Cinema
Polperro,
PL13
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Polperro is a large village, civil parish and fishing harbour within the Polperro Heritage Coastline in south Cornwall, situated midway between Looe and Fowey.
Aside from shows run by a Mr Leonard, at a 120-seat church schoolroom, between 1927 and 1931 (the year before the schoolroom was demolished, perhaps also not wishing to install a sound system), the village did not have any access to film entertainment until around 1954.
That year, the Kinematograph Year Book lists shows at The Cinema, run by Mrs S. B. Pearn, with 144 seats and British Thomson Houston(BTH) sound. The small, stone-built building appears to have been a factory unit or a warehouse. A simple CINEMA sign was hung over the doorway and a poster advertising THE CINEMA: Nightly at 7.30, with a matinee on Saturday, was put up at the side of the doorway.
By 1959, according to the Kinematograph Year Book, the seating had been reduced to 130.
By October 1961 the Cinema was struggling, and the owner was considering closing for the winter. A regular attendee suggested that patrons might be willing to buy a ticket each week, whether they attended or not, in effect giving a regular donation, and said he had already found 53 people willing to do this.
It is not known how this scheme proceeded, or whether the Cinema stayed open that winter. But it did soldier on for a few more years, with its final listing in the Kinematograph Year Books being in 1964. It is assumed that the Cinema closed around that time.
(Note: It has not been possible to track down the address of this cinema. It is, however, assumed that the building still stands.)
Contributed by
David Simpson
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Recent comments (view all 1 comments)
In the Cinema Theatre Association’s November/December 2021 ‘Bulletin’, Terry Hanstock reported that the Cinema was originally owned by Edwin Pearn, a local coal merchant. He had been born in 1888 and died in 1949, after which his widow Susan (presumably the Mrs S. B. Pearn mentioned in the Overview) and their son, Keith, continued to operate the Cinema.