boom?
Dr Sam: Yeah, there was some backlash from the churches who were concerned about the impact of cinema on people's morality, and contested where these cinemas were being built in the 1930s...
BHM: ...and cinemas were not open on a Sunday,
Dr Sam: Not in Belfast, certainly.
BHM: So it didn't get in the way of your worship, that is for sure. But Sam, I mean, this is a very noisy place today. There's lots of people in traffic here. What would it have been like in 1936?
Dr Sam: Well, it was a big transport hub back in the 1930s at that point, you would have had a tram line going past the cinema, which was there until the 1950s and then replaced by busses. This main train station was just down the road the other side of the Opera House, so it was a really, it's a really important meeting point where people came together for the purposes of entertainment.
BHM: There's not a lot of entertainment here today. I have to say, it's still busy. There's hotels, and, you know, we're just down the road from the Europa hotel, and the Crown bar is there. I mean, it is still an amazing location for a super cinema.
BHM: So the Ritz opens in 1936 what else was happening in Belfast in 1936 Sam?
Dr Sam: Well, I think, like I've said, the cinema boom was the, you know, the big thing that was happening in terms of, terms of ordinary people's lives, in terms of what the city was like, shipbuilding was still big tobacco was still big linen was still big industries, even though they might be in long term, you know, decline. These were the kind of things that working class people were engaged with. So these, this kind of rise, and these new cinemas was really offering them more opportunities, engaging, like a new level of glamor. You know, the Ritz was definitely a step up from some of the other cinemas in Belfast, which may have been more, been more functional at that time.
BHM: Yeah, and you know the need for a super cinema in Belfast in 1930s I mean, I think it's interesting to look at the context of Ireland being partitioned in 1921 the creation of this new state Northern Ireland. And it was kind of state building was happening, and the transformation of Belfast into a capital city. So if you look at other major building projects, of course, you had Stormont Parliament buildings that were opened in 1932 then the king's Hall Exhibition Center in 1934 and then this is like the National Cinema of Northern Ireland, the Ritz. That's kind of what it feels like.
Dr Sam: In a way. I guess it's less to do with state building and providing entertainment and them getting profit off that. But yeah, there's definitely this need for this, super cinema. If you think a lot of the other cinemas that were being built at that time were being built in the suburbs, it was about cinema going out to the people and where they lived. So you have cinemas like the Curzon, which is on the Ormeau Road, yeah, you have places like the Broadway, which on the Falls Road. These are kind of on the main roads leading out of Belfast, but the Ritz is the one cinema that's built right in the city center, and it's the first one that's really built here since the classic in 1923.
BHM: Okay, so the Ritz Belfast is described as Ireland's wonder cinema. Now, was it really Ireland's wonder cinema? Was it really all that. Sam, that's the question?
Dr Sam: Good question. So I think firstly, you have to try and cut through the promotional bluff a bit. Don't you? Like all these places that are popping up are trying to promote themselves as the place to be. You know, for instance, I've got a leaflet here from another cinema that calls it the most romantic theater ever built. So they're all trying to do this, these new cinemas that are popping up. They're trying to sell themselves as the place to be. In terms of Belfast, I think the Ritz probably was, at least in terms of size and scale, something that people in Belfast hadn't seen before. It seated, you know, over 2000 people. It was the biggest cinema in the city at that at that time.
BHM: I mean, what, what should we wonder about the wonder cinema? I mean, obviously the exterior. You know, we've spoken about the location, but to a certain degree, it's a great monolith of a building. I mean, it's, it's giant, it's a giant structure, and it has a kind of vertical tar on the front of it, which is designed to dominate the city center. I mean, there's no doubt that it's an imposing structure, maybe not the most beautiful structure, but certainly imposing.
Dr Sam: Absolutely, I think it is designed to be imposing. It's designed to be seen from all angles. I mean, you look on each side, you have the big neon signs that say Ritz. You have this tower at the front, which is purely for decoration. I can't see that it serves any functional purpose within the building. It's designed to dominate Fisherwick Place. I think it's designed to be to be seen from all directions. And I think, you know, it does act as a hub for people to come in from different parts of the of the city.
BHM: You know, the cinema can be seen from the east, from the west, from the south, from the north, I mean. And what's extraordinary is the name Ritz, as you say, emblazoned in neon, and the name Ritz appears nine times on the on the exterior of the building, so that no matter where you are looking at this site, you can see the name Ritz, Ritz, Ritz, and the neon, three miles of lights constructed on the exterior of this building. I mean, that's pretty extraordinary.
Dr Sam: Yeah, I didn't know that.
