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 3: The Ritz, Belfast - 1950s Spectacle, Spectacles and Cary Grant's Shillelagh
In the third episode of the Wonder Cinema podcast, we look at how the Ritz coped with the challenges of the 1950s using spectacle, spectacles and even a Shillelagh.
Cinema attendance peaked after the Second World War, but the 1950s brought new challenges such as the arrival of television. The Ritz responded with widescreen and a short-lived experiment showing 3D films. And the continuation of Midnight Matinees, late-night screenings often featuring personal appearances and promotional stunts, helped reinforce the Ritz’s status as the ‘Wonder Cinema’. Belfast film fans still flocked to see big films such as The Quiet Man, and in 1958, just as cinema attendance went into freefall, one of the world’s biggest film stars, Cary Grant, arrived at the Ritz.
Links:
British Pathe - Angels One Five premiere
British Pathe - My Brother Jonathan premiere
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: Cinema was bigger than life in the 1950s or so, it seemed. Welcome to episode three with spectacle, spectacles and even a shillelagh. The war was over. The blackout gone. The neon lights of the Wonder cinema could be switched back on. But Dr Sam what was happening with audiences after the war into the 1950s?
Dr Sam: So we spoke in the last episode about how cinema going had become much more popular during the war, and that kind of continues afterwards. So the peak of cinema attendance in the UK was in 1946
where 1.6 billion people...
BHM: ...billion
Dr Sam: billion people went to the cinema.
BHM: So you're saying the peak of cinema was 1946 according to the statistics? Yes. Okay, that's the end of our episode.Okay, so cinema peaks 1946
and and then what happens?
Dr Sam: Well, audiences start to decline across the UK, but in Northern Ireland, they actually remain much more stable than they do in other parts of the of the UK and other cities in Britain. And there are a whole number of reasons for that which we might get into later. Probably the upshot of this, for people going to the Ritz is that they were able to experience lots of grand screenings, partially at what were called Midnight matinees.
BHM: Midnight Martinees. There it is, again. I Sam. It's a contradiction. A matinee, to me, is the afternoon, not midnight. What is this midnight matinee?
Dr Sam: Exactly? I think, well, probably just because they like the alliteration. It sounds good, but in terms of what actually happened, these were screenings that started not quite at midnight, but around 11 o'clock. They would have a film, they would sometimes have accompanying stage presentations, and even quite a lot of the time, they would have stars come over to accompany the screenings and appear on stage and do various different things around the city. Now I know what you're thinking. Anyone who lives in Belfast will tell you that the bosses stop at 11pm so there's no point in this midnight matinee, but yet, the trams and busses were put on late for the patrons of the Midnight matinee.
BHM: Yeah, imagine that now, isn't that amazing, but these midnight matinees. They had a kind of a gala feeling to them. They they were almost like a film festival. There was a kind of a carnival atmosphere at them. What was the attraction? Do you think Sam?
Dr Sam: Well, it was being able to see some of the stars that you've seen on screen. It was being able to see these films for the first time in Northern Ireland. But these weren't just at the Ritz. There were sometimes in other cinemas in Belfast, but what was pretty unique to the Ritz was the St Patrick's Day midnight matinee. So every year, pretty much, with a few exceptions, they held an event on the 17th of March where they would show a screening, normally a premiere with a guest, and this would raise funds for charity as well.
BHM: Now we're very fortunate because pathway news came and filmed the midnight matinee St Patrick's Day 1948 and it was for a film called My Brother Jonathan, a doctor drama, of which were very popular during this period. Michael Dennison was the film star and Northern Irish actress. Beatrice Campbell also appeared on stage. Sam, what do you think when you when you see this piece of extraordinary film?
Dr Sam: It's really incredible to see the interior of the Ritz in such detail. I don't think you kind of see it as much of the building as you do in any other clip that I've I've seen. I mean, what you really get is a sense of the whole evening's entertainment, because it doesn't just show the stars arrived. It shows you what was happening on the stage. So, for instance, there's a presentation with Rinty Monaghan, who was a big Belfast boxer at that at that time, and all the various other people. I think what really comes across is that sense of occasion, of this being something different from the ordinary, of it just being a really big deal for ordinary people going to the cinema at that time.
