Description
Cinema goers on the steps of Bolton Odeon. The cinema had opened only a month before this photograph was taken. On this day (27th September 1937) the Odeon was hosting a special event featuring comedian Sandy Powell and footballing stars from local team, Bolton Wanderers. The building was demolished in February 2007 to make way for a new development. As of August 2012 no building work has started.
I can remember in the 60’s the Odeon was Bolton’s main cinema.
I watched many a film in the Odeon “Jungle Book”, “Mary Poppins” and many other childrens films on a saturday afternoon. Later on as I was in the Thornleigh brass band we also made concerts in the Odeon or the Town Hall, also with our musical group showing “My Fair Lady” or other musicals. These musicals were very interesting that time because as we were an only boys school, usually younger boys with higher voices had to play the feminine rolls in the musicals. We had one boy he had a fantastic high voice when singing.
After the cinema we went to the Bolton bus station and while waiting for a bus towards Hulton Lane we got a hot cocoa for six pence from a coffee maschine in the bus station. Very nice in the winter months.
The Odean club on Saturday mornings in the 60s was brilliant for us kids. Lots of old films (3 stooges etc) and entertainment.
It was the first place we were allowed to go unaccompanied by adults and we all felt ‘dead grown up’.
Everyone loved the Odean, it seemed luxurious and special.
The Odeon was used as a venue in the 1960s for packaged tours. There were unlikely mixes such as Engelbert Humperdinck and Jimi Hendrix. I can’t remember if the tours but there were a few.
In 1981 my 20 year old cousin took me to watch Friday the 13th/Mad Max as a double bill on a Sunday evening. I was 15 at the time & both of these features were an ‘X’ certificate (now 18). I was petrified; not by the films, but the thought of being underage & not gaining admittance – however the films scared myself too. My cousin paid the money & I just kept my head down & amazingly got in!
I don’t remember which screen the films were in, but it was one of the smaller ones. It’s a shame I can’t recall going when it was a magnificent single auditorium, as my first experience at the Odeon was Diamonds are Forever (1971). It may have encroached into 1972 when my father took me to see it & around this time, tripling had come into effect. I can’t recall whether we’d seen it in the original setting – or not.
6pm Mass on Sundays at St Mary’s on Palace Street followed by the Odeon: Mantovani (all those violins); Pearl and Dean, I think; then the likes of Sean Connery in his white tuxedo electrocuting some random baddie before Shirley Bassey belts out ‘Goldfinger’ and Honor Blackman plays Pussy Galore ( a strange name to be sure for an innocent young teenager to comprehend.) It was classified as an A so I had to stand on tip-toe and pretend I was sophisticated to get in.
I went most Sundays in my early and mid teens as it was the premier cinema at the time. It didn’t stop occasional visits to the Capitol (ABC) on Churchgate or the Lido on Bradshawgate. Not to mention the Queens at the end of Trinity Street and several others.