The Photodrome. The film showing is The Eternal Flame starring Norma Talmadge which was released c.1922 (click to enlarge)

Today the building is Budgens Supermarket

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – well actually it was Crystal Palace in the 1930s…

Back then the area had four cinemas – and not a lot of people know that.

The area’s first cinema was the Photodrome, which opened around 1909. Situated off Ranger Road – now Jasper Road – it would later become the premises of the Jacatex mail order company and the Crystal Palace snooker and social club before being demolished and replaced by housing. The building began life as a swimming pool – a lease having been granted for the land to the Norwood public hall and baths company in January 1887 – before being covered over with a false floor. It reopened as the Electra in September 1909 with 500 seats and room for 200 standing.

In 1912 a new entrance for the cinemas was created through a former hosiery shop at 63 Westow Hill.

“A flight of old stone steps leads down beside Barclays Bank, leading nowhere now, but they used to access a very early cinema at the foot of the steps – the Electra Picture Palace, long demolished and replaced by a row of modern houses”.
Lambeth Environmental Services Committee 1998 Review of the C P Conservation Area

In April 1913 the lease of the cinema was assigned to Tom Naylor of the Norwood public house, Ranger Road, the cinema “having been used as the Electric Picture Palace.”

The cinema had changed its name from the Electra to the Palladium by 1921 before closing in 1933. It reopened in November 1935 but in less than a year had closed forever. Insurance documents of February 1933 for the building refer to dressing rooms, studio and set making and stipulate “scrap cinematograph film to be collected at frequent intervals each day and placed in a metal receptacle with the words: film waste.”

A lease dated June 1937 shows the building being leased to the Religious Film Society, which was founded, by Joseph Arthur Rank of Heathfield, Reigate Heath, and Surrey. The lease excluded the premises at 63 Westow Hill which in 2005 closed its doors as a launderette after more than 50 years.

Rank, a devout Christian, had produced a religious film called The Turn of the Tide (1935), which failed to get general distribution. Rank eventually became a cinema magnate in his own right.

The second cinema to open was in the Crystal Palace itself. Little is known about the cinema but it would inspire one young girl who lived locally to become an actress. Margaret Lockwood lived at 2 Lunham Road and later at 18a Highland Road. Her two aunts lived at 30 Highland Road where one source says she also lived at a later date.

She recalled going to the cinema in the grounds of the Palace where she was inspired by Betty Bronson – a leading lady of the 1920s who did not succeed in talkies – in the film of Peter Pan (1924) which the young Margaret managed to watch every night for a week.

Allen Eyles and Keith Skone in their book ‘The Cinemas of Croydon’ record that a grand bioscope and gramophone entertainment was being offered as one of the sideshows in the Palace by August 1910 with no admission fee.

On Saturday September 19, 1925 the Norwood Press and Dulwich Advertiser reported: “On Monday week the cinema will be reopened when the West End Scala Theatres success The Epic of Everest will be shown”. New seating, carpeting and heating apparatus has been installed for the comfort of patrons and popular prices including admission to the Palace will be charged.

The cinema must have closed again because the programme for the 22nd annual band contest held at the Crystal Palace on September 24 1927 announces that: ”The Picture House Crystal Palace will be re-opened on Monday October 3rd with the screen sensation of the age – Metropolis.”

The programme for the same event the following year – held on September 29, 1928 – has the cinema screening Pola Negri in The Secret Hour and Horseman of the Plains starring Tom Mix. The band contest programmes are held in the local studies library at Bromley. There is no programme available for 1929. No advertisement for the cinema appears in the 1930 programme.

The exact location of the cinema in the Palace is a bit of a mystery. It may have been in the Palace’s Variety theatre. The 1911 auction catalogue for the Crystal Palace states the theatre has an iron lined cinematograph box with shutters.

The area’s third cinema – the Rialto – opened on Saturday October 6, 1928 with Ramona starring Dolores Del Rio. Anna May Wong and John Stuart were guests at the opening night where Miss Wong addressed the crowds with a few words of Chinese.

An Australian, A C Matthews, built both the Rialto and the neighbouring Albany cinema. He also built the State cinemas in Sydenham and Thornton Heath. In September 1950 the Rialto was renamed the Granada. (For pictures of the various incarnations of the Rialto visit the Cinema Campaign’s web site).

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

The Albany opened in January 1930 being built on derelict land in just 15 weeks. The opening attraction was The Glad Rag Doll starring Dolores Costello, and High Society starring Laura La Plante. On the outbreak of World War Two the cinema was closed and requisitioned as a Government food store. Released in January 1948 it reopened as a cinema that October before being acquired by the Granada group. Closed for reconstruction it reopened its doors on Boxing Day 1950 as the Century. The Century closed for a ‘rest period’ on May 30 1958. It never reopened. In March 1960 the Norwood News reported the opening of Selhurst Park Garages new showrooms in the former cinema. The building is still there today adjacent to the Gala Bingo Hall.

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.

The Granada was the last to close, shutting its doors on Saturday May 26, 1968; its final screening was Reflections in a Golden Eye supported by Assignment to Kill. It was converted into a Granada Bingo Club a month later. Gala Bingo took it over in 1991.

Sources:

The Crystal Palace Sydenham to be sold by auction. (Knight Frank and Rutley 1911).*

The Cinemas of Croydon by Allen Eyles and Keith Skone (Keystone Publications in association with Croydon public libraries 1989)*

Focus on Film No. 6 Spring 1971 article on The Cinemas of Norwood by Allen Eyles assisted by Kevin Wheelan*

Once a Wicked Lady a biography of Margaret Lockwood by Hilton Tims (Virgin Books London 1989)*

Lucky Star the autobiography of Margaret Lockwood (Odhams Press London 1955)*

The Dictionary of National Biography 1971-1980 (Oxford University Press 1986)*

Halliwell’s Filmgoers Companion 12th edition edited by John Walker (Harper Collins London 1997)*

Minet library, Brixton, archives

Thanks to Jerry Savage at Upper Norwood reference library for his help in providing information towards this article.

*All items marked with an asterisk may be found in Upper Norwood’s reference library

Photodrome picture courtesy of Croydon Local Studies Library & Archives Service, Central Library, Katharine Street, Croydon