“I was interviewed for the position of Assistance Cinema Manager, with the Rank Organisation, at the Odeon, London Road, Liverpool. The interview was on Bonfire Night, 5th November 1957. Guess who the interviewer was? – Regional Controller, Mr A. J. Rockett.

 

Odeon Cinema, Waterloo, 1957 and the playing of the National Anthem. Just before the end of the last performance of the evening there was usually a rush to exit the cinema as those still in the audience , when the lights went up, were duty bound to stand and wait until ‘God save the Queen’ had been played. All movement stopped when the ‘National Anthem came on and even those people caught half-way out in the aisles would remain still until the ‘Anthem’ was finished.

While working as Assistant Manager at the Royal Hippodrome in West Derby Road, the Fulham football team came in one Friday evening. At that time (1958) they had a few famous players like Jimmy Hill, Graham Leggett and England captain Johnny Haynes; which the older generation will recall. At the interval I put a ‘slide’ on the screen saying, “Welcome to the Fulham Football Club. We hope you enjoy tonight’s show. We hope you don’t enjoy tomorrow’s match against Liverpool quite so much!” They took it in good part and the following day at Anfield the game ended in a 0-0 draw.

Derek also met his wife of over 50 years Eva. She worked as an usherette at the Odeon in Crosby and on his first day on duty was introduced to his wife in an amusing manor.
She came into the cinema scooting her bike through to park it, and wondering what she was doing called out to her ” Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name?” and she replied “That’s because I didn’t throw it”, and continued to go through the cinema to park her bike, unaware that he was the new manager.

Later that day the usherette had to line up in front of the cinema manager who at the time was a man named Sammy Moore, in what was called ‘The Managers Parade’ – whereby the usherette would line up to be inspected upon appearance and smartness of their uniform. The usherettes were then introduced to the new assistant manager, and Derek and Eva were formly introduced. Fell in love and have been married ever since.”

Derek Anderton

The cinema became a place where women could find employment in the form of, ticket sellers, usherettes and kiosk sales staff.

Working in a cinema at that time was regarded as an acceptable job for women, and one in which she could easily fit around her family commitments by working in the cinema at weekends and evenings.

Staff from The Palladium, Seaforth c.1951

The usherette or ice cream lady as she was known by the children would have a variety of duties to perform to assist in the smooth operation and safety of the patrons of the cinema. Her duties included collecting tickets and showing people to their seats, selling ice creams and refreshments during the intermission and general cleaning and presentation of the cinema.

Staff from the Queens Picture House c.1943

The ticket sellers would work from an area known as the pay box or pay booth and would sell tickets to the public for film shows as well as provide information about new films coming to the cinema.

kiosk sales staff would sell refreshments and sometimes cigarettes and film magazines from a counter at the cinema. They would sometimes be paid a commission on sales.

In some cinemas the usherettes would go around the cinema spraying disinfectant or Flit spray to eliminate the odour of teenagers and dispel any unwanted creatures such as fleas which may have came into the highly populated cinema.

Commissionaires would be on duty at some of the cinemas, their role was to maintain order in the queues and also acted as support to some of the other cinema staff. Commissionaires would often be smartly dressed wearing a long coat and peaked hat bearing the cinema name on a band in the front, almost military like in appearance. At special events, commissionaires would open doors for special guests and would often be the first point of contact to cinema patrons.

The cinema manager would oversee the staff, running and daily workings of the cinema. They would be in charge of staff and make sure they appeared smart and were prepared for what was then, very busy times working in the cinema. The cinema manager would also be the promoter of the cinema and would have to think up marketing strategies or ways of advertising the cinema and forth coming attractions. The cinema manager would also have to know how to work the projection machines in case there was a problem. Some cinema mangers who worked for circuits such as The Rank Organisation – Circuits Management would be in competition with other cinemas as to the best promotion of the films and cinemas, and as film and news reels were distributed between cinemas would benefit from having a good relationship with other cinema managers in the area. Cinema managers would always dress smartly and would greet the cinema patrons upon arrival and departure of the cinema.

The Projectionists would be in charge of running the film shows to the patrons at the cinema. Film shows at the time didn’t just consist of one film as they do at cinemas today, from the 30′s to the 60′s a cinema program would often consist of adverts, sometimes of a local nature, The Newsreel such as Pathe or British Movie Tone, a ‘B’ film, a cartoon and then the main feature film. Cinemas provided a full afternoon or evenings entertainment and the projectionist would have to oversee the film show from what was sometimes a small projection box area, maintaining the film reels and making film reel changes at the appropriate points within the film show.

Cinema Page Boys
Memories passed down through families have been shared with the project regarding both cinema attendance and working at cinemas. One such memory is from Shelagh who’s both grandfathers worked at a local old Picture Houses in the area. One worked in a cinema called The Corona which was on college road as a page boy, the other was a musician who played in a cinema orchestra during the days of silent films.

Page boy’s were employed by some cinemas to promote the cinema and what films were showing. They would wear a sandwich board displaying bill posters and travel around the area as a walking advertisement.