BHM: You get a terrific shot of the vestibule.The audience arriving, lots of fur coats. I mean, there used to be the fur coat brigade in Belfast, but this is a lot of kind of posh people turning up for this event. Fabulous shot of the stage. I mean, the stage looks incredible when you see it in this film, and they have the most extraordinary microphone stand with two mics, you know, like a candelabra. I've never seen a microphone like it. Quite amazing. There are several shots of the audience and to see the people sitting in the stalls in 1948
and I think many of them are women, young women, maybe on dates, and that this would have been really quite exciting to be out in Belfast at midnight in 1948 and you can see their faces. I find that, you know, really moving to see that whole generation of people watching this event.
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely, when you think about what happened to the social life of the city later, and especially during the troubles when pretty much everything was locked down to see these big events in the city centre and people staying into the kind of the the early hours of the morning. Yeah, it's really incredible to see.
BHM: But in terms of the 1950s Sam, I mean, what else was happening in the cinema at this time? Because we we say that 1946 was the the high point. But then after this, challenges would appear.
Dr Sam: You know, cinema attendance started to decline for various reasons. Obviously, television did have an impact. BBC came in in Northern Ireland in 1953 and then UTV, which is like the Northern Ireland equivalent of ITV, came in in 1959
so those did obviously have an impact, but I would carry out that by saying it kind of depends on people's ability to actually buy a television and put it in the house. It depends on who's watching the television. So largely it would be adults, the people who had bought the TVs, where young people would still want to go out to the cinema regardless, because it had that social function of going with their friends and for courtship and meeting partners. It's also about where people are living. So people are moving out from the city center and the surrounding areas. They're moving into all these new suburbs. And there's also loads of new ways in which they can spend their time with the more money that they have. So they can go dancing. There are different types of music for them to engage with different types of fashion. There's these whole different ways that they can spend their their money. Also, Northern Ireland isn't quite as affluent as other parts of the of the UK. It kind of Yeah, takes a while for that to to spread throughout the whole of the country. So what you find is that cinema attendance stays much more stable in Northern Ireland for longer than it does in other parts of Britain.
BHM: And what a great time to go to the cinema. And cinemas like the Ritz did everything they could to combat this pull of the living room of television, of home viewing. So tell us what the Ritz did in particular to try and combat this. I mean, this was happening worldwide, but what specifically did the Ritz do?
Dr Sam: Well, you gave a clue in your introduction, which was spectacles. So that was the introduction of, well, very short lived trial, I would say, at Lydia. I mean, this was really a thing that American exhibitors did to combat declining attendances. Introduced Lydia, but it was really a bit of a gimmick. You had to install special projectors to do this. You had to people had to wear glasses, which they had to pay a surcharge for, and lots of people complained that it gave them headaches. So it was a really kind of short lived phenomenon, but it was something that the Ritz tried. They screened House of Wax, which was one of the kind of famous first in the 1950s.
BHM: When they screened House of Wax, they even added additional loudspeakers, so that the screen. Screams would punctuate through the seats. So it became this kind of live experience. Now, one of the issues with 3d has always been the spectacles, and people paying more for the spectacles. And this would happen again in the in the 2000s when when the 3d craze return. But rather hilarious. There are obviously stories of punters in Belfast who refused to wear the spectacles. I don't wear glasses. I'm not wearing glasses. And then, of course, wanted their money back when they thought that whole film was out of focus. You know, all those kind of...
Dr Sam: Yeah, the failure was more to do with the obstinacy of the people of Belfast rather than the actual films themselves.
BHM: But certainly, the screen got bigger at this period in time. So tell me about widescreen.
Dr Sam: Yeah, again, this was something that was introduced in cinemas in the US first, and then came over here in response to the introduction of TV, you'll be glad to hear this was far more successful than the spectacles. So the Ritz first introduced a wide screen in 1953 which could then screen cinema scope films. The first film this screen was The master of Ballantrae.
BHM: The Master of Ballantrae, which incidentally, also starred Earl Flynn, of course, but Northern Irish actress Beatrice Campbell, who was in the midnight matinee film.
Dr Sam: Yeah, everything comes full circle. The other thing they did later in the 50s was install Todd Ao, which was a 70 mm wide screen format. The first from this screen in that was South Pacific on Christmas Day 1958. Yeah, and that. So these that emphasis on spectacle, rather than spectacles, was far more, far more successful.
