Do you remember the first movie you saw in a cinema?

[Nocturnal Submission]

That's the bingo hall now, right? Spectacular place - and so incongruous to play bingo in there.

Yup. I think it's still going as such.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Just a bit more on the building from Wiki:

Originally built as one of the great luxurious Art Deco cinemas of the 1930s, it is still considered by many to be the most spectacular cinema in Britain.^[1] In his 1966 guide to London's buildings, the architectural critic Ian Nairn said of it, "miss the Tower of London if you have to, but don't miss this.”^[2] In 2000 it became the first Grade I listed 1930s cinema and in 2015 was selected as an asset of community value.^[3]

Through the 1940s and 1950s the Granada became more important as a local venue in Wandsworth, attracting talent from further afield. Artists who performed there included Jerry Lee Lewis, Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones and on 1 June 1965 The Beatles performed two sold-out sets. The final artist to perform here would eventually be the Bee Gees on 28 April 1968.

[San Bernardhinault]

Seriously, playing bingo there is one of the best things to do in Tooting.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It was a weekly occurrence so the very first is lost in the mists of time (other than being carried out screaming from a cartoon, mentioned elsewhere.) I remember being taken to Reach for the Sky, and The Dambusters (WW2 films were popular). Early 'Carry On' films, — a naked Shirley Eaton in Carry on Nurse made a big impression. Disney cartoons, Lady and the Tramp, Pinocchio, Peter Pan. There were also "grown up" films we were taken to sometimes, presumably no one had babysitters back then. One was 12 Angry Men, which is something of a classic these days. I was nine years old at the time, my sister seven, we weren't the demographic.

[Ginger Yellow]

Interesting how churchy the Granada walls look. I normally think of Art Deco as quite a godless or even pagan style (and indeed the exterior is quite Roman/Egyptian).

[tee rex]

I really can't remember, partly because I've seen the "usual suspects" since (Sound of Music, Chitty et al). The first one that I haven't seen again might be The Love Bug (1968 original).

My UK ratings era was U-A-AA-X. It was a brief period when 14 was the age you envied, they could see the naughty stuff. Later upped to 15, I think.

On Googling around, it looks like terrifying Austrian Nazis and the Child-Catcher were deemed suitable for all ages, unaccompanied ("U"). What was Lord Harlech thinking?

[Patrick Thistle]

Proper cinema - Return of the Jedi.

However, prior to that there was ano occasional film night at the American embassy in Banjul and we saw two films there that I remember - Avalanche Express, and The Great Muppet Caper. I don't know which one I saw first.

[elguapo4]

Not sure I think it was Snow White.

When my Dad died, my Ma was left with four kids between the ages of two and seven, and two parents, one of whom was virtually housebound with arthritis, to look after, so any chance to get us out of the house was gratefully accepted. My dad's brother would regularly bring us to the pictures on a Saturday, I particularly remember seeing 633 squadron and Carry on Cowboy in the pictures. The local cinema was still open until 1971 and did Saturday matinees, so we were regularly sent off there as well.

[scratchmonkey]

Fantasia, at the UC Theatre in Berkeley, an absolutely mad place that is sadly no longer with us except as a music venue.

Example page from a UC Theatre calendar from just after I graduated high school: https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...dsio1_1280.jpg

[Southport Zeb]

Snow White in Dumbarton, probably in 1988

I saw Hook at the ABC in Southport with my gran, which is the first time I remember going in when it was light and coming out when it was dark

[Tratorello]

The first movie I saw was the original Star Wars at the Regal cinema in Stowmarket, it was also the second, third, fourth, fifth and possibly all the way up to tenth film I ever saw at the cinema...

[Tratorello]

Cinema Treasures in case you are struggling to remember your long demolished local fleapit

Brilliant, what a great website.

The aforementioned Regal in Stowmarket. Pretty sure it used to hold the local pantomime as well as showing films.

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/6241

[ursus arctos]

Nice piece from the Cal paper on the UC

https://www.dailycal.org/2014/04/25/...ry-uc-theatre/

[ad hoc]

This was the cinema of my childhood http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17198 (I'm sure Janik remembers it too)

[G-Man]

I think it was the Disney Robin Hood one. If it wasn't, then it was a re-release of Snow White.

First movie I went to on my own was The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977 (maybe early 1978). I never became a Bond fan.

[Janik]

This was the cinema of my childhood http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17198 (I'm sure Janik remembers it too)

Indeed. A fairly brutalist structure. In fact I drive past the site on my commute to and from work. It's now a block of retirement apartments. The Outdoor Swimming Pool that was next door/behind and from the architecture was part of the same development went at the same time. Sad.

I don't remember the first time I was in it, but I do remember the last if not the film I was there to watch. I know it was something fairly 'big', albeit one that had taken a good couple of months after release to arrive at The Priory. And the screening I went to, which may have been the only one of the evening, had ~10 people in the audience. It was painfully clear that it had no future in the era of multiplexes.

I also haven't got the faintest clue what the first film I ever saw in the cinema was. Or indeed which films I've seen in cinemas and which I only saw on TV. About the only memory I have of going to the cinema with my parents was a failed trip to watch Return of the Jedi (I think) when visiting my Grandparents in Stoke one Christmas. We definitely got to the place, but whether the adults looked at the length queue and said "no way" or turned up to find the tickets were sold out I don't know. What I do remember is being very disappointed that we got there and didn't get in but instead came home again. Given that I remember the disappointment quite strongly (but no visual memories, just a memory of the emotion) and that I was fairly young, I assume that I expressed this disappointment verbally. So I equally presume I was taken to see it somewhere else soon after (quite possibly at The Priory in Royston), but I have no memory whatsoever of that.

[Gerontophile]

"Cabaret".

But with parents, "Bite The Bullet". It was shite.

[Amor de Cosmos]

This was our usual local...

[Amor de Cosmos]

And this was the semi-notorious one that I was rarely allowed to visit (too racy!)

[Gerontophile]

Jesus, Amor: with all that scary shit, how DID you make it to your glorious age

[Amor de Cosmos]

Hi Gero, nice to see you back. The Astonia was your bog standard small town cinema. But the Publix was a bit special. It's probable it was the oldest provincial cinema in the country prior to its demolition in 1965. It certainly existed prior to 1912. As you can tell it was tiny, but it did have stalls and a balcony. My secondary school was across the road, for most of that time it had a perennial "Continental Film Festival," which was code for "visible tits!" Obviously, as young teenage boys we totally ignored the posted "Coming Attractions," with our tongues hanging out. My Mum insisted we'd catch fleas if we ever went inside. On balance I was willing to take the risk. Looking back it's amazing that a town of 5,000 could support two cinemas for so many years.

[Gangster Octopus]

My Mum insisted we'd catch fleas if we ever went inside.

Weren't all cinemas called fleapits back in the day?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah. But my Mum was being literal. She claimed to have seen a bloke scratching himself vigorously as he left the place.

[Gerontophile]

Yeah. But my Mum was being literal. She claimed to have seen a bloke scratching himself vigorously as he left the place.

(Seriously? The most open goal of all open goals?)

OK, this can go either way. So,

"You mean your mother could see all that after ..."

or

"So, your mother was a 'social worker'?"

or

... scratching his head after paying "THAT much?"

or the one I was originally thinking, which is "he had crabs."

*edit sorry

[Uncle Ethan]

Oliver! 1968.