ABC West Ealing
1 Northfield Avenue,
London,
W13 9RH
1 Northfield Avenue,
London,
W13 9RH
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In 1928, the proprietor was John Myers. In 1929, the proprietor was National Projects Ltd. John Myers was retained as Managing Director (and A.E Bundy is chairman). In Jan 1929, the Kinema appears to be one of the first/ an early adopter of the British Phototone Co Systems. West Ealing cinema becomes Lido in late 1931. Source: British Newspaper Archives
Photographed as the Cannon in 1990:
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Here is a photo of the cinema (scanned so not high quality) taken around 1999/2000 when it was the Gosai
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Sorry for any confusion resulting from my previous comments. What I was actually referring to was, of course, the screen MASKING, not the non-existant tabs! Even the oil-wheels that Jason mentioned weren’t used for great periods of time when the lamps blew, and spares were not quick enough in coming from head-office.
After twinning, both cinemas DID have screen tabs in the form of rolls of black material of some sort – approximately 4 inches wide – which popped over the top of the screen, when needed, and uncurled themselves vertically. After a few years they stopped working properly – Studio 1 customers got their money back one night when one of the tabs wouldn’t raise for a ‘scope presentation – and operators 'Star Group’, not being well renowned for the quality of their maintainance, didn’t bother fixing them. A friend of mine, who worked in another Star cinema at the time, believes that the offending tab was eventually removed using a pair of scissors, so they were never used in taht screen again.
It wasn’t that bad! Though maybe the years have given me a rose tinted view of the place. For some reason I saw a lot of films here including most of the James Bond series and still remember well the climb to the first floor box office to buy tickets. The cinema didn’t have screen tabs, instead there were those lava lamp oil patterns that spiralled over the screen while you waited for the trailers. Far out man!
The projection box was actually located ABOVE the original circle, accessed via a spiral staircase. I believe this to have been the case even when there was only one auditorium – the original screen was certainly raked at one heck of an angle! In the ‘Studio 1&2’ years, the box housed a pair of Westar projectors, complete with long-play towers, so goodness knows how they got those up there.