BHM: Now, when we look back on the films that were successful during this period, one stands out, and this was a film that would cast a long shadow over Ireland in the 70 years since. So tell us about the impact that The Quiet Man had at the Ritz?
Dr Sam: Well, The Quiet Man was hugely successful at the Ritz. We actually have some figures for this film. So it was screened for five weeks, and during that time, 195,000 people came out to see the quiet man, which, you know, is almost half the population. That's phenomenal, coming out in five weeks. I mean, I imagine a lot of those people came up multiple times to see the film, but I think it just speaks to the popularity of Irish films, and seeing Ireland depicted on screen like I know now, we probably look back at the quiet man and think, God, that's a bit card, and it's a very stereotypical depiction of Ireland, but that's definitely something that seems to have drawn people in at the time.
BHM: Well, Harris Deans, who was the film critic of the Belfast Telegraph, nailed this in his review of the quiet man, when he said it may not be the real Ireland, just as westerns are not the true America, but it's joyous entertainment. And so it proved to be.
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. And it was very, it's very well promoted by the cinema. So there's a picture from that time where you can see a 10 foot high picture of John Wayne on the exterior of the of the cinema. Yes, it was definitely something they were keen to promote. It was definitely something people were keen to see, and it's definitely something that the cinema profited very well from. They also incorporated stage shows as part of this. There was a display of Irish Linen on the on the stage, yeah. So again, it's kind of emphasizing that kind of experience aspect, and the added stage shows and presentations.
BHM: And that's something that we should mention, because we spoke about the exterior of the building, and obviously, like any cinema, it would have the coming attractions in terms of the posters, but yet, like the sheer size and scale of this building, meant that The promotional material could be giant, literally giant. I mean, give us a sense of what that was.
Dr Sam: Yeah. I mean, they they would adapt it for each film. And exhibitors were really encouraged to do this by ABC. ABC ran competitions for the best showman, so they were kind of pitting people against each other to outdo one another in the kind of grandeur and spectacle of these promotional campaigns. So you could have, yeah, a huge picture of John Wayne on the outside to celebrate their 21st birthday. There was a giant cake on top of on top of the canopy, which I'm not sure what that was advertising. But yeah, you could have these big promotional stunts as well.
BHM: Yeah. And that made this, I mean, the whole side of the cinema, in a way, became a giant billboard for the film that was playing at the Ritz. And that was incredible in terms of advertising.
Dr Sam: Yeah and that carried on as you went into the building, you would have these grand displays inside the foyer. And again, that's something that, you know, exhibitors were encouraged to compete over and provide the best versions of those.
BHM: Now we should say at this point, when the cinema opened in 1936 it was part of the Union cinemas, but shortly afterwards, became ABC cinemas. So give us a sense of who ABC cinemas were and how that brand began to influence what happened at the Ritz?
Dr Sam: Yes, so ABC was a cinema chain that started in the 1920s and then grew throughout the 1930s to a point where they could buy out union they were one of the big British chains at that point, alongside Odeon and Gaumont and Belfast and Northern Ireland generally, is quite unique in the number of independent cinemas that opened, and there were a couple of independent chains these big players like ABC didn't really have a foothold in the market to as great extent as in other places. So yeah, the Ritz was ABCs flagship site in Belfast, and they also had the majestic and the strand, which is still exists, thankfully, in East Belfast. So what would happen is the films that were shown at the Ritz, after they had finished being shown at the Ritz, they would go to the majestic and the strand. So basically, you could either pay your money go and see the Ritz first, but that's going to cost you a little more, or you can wait for it to come out in the suburbs where you live, but you pay a little less. The print you see is a little bit more worn, because it's been shown at the Ritz so times.
BHM: And ABC obviously stands for Associated British cinemas. And the way these chains worked, these cinema chains worked, was there certain films that played in ABC cinemas and certain films that did not? Or how did that work?
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. So ABC would show, obviously, the films that ABC produced, but they also had first preference on Warner Brothers and MGM films, where some of the other cinemas had agreements with the other the other studios. So, you know, the Ritz didn't play every film that you would think of as being a classic film. Now, some of those would play first at places like the the classic or the or the Hippodrome? Yeah, it didn't have first preference on every film, but definitely those by yet big players such as Warner Brothers and MGM.
BHM: Sam have you had your choice to go to any of the Midnight matinees at the Ritz, during this classic period? Which one would you choose to go to?
