Author Topic: Cinemas of Llandudno  (Read 50089 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline DaveR

  • Administrator
  • Posts: 13712
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #30 on: June 12, 2013, 06:02:32 pm »
That's actually the Leicester Square Odeon, they must have used it as the generic Odeon illustration for all of their cinemas.

Offline Trojan

  • Member
  • Posts: 3327
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #31 on: June 14, 2013, 08:04:44 pm »
 :laugh: Should have used that as a quiz question.


Offline phil

  • Member
  • Posts: 11
  • Born in the Bay but exiled for now!
    • Colwyn Bay and Beyond.
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #32 on: August 18, 2013, 10:25:47 am »
just to add a bit of trivia my mother used to tell me when i was a kid about when she worked in the Cosy Cinema in Colwyn Bay, and i used to trot along to the Rhos Playhouse (fleapit) on a Saturday Morning to watch episodes of Flash Gordon etc, I remember also seeing the film The Longships (i think it was called)  there. I also remember standing outside the Savoy in Llandudno with my mate trying to get an  adult to take us in with them to watch Lawrence of Arabia an A category film.

Former Cosy Cinema, 6 Conway Road, Colwyn Bay

This is the site of the first chapel in Colwyn Bay, Capel Cyntaf. The rear wall of the chapel can still be seen, if you walk along the back alley between Penrhyn Road and Station Road.

When the Welsh community built their new chapel, Engedi, in Woodland Road West, the renowned local architect Sydney Colwyn Foulkes was commissioned (c.1925) to design a building with a small, bijou cinema on the ground floor. The building included offices above, which became his own office. His secretary, Audrey Lee, used to listen to the film being shown below her office while she typed.

The three-row balcony can still be seen inside the present hardware store. The screen was suspended on the inside of the front wall, so that as you entered the cinema you looked directly at the audience. The cinema closed in the late 1950s and has been a shop ever since. The current occupier, Matthews & Son Hardware, is a traditional ironmongers’ shop famous locally for holding what seems an impossibly comprehensive stock for such a small building.

What you could watch at the Cosy Cinema:

During the Second World War, in August 1940, the film being shown was Night Train to Munich, starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood. Later in the same month it was Arouse and Beware, starring Wallace Beery and Dolores Del Rio.
I have always been Welsh First, British Second and European Third, i am proud of my Celtic heritage and passionately proud my hometown which in my view has seen better days but still has a lot going for it.

Offline Cambrian

  • Genealogy & Research team
  • *
  • Posts: 909
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #33 on: August 18, 2013, 05:44:46 pm »
Phil - I think the Cosy became a branch of Telefusion after it ceased to be a cinema.  I can remember someone pointing out where the screen used to be as you describe.

Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13882
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #34 on: February 06, 2022, 09:52:18 am »
The much-loved North Wales cinemas which are now confined to history
Visiting your local cinema was a major source of entertainment

I remember when Llandudno had four cinemas, they were the Odean,  Palladium,  Princess and the Savoy.      When we went to the Savoy one of the lads would pay to go in and go straight into the Gents.    Inside the gents was the exit door that led into Mostyn Street so that person would open the door and several lads would be waiting outside and then come in.   We would lock the exit door again
It's strange that they didn't notice so many teenagers coming out of the Gents when only one person went in


https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/nostalgia/much-loved-north-wales-cinemas-22942299

Offline DVT

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 1045
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #35 on: February 06, 2022, 11:51:23 am »
That was taking the p***  !!!

Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13882
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #36 on: February 06, 2022, 05:40:46 pm »
In more ways than one DVT           Those were the days!    $good$

Offline norman08

  • Ad Free Member
  • *
  • Posts: 961
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #37 on: February 06, 2022, 07:35:36 pm »
They were great times Hugo,  as you say one would go in the cinema in darkness and then the exit door would open light the place up 😂   That's how we got in to see the X films aged 12.

Offline Bri Roberts

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 3099
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #38 on: February 06, 2022, 08:18:15 pm »
Strange how I often wondered why that light went on for no apparent reason.

Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13882
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #39 on: February 07, 2022, 09:30:11 am »
In the Gents the exit door was always closed before we walked into the Cinema so no light should have shown.    At the screen end in Bodafon Street though  the doors came open and in came a crowd of local lads who as quick as a flash crawled like commandos under the seats before the usherettes could get to them.

Offline DVT

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 1045
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #40 on: February 07, 2022, 12:05:17 pm »
Was it the Savoy that had the double-seats for the back row?

I think the cinema in Rhos also had them.

Was a long time ago!  "Courting" has changed a lot nowadays!

Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13882
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #41 on: February 07, 2022, 12:53:44 pm »
Rhos flea pit certainly had double seats at the back, I can vouch for that but I don't know about the Savoy.

It was a long time ago DVT  and I can remember the Odean charging about one shilling ( 5  pence new money)  to go in, but I still used to meet my dates inside the  cinema!        ;D 

Offline Cambrian

  • Genealogy & Research team
  • *
  • Posts: 909
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #42 on: February 07, 2022, 02:33:54 pm »
Just a couple of memories.  I can recall going to the old Prince's Cinema (later Farm Foods and HMV) to see a model railway layout. This would be in the mid 1950s when I think it must have ceased to be a cinema as the front stalls had been removed for the layout.

The Savoy was unusual for round here as it had two aisles.

As an aside, the Savoy, Odeon and Palladium were all designed by local architect Arthur Hewitt. 

Offline Ian

  • Administrator
  • Posts: 8949
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #43 on: February 07, 2022, 07:56:20 pm »
Rhos flea pit certainly had double seats at the back, I can vouch for that but I don't know about the Savoy.

It was a long time ago DVT  and I can remember the Odean charging about one shilling ( 5  pence new money)  to go in, but I still used to meet my dates inside the  cinema!        ;D

Not a lot of folk know this, but both the Bingo hall/cinema in Colwyn Bay and the Rhos cinema had the very latest in Sound and projection gear in the mid-late '60s.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline SteveH

  • Management Board Member & Newsgroup Editor
  • *
  • Posts: 12989
Re: Cinemas of Llandudno
« Reply #44 on: February 08, 2022, 09:55:28 am »
Rhos flea pit certainly had double seats at the back, I can vouch for that but I don't know about the Savoy.

I seem to recall, that those double seats, where old aircraft seats, and I do remember one film in the early 60's  the rather bawdy "Tom Jones" the audience comments during the the film where enthusiastic to say the least.