ODEON Theatre Southend on Sea.

[@SuperTed19021]

It wish we still had cinemas like this. Today's paradise....

[@derekatkins1773]

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.

[@sisu6310]

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

[@britishcomposers]

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!

[@derekatkins1773]

Fully agree with your comments here . I loved this cinema when it was untouched a fine building indeed .

[@johnmh1000]

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.

[@filmsforallnations]

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.

[@williamhenry4986]

Wow used to love that place Saturday morning pictures in late sixties early seventies great times look at what’s become of Southend now so sad 😭

[@silvafoxx2001]

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.

[@anneboorder240]

Saturday morning pictures for we kids were the best. I went to the Gaumont Southend.

[@angelsone-five7912]

What is so exciting about another university? Birmingham builds the darn things like they were on a conveyor belt.

[@Worldwarone853]

That last 3 minutes. I’m sorry to tell her, it’s not a great place to be now, you should of left it alone.

[@britishcomposers]

Is that Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine?

[@kennethcoxell9449]

No it's Wilfred pickles

[@SuperTed19021]

It's neither. PS: Foggy was played by an actor called Brian Wilde, who had a completely different voice to this.

[@britishcomposers]

@@SuperTed19021 I was being facetious.

[@bannor_murphy369]

what a waste. even had a bar :((