BHM: I've never tried to measure out. I measured every line. But take us a little bit in terms of the wonder, in terms of what was spent on this cinema, in terms of the the fixtures, the furnishings, the, you know, the screen, I mean, what was wonder about all of that?
Dr Sam: Well, firstly, like we said, the size the screen would be bigger than any other cinema in Belfast. It would that would be split into the stalls and the balcony, which apparently the balcony seated 1000 people. It's about walking into an environment that immediately suggests glamor and luxury. So when you walk in from a series of steps from the outside, you go into this vestibule, and when you look at reports from the time, they kind of emphasize, you know, the glamor, the thick pile carpet, the chandeliers, the vestibule also had what every good cinema needs, which is a fish tank, an ornamental fish tank, which...
BHM:..I find that extraordinary that has had a fish tank.
Dr Sam: And so you walk, you walk through these doors into the cinema, into this long corridor, if you turn to the right, you have the pay boxes, or you can go into the stalls downstairs. If you go right in front of you, there's this big, imposing grand staircase. If you go up the staircase that goes into the cinema Cafe, which, again, is part of that experience. So some cinemas would have cafes, the more down a hill. Ones obviously wouldn't, but it's kind of inviting you into this experience. This isn't just a place where you can go and watch films. It's a place where you can you can eat, you can be with people, you can socialize. It's a glamorous place. Again, it's the whole idea of taking people out of their their everyday experience.
BHM: So it's definitely luxury. You know, the brochures describe the walnut paneling with gold relief ornamental Hall mirrors. I mean, it's like a Palace of Mirrors. And all of that would have been an incredible experience. I mean, you say vestibule. I mean, for most people in Belfast that have no clue what a vestibule was, it's the hallway, of course, but it was more than just a hallway, also, because this was a talky cinema, I mean, first class sign, the sign was incredibly important, and the size of the stage.
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. So it's not just a screen, is it? It's a stage. When we hear the word cinema now, people who perhaps have only been going to the cinema in the past, you know, 20 years, probably won't have an idea of what cinemas were like before multiplexes. So this is really built more in the tradition of a theater, and the stage is set up so it can host stage shows. It can host variety performances, any type of kind of live act it can it can accommodate.
BHM: So let's talk about the opening of this cinema Monday, the ninth of November, 1936 the doors open at 7pm what happened on that evening, Sam, and what was the kind of atmosphere that would have been in the city and in the cinema that night?
Dr Sam: Well, the atmosphere would be, there would have been lots of people about not just people who are able to come to the cinema. There were reports of, you know, crowds outside waiting to get in. This was a highly anticipated performance. People would have read about it beforehand. They likely would have talked about it. You could reserve tickets, you know, weeks in in advance. Obviously, the cinema accommodates over 2000 people, but I imagine there were many more who would have liked to have come. It wasn't just a film. There was a whole series of things that people could could see. We've got the program in front of us. So, yeah, we can go through them all.
BHM: Let's go through the program. Because what I find quite extraordinary about this is it's the opening of a cinema. And probably the least important thing in all of this is the film. The film feels like the afterthought in the whole Night's Entertainment. So give us a sense of what actually happened on that night.
Dr Sam: So the first thing was the opening ceremony. Basically, there were various kind of dignitaries from the city, which I won't go through all of them, but the Lord Mayor was there, Crawford McCulloch, the kind of dignitaries from Union cinemas who were the chain that built the cinema would have have been there. The architect, Leslie Kemp, was on stage, and he presented the mayor with with a key. And the next portion is, is not usual at all. This opening performance at the Ritz is broadcast on BBC, and what they're broadcasting is an organ performance. We haven't talked about the organ yet, but we will. That's a really big part of it. We have acts such as Sunny Farrar and his Sonny boys. I've never heard of any of this before, but I'm sure they're a big attraction for people in Belfast. We have the Gordon Ray radio Olympia girls, oh, we have Bennett and McNaughton...
BHM:... comedians surely?
Dr Sam: Yeah, they had performed on the BBC. If we were in the audience, we'd be thinking, when's the film coming on? Is this a cinema or is this some kind of live music radio environment? Yeah, well, this, this film part kind of comes into it, into it now. So we have special appearances of firstly, I think I'll let you announce...
BHM: Gracie Fields!
Dr Sam: I'm sure some of you have heard of Gracie Fields. If you haven't. This is a massive deal. She is a really big British film star of the 1930s she appeared in films like Sally in our alley, and she's here to promote her new film, Queen of Hearts.
