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Aberdeen Cinemas: Electric / Capitol
3402 A photograph showing the Capitol façade in January 2021.
By the 1960s and 70s the Capitol was increasingly being used as a venue for live events. Michael Thomson credits its survival over the Majestic, closed down in September 1973, as due to the Capitol's superior stage facilities. The Donald family, the venue owners, had the stage enlarged in 1975.
Appearances by popular groups like the Bay City Rollers in 1974 suggested the future for the venue at the time. The Capitol also saw performances by the Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison, Queen, Boyzone and Chuck Berry among many others. The Capitol ceased showing films in 1995.
The Capitol contained a restaurant, and subsequently bar, in the cinema's former café area around this period. 1993 saw the opening of the Art Deco and cinema themed bar Oscars in this space.
The Capitol functioned as a wonderful venue giving North-East audiences the chance to see top performers for many years. It became increasingly uneconomic to run and the curtain finally came down on the venue on Monday 15th December 1997.
The building was later converted into a nightclub and restaurant called Jumping Jaks and the Chicago Rock Café that opened in around 2003. These closed down in 2008 and the Capitol laid empty for some time.
In 2013 Knight Property Group began plans to redevelop the site as a modern office complex. The £30m project retained and restored the cinema's original façade and employed an Art Deco style in its foyer entrance to reference the history of the building. The venue's auditorium that had been much altered and had fallen into disrepair was demolished. The launch of the new office complex was held on 10th June 2016. Aberdeen Cinemas: La Scala / Majestic
3423 La Scala Cinema was opened on Union Street on 30th April 1914. It was the first purpose-built cinema in Aberdeen, as opposed to an existing building converted for the purpose.
It was designed by John Ednie, Glasgow, and George Sutherland, Aberdeen, and was a branch of the Glasgow La Scala Company.
Luxurious interiors were provided including a tearoom which was run separately from the cinema. There was a musical trio and orchestra for entertainment. This postcard image shows the cinema's tearoom in around 1920.
By 1935, the cinema was out of date and in poor condition. The La Scala closed on Saturday 18th May 1935. The cinema and nearby buildings were demolished and the Majestic Cinema was constructed on the site.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson] Aberdeen Cinemas: La Scala / Majestic
3425 A photograph showing the site of the Majestic, and before that La Scala, cinemas on Union Street in January 2021. The Majestic and the neighbouring Clydesdale Bank building were replaced by the Caledonian House office block seen here. The Majestic closed in 1973 and the completed Caledonian House opened in February 1976. The shops occupying the ground floor in this photograph are a British Heart Foundation Furniture & Electrical Store and a branch of Pret a Manger. Aberdeen Cinemas: News Cinema / Curzon / Cosmo 2
3427 An Aberdeen Journals Archive photograph of the Cosmo 2 at 15 Diamond Street in 1977.
The Cosmo 2 was on the site of Aberdeen's News Cinema that had opened 1936. In 1959 it had become the Curzon. In 1963 the Curzon was sold to Singleton Cinemas, a Glasgow based cinema operating firm that had been in the business since 1911.
The venue was renovated and re-opened on 22nd January 1964 as the Cosmo 2. The Cosmo 1 was the former King's cinema in Glasgow, owned by Singleton Cinemas, that is now the Glasgow Film Theatre. The inaugural film at the Cosmo 2 was the Italian film Il Posto directed by Ermanno Olmi.
The Cosmo 2 showed quality British and foreign films that might not have been shown at other cinemas. Michael Thomson likened this valuable role to that of the old La Scala long before. It could also be likened to the role of the Belmont in more recent times.
The Cosmo 2 sadly closed down in August 1977. The closure was credited to a dearth of attractive foreign language films coupled with the now tripled major circuit venues taking a wider range of pictures.
There was much discussion if the venue could be carried on by another party with the Scottish Film Council suggested as a possibility. The smallness of the cinema made this unfeasible however as a Scottish Film Council venue would need adequate meeting and social space.
There were subsequent plans to convert the premises into a restaurant though these came to nothing. The fate of the cinema was sealed in September 1981 when the next-door Palais, then operating as Satchmo's disco club, was destroyed by a serious fire and the site was left roofless. The corner block towards Union Street survives but the rest of the buildings were later demolished and are now the site of a car park.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson]
Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Aberdeen Cinemas: Coliseum / New Kinema / Belmont
3433 An Aberdeen Journals Archive image of the Belmont Cinema in 1952.
The building that now houses the Belmont Filmhouse was originally built in 1896 as a Trades Hall to a design by architects Alexander Ellis and Robert Gordon Wilson.
The grey granite ashlar entrance at 49-51 Belmont Street leads to the main building, best seen from Union Terrace and Rosemount Viaduct. With multiple floors, the building makes full use of the different levels of the Denburn valley. Historic Environmental Scotland's statement of special interest for the building notes its tall and narrow design and bartizan towers at its far end, describing it as "a distinctive piece of architecture."
Michael Thomson explains that the Trades Hall provided much needed accommodation for meetings, social events and lectures. The main hall originally featured ceiling paintings by Robert Douglas Strachan (1875-1950), who went on to become an acclaimed stained-glass artist.
The construction of the hall was an ambitious and costly undertaking for Aberdeen's labour movement. This led to the hall being increasingly rented out for commercial performances, including cinematographic showings.
William Walker, a local cinematographic pioneer who was also a successful bookseller, leased out the building's main hall as a picture house. The Coliseum was opened on 22 August 1910 by Messrs Walker and Company and so began the building's long life as a cinema.
