The Odeon at

Kingstanding Kingstanding is an area in north Birmingham, England. It gives its name to a ward in the Erdington council constituency. Kingstanding ward includes the areas; Perry Common, Witton Lakes and Wyrley Birch. The other part of Kingstanding falls ...

, Birmingham, was a 1930s cinema in the Odeon chain. Though closed as a cinema in 1962, the building survives as a bingo hall, and is Grade II listed.

History

The cinema was constructed between 1935 and 1936 to a symmetrical,

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

design by

Harry Weedon Harold William "Harry" Weedon (1887 – 17 June 1970) was a British architect. Although he designed a large number of buildings during a long career, he is best known for his role overseeing the Art Deco designs of the Odeon Cinemas for Oscar Deu ...

and

Cecil Clavering John Cecil Clavering OBE (17 April 1910 – 6 October 2001) was an English architect, best known for his work designing Odeon Cinemas as part of Harry Weedon's architectural practice in the 1930s, and his later work as the architect of the Publi ...

, the latter having joined the former's practice, as an assistant, in 1933. It was commissioned as an independent cinema, and was due to be called "The Beacon", after nearby Barr Beacon, but

Oscar Deutsch Oscar Deutsch (12 August 1893 – 5 December 1941)Allen Eyles, ‘Deutsch, Oscar (1893–1941)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200accessed 29 April 2011/ref> was a British-Hungarian businessman. He was the fou ...

became involved, and the cinema opened as part of his Odeon chain on 22 July 1935. It was built to serve Kingstanding's new, 4,000-home working-class housing estate and had 968 seats in the stalls and 324 in the circle. The first film was '' The Lives of a Bengal Lancer'', starring

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, ...

. The brick building occupies a wedge-shaped site between Kings Road and Kettlehouse Road, overlooking and facing Kingstanding Circle. The centre of the glazed cream and black tile ("''

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major a ...

''") frontage features three slender fins, also finished with faience, above a stepped brick parapet. Clavering, inspired by the Lichtburg cinema in Berlin, originally intended that these fins would be topped by a searchlight.Richard Gray, ''Cinemas in Britain: One Hundred Years of Cinema Architecture'', London: Lund Humphries, 1996, , p. 92: "The original idea was for a searchlight to be mounted on the fins which would scan the night sky, like at the Lichtburg in Berlin. This idea was dropped when Deutsch took over he cinema. The cinema closed on 1 December 1962, the final film being '' To Hell and Back'', starring

Audie Murphy Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor and songwriter. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from t ...

Bingo

The building was refurbished and opened as a Top Rank Bingo Club, subsequently becoming a Mecca Bingo Club, in which use it continues. It was given Grade-II listed status by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

just 44 years after its erection, on 10 October 1980. It has been described as "one of the best surviving examples of Odeon cinemas in Britain".

References

External links

*
Pictures
in the

archives
Blog post with early photos

{{BirminghamBuildings Kingstanding Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Cinemas in the West Midlands (county) Odeon Cinemas Theatres completed in 1935 Streamline Moderne architecture in the United Kingdom Grade II listed cinemas