The project has focused on 21 cinemas in the areas of Crosby, Waterloo, Seaforth, Litherland and Bootle which have played a part in our community and formed fond memories and helped shape and develop opinions and ideas on the world through the medium of cinema.

These memories have helped create this website, a film, a documentary and a Cinema Heritage Trail.

The memories we have recorded have also been placed within the North West Sound Archive and Sefton Records Office to be stored and kept for future generations.

We have also recorded and digitally scanned several pieces of local cinema memorabilia from collections of local cinema goers who have contributed to the project and our aims in helping to preserve a part of our local heritage which could have been lost.

Living in a modern, world with instant and on demand access to media makes it difficult for younger generations to percieve the social phenomonom and importance of Going to the Pictures.

For our parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents, and their families before, the cinema offered an escape from what was sometimes a harsh world, a warm and luxurious environment in which to socialise and be entertained and informed.

Cinemas not only showed films but also news programs in the form of Newsreels. These provided information about what was going on in the world, putting moving pictures to what was only read about in newspaers or heard on the radio before the days of television and the internet.

They gave a place within the local community to meet and socialise and offered variety in the choice and frequency of films.

There were many cinemas to choose from and Going to the Pictures was a weekly part of life which was an affordable luxury.

Cinemas were good value for money when times were austere providing a full nights entertainment or an escape for the children to a Saturday Cinema Show for a few pennies or an exchanged jam jar or two.

This website provides initial sources of information for further research into the subject. It has first hand accounts from people telling their experiences of the golden age of cinema.

Through the project we have been looking at several themes and asked questions about going to the pictures relating to these themes. The Themes are – Picture Palaces, Children’s Cinema Matinees, Gender in Cinema, Cinema and Society, and Memorabilia

Memories and background information can be found under each of the Theme Headings and through ‘tag’ words through the website.

The site is really easy to navigate so sit back and enjoy Going to the Pictures.

1. Plaza / Odeon / Classic / Apollo
2. Corona Cinema
3. The Regent
4. Crosby Cinema / Crosby Picture House
5. The Queens Picture House
6. Winter Gardens
7. Bijou Cinema
8. The Lathom Hall Picture Palace
9. The Palladium
10. Stella Cinema
11. Electric Picture Palace
12. The Regal
13. The Coliseum / Essoldo
14. Broadway / Gaumont / Odeon – Bootle
15. The Gainsborough
16. Picture Palace Of Bootle
17. New Princes Theatre / Strand Cinema / Muncaster / The Ranch
18. The Palace
19. The Metropole
20. The Sun Hall / Imperial Cinema
21. The Winter Gardens Theatre / Apollo

The documentary will soon be available to view on this website.

The film was created by film maker Christina Condron and up and coming new film maker and project volunteer Sean Reynolds, who have filmed over 50 interviews with local cinema goers and staff from the ‘golden age of cinema’. Additional camera assistance was provided by Bill Morris, John Lines and Beth Greenwood. Sound and image editing support by Jordan Plant.

Archive photographs were provided from Sefton Records Office, Liverpool Records Office and Keith Rose.

We would like to sincerley thank all those who shared their cinema memories on camera with us for the Going to the Pictures Project. We have enjoyed sharing your memories and appreciate your time and contribution inhelping preserve our local cinema heritage.

The Going to the Pictures film was screened at the Project Showcase Event at the Plaza Community Cinema in March 2013.
The full film will soon be available to view through this website.

DOWNLOAD THE CINEMA HERITAGE TRAIL MAP (pdf – 1.2mb – A4 landscape)

The films shown would depend on the  cinema and what film circuit it was under. New films were released in what was called first runs or first release , these would generally go out to the larger circuit of cinemas first,usually  in town centres before being released to surburban cinemas in what would be called the second run or second release, this could sometimes be weeks or months later.

Films were also re – released, often years after their initial showing in cinemas, but as film programmes changed so frequently and often more than one film would be shown within the weekly program, a chance to see a film again was popular with cinema goers.

The smaller cinema circuits and independent cinemas often struggled to get first or even second run films but as cinema going was such a popular pastime  a screening of a re-release  would be well attended.

Here we have an original copy of a Cinema programme from  Bootle Odeon  June 1963. in the programme there were two re-releases from 1954 , ‘Ulysees’ and ‘Atilla the Hun’, both films were described as ‘Sword and Sandals’ films, but were still popular with audiences almost nine years after original first release.

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As well as adverising forthcoming and current film attractions, cinema programmes often promoted local business as well. Local firms would pay for advertising space which would assist in the cost of publication of the cinema programme.

The adverts themselves are quite interesting pieces of social history. One of the adverts on the programme below is for a heel bar in Bootle, offering to change the colour of your shoes to match your summer outfit, this is a service unheard of today in our modern disposable consumer society.

Although by this time television in the home had become more popular, we can see from this  cinema programme that the showing of older films or re releases was still common place. Notice that the first double programme of the month were two re releases;  ’Witness For The Prosecution’ from 1957 and ‘The Far Country’  from 1954.

The biblical epic ‘Barabbas’  from 1962 was at the time on general release.

The ‘X’ rated main feature ‘Grip of Fear ‘ states underneath ‘Adults only’

Notice that two of the supporting features were re releases;  ’Operation Mad Ball,’ 1957, and ’3 Coins in a Fountain,’ 1954 and were abridged versions. This means that the film had been edited or condensed to fit in with the timings of the main feature and other film screenings.

The book has several versions and was written by local Waterloo man and film projectionist Harold Ackroyd.

Harold worked in several cinemas around Liverpool and was a cinema and film fanatic. So much so, that he had a room in his home covered into his own private cinema and held regular film screenings for close friends.

The book tells the story of every cinema in Liverpool from cinemas hey day and also has many photographs and local cinema adverts and other items of interest. It really is worth a read and a great resource for further information about the cinemas we have looked at through the Going to the Pictures project.