Cinema orchestras and musicians
Before the days of talking film cinemas would have musical accompanying the films to help create atmosphere and feelings. Some cinemas would have whole orchestras or organ players, other smaller cinemas would just have maybe a piano.

This is a flyer for the 1967 film ‘A Guide for the Married Man’ which was distributed to Rank Cinema patrons, the film in fact carried an ‘X’ certificate although viewed today can be considered quite tame and only carry a PG certificate.

In the early days of cinema films for children would often be of American origin and sometimes just be adult films which had been edited until British films especially made for the child audience came along.

Concerns about the effects that the popularity of film was having on children had been raised by educationalists, the church and the press. Several reports and research surveys had looked into this area, one of the most notable being the Wheare Report in 1950.

J Arthur Rank who was a devout member of the methodist church and was also a Sunday School teacher, he found showing the students religious films would get messages across just as well as lecturing, this practice was extended to other Sunday schools and led to the formation of The Religious Film Society. His father was a millionaire flour mill owner and he had been brought up with strict moral codes.

His intrests led him into film production and he helped to form British National Film with the first commercial film in 1935 called ‘Tom’s Ride’. Rank wanted films to tell a moral story as well as be entertaining for the children and families. He found wide distribution of the film to be difficult due to ties with British distributors and Hollywood. As a solution bought and controlled some of the means of film production, distribution and exhibition.

He became head of the Gaumont and Odeon cinema chains and had interests in both Lime Grove and Pinewood Film Studios and wanted British made films and serials for the children’s cinema matinee programs.

He continued making films in this vein under Ranks’s Gaumont British Instructional Division, heralding the start of British made films especially for a children’s cinema matinee audience. They continued making films for Rank cinemas and became known as the Children’s Film Department and from 1947 became The CEF – Children’s Entertainment Films.

Film making is a costly business and when the Rank Organisation could not sustain funding the CEF and following publication of the Wheare report in 1950, which looked at the effect of juvinile cinem going and the influence of films, a collaboration within the British Film Industry was formed and supported by the Rank organisation – The Children’s Film Foundation -{CFF} was formed. The CFF had a remit to create films especially for children’s cinema matinees and suitable for showing within schools.

The funding for this was supported by the Eady Levy, a tax put onto cinema tickets. This continued for over 50 years until 1985 when the levy was abolished.

In the 1960’s the decline of the Children’s Film Foundation mirrored what was happening in cinemas all over the country. The 60’s brought about changes in society and the way in which people in society viewed things. Increased choice in places for entertainment and activities, changes in attitudes and the increase in ownership of televisions as well as increased choice oF television programmes, were factors which contributed to a decline in cinema admissions. Many cinemas had already closed by this point and the decrease in venues and sales continued. Children didn’t have to “Come Along” to the cinema on a Saturday morning for their entertainment, instead they had Saturday Morning Television.

Due to funding restraints and the decrease in Children’s cinema matinees in 1982 the CFF became the CFTF {Children’s Film & Television Foundation} and by 1987 the CFTF ended film making and went onto serve as an advisory body for children’s film and television. In 2012 the CFTF once again changed its name to The Children’s Media Foundation with its tag line being
“Ensuring that UK children have the widest choice of quality media”

In the 1950’s the average weekly attendance to children’s cinema matinees was over 1,016,000 with 1735 cinemas holding cinema matinees for children. {Source: media statistics website taken from report from Wheare Committee http://terramedia.co.uk}

Society at the time was more restrained in some ways than it is today, children were confined at home and school and the cinema on a Saturday was a place to be free and exercise their spirit. It was a place where gangs of kids could meet or come along together in a safe environment that provided a chance for parents to have some free time in the knowledge that their children were in a safe, warm and social
environment each week.

Cinema Clubs
The format of the Children’s Cinema Matinee varied slightly between Picture Houses. Some would be held on a Saturday morning others would be a Saturday afternoon. Some lucky children would attend two children’s film shows in a day at the local cinemas, providing them with a full mornings and afternoons entertainment.

Several cinemas especially ones who were part of the larger circuits such as the Odeon and The Gaumont Cinemas would have a club type atmosphere within their cinema matinees. The children would receive a badge and come up onto the stage when it was their birthday to receive a free ice cream or tickets to next week’s matinee. The notion of film clubs helped to develop the habit of going to the pictures from a young age which organisations like Rank and Odeon hoped would continue to turn young cinema goers into lifelong film fans.

Before the days of films made especially for children , what was shown within the children’s cinema matinees would often be an adult film which had either a ‘U’ rating or one which had been edited for the children’s matinee. Many of these films were said to “have a certain harmful morale and psychological influence on children ” { Frank Tyrer document Children and the Cinema 1948} There would often be adult themes shown, with very few child actors having a main or starring role until the development of Children’s Entertainment film in the 1940’s later The Children’s Film Foundation. This began as a trend in the market and resulted in a profitable business in producing films specifically for a young audience.