In July 1911 Glasgow's J. J. Bennell took over control of the Coliseum. Popular features of the venue during Walker and Bennell's time included short "topicals" that documented local life and live variety acts. Thomson explains that Bennell was also a pioneer of Saturday morning matinees for children.
In August 1913 Dove Paterson, another local pioneer who had opened Aberdeen's first permanent cinema on Shiprow, took over at the Coliseum. Paterson died unexpectedly in May 1916 and this brought a temporary halt to the Coliseum cinema. It briefly reopened in December of that year under the management of the Trades Hall, but this only lasted a couple of months before the cinema closed again.
The cinema was then managed by veteran singer D. Brown McGill, who made use of his established contacts in variety circles. His tenure saw the venue complementing its programme of film showings with a range of other entertainments including roller skating, boxing and dancing.
On 11th April 1921 the cinema reopened as the New Kinema, under the management of Henry Philips, who had previously run the Picturedrome on Skene Terrace. One interesting performer at the venue in 1929 noted by Michael Thomson was an illusionist called Carletta who conjured up rabbits to give away to patrons as pets.
In 1935 the then proprietors of the New Kinema, James Brebner and George Walker, were involved in the formation of the Caledonian Theatre public company. It was formed to purchase the site of the La Scala cinema and nearby buildings on Union Street with the intention of building a new super-cinema. In time this would become the Majestic.
June 1935 saw the renovation of the New Kinema and renewal of its heating plant, lighting and sound equipment. It reopened as The Belmont on the 24th of that month.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson]
Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Aberdeen Cinemas: Coliseum / New Kinema / Belmont
3437 The cinema on Belmont Street had operated as the Belmont from 24th June 1935. On 4th January 1938 it was announced that James F. Donald (Aberdeen Cinemas) Ltd. had acquired a controlling share in Caledonian Theatres, who ran the Majestic on Union Street and the Belmont. Michael Thomson credits Caledonian Theatres' financial difficulties at this time to their inability to book the best films.
An organisation known as the Ship Contractors' and Ship Wrights' Association had a right to sell bond on the Belmont Street property that included both the cinema and the headquarters of the Aberdeen Trades Council. From 1946 onwards the aforementioned association tried to sell the property and this was contested by the Trades Council. This fight went all the way to the House of Lords but the Trades Council's appeal was dismissed in January 1949.
Caledonian Theatres had attempted to purchase the building outright from the Ship Contractors' and Ship Wrights' Association but this sale was interrupted by the Aberdeen Sheriff Court following an appeal from the Trades Council. In the end the building was sold to the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) in February 1952 to be converted into their new Aberdeen headquarters.
Following this sale, the Belmont cinema closed on down 29th March 1952. Its final film was The Steel Helmet an American film, directed by Samuel Fuller, about the Korean War.
In mid-1956 NAAFI moved its accounts operations out of Aberdeen and put the block up for sale. On 22nd April 1958 the Clydesdale Supply Co. Ltd. moved from premises at 111/2 Rose Street to the former Trades Hall and cinema at 49 Belmont Street. The large premises were employed as the warehouse for the company's wide range of clothing, household goods, furniture, radios, televisions and radiograms. Clydesdale appear to have occupied the building until around 1962.
This Aberdeen Journals Archive photograph from 1966 likely shows the building when it was unoccupied.
During the early 1980s the building was used as a carpet showroom. In October 1994 plans were announced by Aberdeen City Council to create a media centre at 49 Belmont Street. This included three cinema screens, educational facilities and a café bar. The building was converted for this purpose but funding could not be secured for its operation.
The revamped cinema finally opened as The Belmont Picturehouse in September 2000 and was operated by the Picturehouse company. This firm was later bought by Cineworld and had to relinquish the lease on The Belmont in adherence with competition law. In 2014, the Centre for the Moving Image was selected to take on its management and the much-loved cinema became the Belmont Filmhouse.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson]
Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Calendonian House
4400 A photograph, taken on 3rd February 2024, showing Caledonian House, an office block on Union Street, Aberdeen. The building is surrounded by scaffolding, likely for maintenance work.
Caledonian House opened at 234-238 Union Street in February 1976. It was built on the former site of the Majestic Cinema and a branch of the Clydesdale Bank.
The shops occupying the ground floor in this photograph are a British Heart Foundation Furniture & Electrical Store and a outlet of Pret a Manger. Glen Cinema Poster
407 A poster for the Glen Cinema in Culter advertising showings of Home at Seven (1952), Bride of the Gorilla (1951), Call of the Jungle (1944) and Prison Mutiny (1943).
The Glen Cinemas company showed films in various venues throughout the North East of Scotland during the 1930s to early 60s. One of these venues was Culter Community Centre.
Glen Cinemas was founded in 1936 by a local man called Arthur M. Burns. The company folded in 1961. Cinema equipment from the Culter Glen Cinema remained in the community centre for around 21 years before being sold by Burns to the London based collector Ronald Grant.
Grant was born in Banchory and worked as a projectionist in the Playhouse, Majestic and Kingsway cinemas in Aberdeen. He was also the assistant general manager of the Cosmo 2 in Diamond Street, before moving to the British Film Institute in London in 1967. The Ronald Grant Archive of Film and Cinematic Memorabilia remains active today.
Glen Cinemas also operated in the Shepherd's Hall in Bucksburn (also known as the Argosy Ballroom).
See the Aberdeen Press & Journal article 'Culter "upset" over cinema history loss' from 14th September 1982, page 3, and Michael Thomson's book Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) for more information on Glen Cinemas. |