The aim of the Going to the Pictures Project has been to help preserve a part of our local cinema heritage by collecting and recording memories from people who used and worked in the local picture houses from the 1930′s to the 1960′s.
Explore this map of 21 local cinemas within a 3 mile radius of the Plaza, from 1930 to 1960.
If you got in for the ‘Penny Rush’ you had extra money for sweets – Toms early 1930′s matinee memories
Explore this map of 21 local cinemas within a 3 mile radius of the Plaza, from 1930 to 1960.
The project has been very fortunate in having several people who have come forward with items or collections of cinema memorabilia. Volunteers through the project have helped to scan and digitize materials.
In 1933/34 I went to “The Pictures” for the first time, but I was not impressed. The black and white film was very old and scratched; it looked like driving rain to me. A few years later I went again and paid a penny to get in with a penny for ice cream in the interval.
Cinema programs were freely available within cinemas and used to promote forth coming films and local buisinesses. Here we have an original copy of a program from the Bootle Odeon for June 1963
The beautiful building was demolished and now shops stand in its place
My first memory of the pictures is coming to the Plaza to see ‘Oliver’.
Some of the females stars through the decades who drew in the crowds at the cinema