Dr Sam: Well, there are a number of contenders in terms of midnight matinees. So I would have loved to have gone to a Odette when Anna Neagle visited.
BHM: That was a huge event at the time, film star present, yeah, you know, very exciting. And she, at the time, would have been one of the major film stars in Britain.
BHM: Yep, she was one of the biggest stars at the time. She came with her producer partner, Herbert Wilcox. She did various events around the cities. Company imported and produced her own rose named afterwards that they put in her in her dressing room. So that would have been a wonderful event to have been at. I think my answer, though, would be The African Queen, which came out around the same time as the as The Quiet Man.
Dr Sam: Legendary film, John Houston, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Oscar winning film. I mean, that would have been extraordinary.
Dr Sam: Yeah, absolutely. That's one of my favourite films. But that's that's more based around the film itself. There were all these amazing events that I would have liked to have to have been part of some I'm just thinking now we're more gimmicky than others. So there was a screening of Angels One Five, which is about the Battle of Britain. And the way the film was started was they sent a message to Aldergrove for a plane to fly over, and when the plane flew over, it radioed someone in the cinema to start the film. I'm not sure what that adds to the experience, but I think it, yeah, it shows you the extent that they were going through to provide some kind of spectacle.
BHM: Wow, that's amazing. And in terms of the choice, for me, what, what other films played in the midnight matinee?
Dr Sam: Okay, so you have King Solomon's Mines, The Prisoner of Zenda, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Then go more towards the 1960s you have Carry On, Constable, The Sundowners. The final ever St Patrick's Day been that matinee was in 1964 so a bit later, and that was Zulu.
BHM: Oh, wow, Zulu. There was a film called Don't Go Near The Water. That's right. So that was an early version of JAWS. So I think, I think I'll go to that one just to see but that, I mean an extraordinary list of films there. And these were all giant events with a kind of film festival fiesta feel. So quite an extraordinary piece of history. Okay? Dr Sam, the midnight matinees were amazing events, gala events, premieres and yet. And yet was the biggest night of all, actually, in July 1958 was the visit of perhaps the biggest film star in the world, Cary Grant, at the Ritz.
Dr Sam: Yeah, had that extra level of Hollywood glamour, one of the biggest, still one of the biggest stars at that point, coming over to Belfast.
BHM: This is peak Cary Grant. I mean, if you think about it, it's 1958 so in the previous few years, he's made To Catch A Thief and An Affair To Remember, one of my favourites, The Pride and the Passion, where they're pulling that big cannon across Spain. And then he would go on the following year to make North by Northwest with Hitchcock. But he was in Belfast with a film called Indiscreet that he was the producer of as well. What an amazing thing that Archibald Leech had come to Belfast at this moment.
Dr Sam: Yeah, this is part of a promotional tour. I'd love to say he had come especially to come and see the people of of Belfast. I'm not saying that he didn't enjoy his visit, but this was kind of part of a broader promotional campaign. But it's still amazing that he chose to come to to Belfast as part of that, and it's probably one, if not, of the biggest events the city has seen in terms of kind of people of of note, coming to visit.
BHM: Now Indiscreet, have you seen this film?
Dr Sam: I have not seen Indiscreet.
BHM: It's directed by Stanley Donen, and it's about a famous actress in Ingrid Bergman having an affair with an international banker, I said, banker Sam. It's a kind of bedroom farce. It falls a little flat. The only thing is the chemistry in the film between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant is sensational. We know this because we all remember Notorious the Hitchcock film, with their famous kissing scene that lasts for two and a half minutes because of the sensor, they weren't allowed to kiss, so they peck each other's cheeks. And in this there's a split screen bedroom scene where they're in bed together, but the screen is split and yet it's an incredible scene. And you You do realize that this would have caused, you know, a lot of oohs and aahs in the Ritz, certainly in the circle, if not the stalls. But what do we know about Cary Grant's actual visit and what happened?
Dr Sam: So he came, he came for the screening, the film was shown, and he answered questions for half an hour. He then went to the Grand Central Hotel, where there was a reception, and he answered questions from the the press. We have some amazing pictures of this event where, surprisingly, Cary Grant is sat around on the floor, which I don't know if this was his thing, if he always did that, I imagine there were chairs available to him, but it's just, you know, an amazing, kind of very intimate image to see him sat on the floor with these Belfast journalists. Yeah, it's incredible. And they're also pictures of him outside the cinema. You can just see across the road out towards the assembly buildings. The whole whole road is filled with people. You know, Cary Grant can barely move. He's there's obviously people kind of guarding him has as well. Yeah, no, an absolutely incredible event, and just amazing to see.