BHM: And, you know, she was known as the Rochdale Nightingale. What I find interesting about it? I mean, it's hard to try and categorize her when you look back on the films. I mean, she was obviously a musical performer, she was a singer, she was a comedian, she was a film star, she, I mean, I was trying to categorize her as like Victoria wood meets Adele. You mean, how would you put two people together?
Dr Sam: Yeah, you're doing your best. I'm not sure you can kind of provide a modern equivalent.
BHM: But obviously, she is an extraordinary singer. I mean, she had this operatic voice coming out of this very working class, Northern, you know, comic kind of presence. But when she sings, wow. I mean, it's quite extraordinary. And she sings on the stage of the Ritz?
Dr Sam: She does, yeah, it seems like every clip you find of her, she's always kind of desperate to burst into songs. So it's no surprise that she sings a few, a few songs on a on a stage appearance at the Ritz.
BHM: She can sing so high that the mirrors in the vestibule cracked. You know, that's what she's like. But I'm really interested. Gracie feels on this level, because, you know, she becomes what is reputed, the highest paid movie star in the world, which seems quite incredible when you think what was happening in Hollywood. But she was a huge star in Britain at this point, 1936 into 1937 so to see her on the stage in the flash, and then to watch a movie that she's in. That must have been quite an extraordinary experience.
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely, it was a really big coup for the Ritz and union cinemas, who own them, to get her over for this performance. I think it just signals the intention that you know, this is the place to be. This is the premier venue in Northern Ireland to watch films and other other stage shows. You know, it's a really, yeah, it's a real coup for the cinema and the city at the time.
BHM: On the stage, she did sing, did your mother come from Ireland? So she does a little Irish song, which she later records. But I think what's interesting about Gracie fails is and this says something about what they were trying to represent with this cinema. Because, on the one hand, it represents luxury and high end entertainment and exclusivity and but on the other hand, Gracie fails represents, you know, the ordinary working class lasts. I mean, she's really down the earth. And it's like saying to people, you know, you you can be part of this too, that this entertainment is for you. It's not something kind of elitist that they're representing here.
Dr Sam: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, in a way, it goes against quite a lot the things I've already said that this is about, you know, stepping into another world and escapism, because her appeal is so much about her everyday persona. She feels like, like one of us, but yeah, definitely in terms of the people that they could have got over, like, in terms of British film stars, she is really where it's at that time.
BHM: Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful contradiction of cinema, because on the one hand, it's, you know, it represents escapism, but on the other hand, it represents realism, and somehow Gracie fails on the stage of the Ritz kind of represents both at that moment. So we also have Jack Hilton and his orchestra, you know...
Dr Sam: We should have built up to Gracie field, yeah. But no offense to Jack Hilton.
BHM: So the cinema opens on the Monday night with this, you know, landmark event and Sam, to what extent do you think the opening of the Ritz transform the city of Belfast?
Dr Sam: I think it transformed the city in terms of cinema, having this new super cinema available to the public that said it was at a time when lots of other cinemas were open, so it was part of a wider trend. But I do think it speaks to kind of coming out of the depression and moving to hopefully a more hesitate to use the word affluent, because it wasn't quite because it wasn't quite affluent, but it speaks to the optimism of the time that things were getting better and improving, and that people had this facility available to them in terms of big social occasions of the 1930s you've talked about things like the opening of Stormont, which, to me, is obviously more political, I think, for like the ordinary working person, this was probably, you know, one of the social events of the 1930s.
BHM: And as you say, it built this Belfast theater land, And you had these three giant institutions, that Opera House, the Hippodrome and the Ritz now, which would dominate the very heart of the city and make entertainment the most important attraction to Belfast. You know that was never there before in this way. And you know, what did the Wonder cinema say to the ordinary person, you know, and to me, it said to people, dream bigger. I mean, such an ambitious project, and to see this great neon Palace be constructed and opened, and I mean, that must have meant a lot to ordinary people that they could share in that experience?
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously our price this was perhaps a bit, I mean, it's not the kind of place that the ordinary person might go to every night. You know, it's kind of an occasion they might go to their local cinemas, so when they got the chance to go there, yeah, I definitely think it did represent all of those, all of those things. And that's not specific to Belfast, because these types of cinemas are going up everywhere. But I think there's that general sense, yeah, across Britain and Ireland that yeah, these wonder cinemas are here and they're for the people. And yeah, things are kind of going up in the world of cinema.
BHM: Yeah. Well, Sam, thank you so much for taking us back to the opening night of the Ritz next time we're going to go inside the cinema and explore the mighty organ. But until then, as Gracie feels, would say, wish me luck as we wave you goodbye,
