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A Short History of the
EMD
"One of London's two finest surviving cinemas" - Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard, 2008
Waltham Forest's EMD Cinema stands on a site which has provided entertainment and culture to local people for well over a century.
The original Victoria Hall opened during May 1887 to provide a venue for dances, concerts, meetings and plays. The site's long association with the movies began when it played host to one of London's first ever film shows in 1896, the year of cinema's birth. The Victoria Hall was converted into the area's first dedicated full time cinema in 1907 and is believed to have been a haunt of the young Alfred Hitchcock who lived nearby.
In 1930 the Victoria Hall was purchased by Cecil Bernstein of Granada Theatres who decided to reinvent the site as a modern 'Super Cinema'.
The architect of the new 2,697 seat 'Granada Cinema' was Cecil Massey, with flamboyant interior decorations by the famous Russian stage designer Theodore Komisarjevsky. The cinema was immediately notable for its unusual Moorish / Spanish interior and a white painted stucco façade.
The Walthamstow venue reopened on 15th September 1930 at 7.30pm with a First Night programme consisting of a stage show, music by a 20 piece orchestra, a recital on the newly installed Christie theatre organ and a screening of the feature film "Splinters" starring Nelson Keys and Sydney Howard. Initially the venue operated as a 'Cine-Variety' theatre, presenting a mixture of live entertainment and films. It was therefore equipped with first rate stage facilities and in later years would play host to such entertainment legends as The Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Scott Walker, The Who, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and numerous others.
The vast venue was remodelled as a more modest triple screen cinema in October 1973, reflecting the changing tastes of cinemagoers but still retaining all the architectural and decorative features for which it had become famous. Two new screening rooms were built under the former Circle (which itself became Cinema 1) while a new modern projection box was installed to serve all three cinemas.
In 1989 the venue was acquired by the Cannon group of cinemas and by the late 1990s had been absorbed into the Odeon chain. In 2000, Odeon management decided to dispense with many of its older style cinemas. The Walthamstow venue was then sold to Mr Mohan Sharma and EMD Cinemas with a restrictive covenant preventing the screening of English Language films. This restrictive sales clause caused outrage amongst local people and led directly to the formation of the McGuffin Film Society to help restore the venue as a community-wide resource. In April 2001, Odeon management finally relented and the EMD Cinema was then able to screen any film and in any language.
After 116 years as the area's flagship site for arts and entertainment, the building closed its doors to the public in 2003 when it was purchased by a controversial Brazil-based religious organisation called the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG).
The EMD Cinema has been scheduled by English Heritage as a Grade 2* Listed Building in recognition of its outstanding architectural and cultural significance. The EMD is the only British venue which retains an original Christie theatre organ in situ and is an important landmark for students and afficianadoes of cinema history.
The address
of the EMD cinema is:
186 Hoe Street
Walthamstow
London
E17 4LS
These four
images may be purchased as a set of postcards.
Click
here for details. |