BHM: There's a fabulous photograph of Cary Grant walking out of the cinema into a crowd of people, and he turns towards the camera and glows in that Hollywood way, you know, he's ready for his close up.
Dr Sam: I've missed the big event here, Brian. I've completely missed the fact that he was in his performance of the Ritz presented by an usherette with a shillelagh. I mean, we have to get to that.
BHM: He does a Q&A for half an hour where he answers his own questions. There's no interviewer. It's Cary Grant alone with a microphone, and then, as you say, an usherette presents him with a shillelagh, and we have a photograph. Of that here, Cary looks completely bemused by what this is. Now, if you don't know what a shillelagh is, it is a lethal weapon. It's a walking stick with kind of knobbly branches from the black thorn tree with a heavy, large knob. I mean club. It's a club. You could kill people with it. But What's brilliant about it is the next day, Cary Grant is reported in the press, he flew from Belfast back to London with a shillelagh under his arm. So he was carrying it as he left, which is quite amazing.
Dr Sam: How long do you think he kept it for?
BHM: Well, who's going to take it off him? You start swinging that thing around the airport. I mean, no one's going to take it off him. But what an amazing night that would have been. And it really says something about this golden period here, you know, where films got bigger and movie stars came to the cinema. I mean, if you were to say, what was the golden age for the cinema, for the Ritz, would this? Would this be it Sam?
Dr Sam: Well, it's definitely up there. I think it's kind of on a on a par with the opening night, where you have that performance of Gracie Fields, who, at that time was maybe not cary grant levels, but she was absolutely huge at that time, he had to have those two events in the space of 22 years, I think is absolutely, absolutely incredible. Yeah, we're never going to see anything like that again.
BHM: And at this time, the Ritz was offering a premium experience in terms of sound and vision. So the films almost got bigger, bolder, more epic. And there was no more epic film than Ben Hur, which obviously starred local actor Billy Miller, better known as Stephen Boyd, who played masala in this Roman epic, and tell us about the impact that Ben Hur had at the Ritz?
Dr Sam: Well, it played for nine weeks. So that's that's even longer than The Quiet Man. We know that in its first seven weeks, they sold 72,000 tickets. So it played for longer, but not quite as many people were going but definitely the emphasis on spectacle was something that people were willing to to come out to.
BHM: And again, the branding at the side of the building was Ben Hur the chariot race like the horses were decorated across the cinema. You know, we know that Stephen Boyd's mother came to see a preview of the film and the Ritz. So, I mean, what an extraordinary experience for the family. And you have an artifact in front of you there from the period?
Dr Sam: I do. This is a ticket for Ben Hur the Ritz From Thursday the sixth of June, 1961 for an evening screening. This was a reserved seat in the rear circle. How much do you think it costs? Brian one on four, this cost eight shillings.
BHM: Oh, wow.
Dr Sam: Yeah. So people are willing to pay more to reserve these seats, but this is part of getting that that premium experience.
BHM: So in terms of cinema viewing, I mean, what an extraordinary period this was, if we go through from the quiet man to Ben Hur Was this the golden age of cinema viewing at the Ritz?
Dr Sam: Yes and no. So, in terms of the everyday experience, audiences were were going down. So, you know, you might not always get the same kind of numbers when Ben Hur wasn't on when they were showing something different, but I think in terms of these big spectacle films, then maybe, yes, one thing that Ben Hur did to, I guess, relive the glory days, if you want to put, put it that way, was to bring back the organ. So they'd stopped having regular organ performances in 1958 and actually Stanley Wylie he'd moved from the Ritz to UTV.
BHM: So the organist of the Ritz, yes, left the big screen for the goggle box?
Dr Sam: Yeah, it kind of shows the shift of of power, doesn't it? So they stopped having a regular organist, but someone, someone called Al Briley, was brought back in in 1961 to play the organ during Ben Hur.
BHM: That was an epic period for the cinema. But as you've rightly said, Sam, the demographics were shifting, and a new era was going to emerge, and a younger audience was gonna invade the Ritz in the next episode.
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.
Both: The Wonder Cinema is now closed.
