Electric Palace Cinema, Harwich

Electric Palace cinema, Harwich.

The Electric Palace Cinema, in Harwich, Essex, England, is one of the oldest purpose built cinemas in the UK that survives in its original form. It was designed by the architect Harold Ridley Hooper of Ipswich, Suffolk and opened on 29 November 1911.

The cinema closed in 1956 after being damaged in the 1953 East Coast floods, but re-opened in 1981, retaining the original screen, projection room and frontage as well as much of the original interior. It is now a community cinema. Until 2006, when a Wednesday screening programme was introduced, films were shown at weekends only. The building also hosts regular jazz concerts.

The cinema is a Grade II* listed building and in 2009 was removed from the Buildings At Risk Register maintained by English Heritage following structural refurbishment, the completion of which, was celebrated on 15th July 2009.

In November 2006, British actor Clive Owen became patron of the cinema and helped launch an appeal to raise funds to help repair this historic building.

History

The Electric Palace cinema, Harwich, is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas to survive complete with its silent screen, original projection room and ornamental frontage still intact. Other interesting features include an open plan entrance lobby complete with paybox, and a small stage plus dressing rooms although the latter are now unusable. There is also a former gas powered generator engine with a 7 foot fly wheel situated in the basement.

The cinema was built in 18 weeks at a cost of £1,500 and opened on Wednesday, November 29th, 1911, the first film being The Battle of Trafalgar and The Death of Nelson. The creator of the Palace was Charles Thurston a travelling showman well known in East Anglia, and the architect was Harold Hooper, a dynamic young man of 26 years who demonstrated his imaginative flair with this his first major building. The cinema closed in 1956 after 45 years interrupted only by the 1953 floods and was listed as a building of sociological interest in September 1972 and is now a Grade II listed building.

It re-opened in 1981 and now runs as a community cinema showing films every weekend.

Patron of the Electric Palace

Clive Owen became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema, Harwich. He made his first official visit to the Electric Palace on 10th November 2006 to launch the Electric Palace Appeal.

Projectors at the Electric Palace

1911

Kalee projector from Charles Thurston's travelling show with a Gaumont as No 2.

1927

Kalee replaced with a new Gaumont. Wax Disc sound system used.

1930

Film sound track Gaumont machines Syntok sound apparatus.

1935

Kalee machines with Western Electric sound system.

1956

The cinema closed.

1981

When the cinema re-opened Kalee Dragons were installed. These came from the Admiralty Cinema, Whitehall where Churchill used to watch the rushes of the war newsreels. The lamps were Vulcan arcs from the local Regent Cinema in Dovercourt. They were used at the re-opening of the cinema when a programme about the event was made for Blue Peter, the BBC children's programme.

1985

Kalee 20s and Peerless carbon arcs were installed replacing the Kalee Dragons. The projectors came from the Odeon Cinema in Clacton in Essex and the Peerless carbon arcs came from the Regal Cinema in Stowmarket, Suffolk. The sound system was initially driven by a Western Electrics valve amplifier. This was replaced by a Dolby A sound system with control box and fader, which came from the ABC Cinema, in Ipswich, Suffolk.

1998

With the help of an Arts Council of England lottery grant the projection system was refurbished. Xenon arc bulbs replaced the carbon arcs and new rectifiers were fitted. A Dolby digital CP400 processor became the main sound system backed up by the existing analogue system. The reel arms were extended to take 6000 foot reels and inverters were installed for the drive motors. New Isco wide screen and anamorphic lenses were installed. To complement the 35mm projectors there is an Elf 1000 watt 16mm projector which came from British Telecom at Martlesham Heath.

For the main shows old twin projector system is still being used and for digital films made by new filmmakers there are video projector facilities.

Palace Digital Fund

A new campaign has been launched to bring Harwich’s iconic cinema into the digital age. The cost of the new digital equipment will be about £55,000 and the Electric Palace Trust aims to raise the money by November 2011 when the cinema celebrates its century.

The cinema will retain the two 60 year old Kalee 21 projectors which currently are used to show new and old 35mm films so that in future when new releases will all be digital, it will still be possible to screen pre-digital-age films such as those from the National Archive of the British Film Institute. Over the years the Electric Palace has built up a very good working relationship with the BFI because it can project these historic films on the class of machines on which they were projected at first release.

Entertainment at the Palace

In its heyday between 1912 and the 1920s the Electric Palace was the centre of entertainment in Harwich. From the beginning the programmes were full of variety and often the major part of the bill would be taken up with vaudeville rather than films. The venue was regularly played by a wide spectrum of entertainers including acrobats, burlesques, conjurors, hypnotists, impersonators, singers, patterers, knockabouts mimics, dancers and comedians. Notable among this latter group was the young Scottish comedian Will Fyffe who was stationed at Felixstowe during the First World War. Billy Good, who was later the resident pianist, remembered well Will Fyffe?s appearances at the Palace and it seems that they were an exception since most of the variety acts between 1915 and 1918 were either juveniles or those too old for active service in the World War.

In the golden age of the Electric Palace society was still fairly rigidly stratified into classes and this reflected in the seating arrangements. Entry to the better seats was through the front entrance foyer, the prices being sixpence for good seats and one shilling for the very best.

The cheaper seats were simply wooden benches and entry to these was past another paybox down an alley at the side. This entrance was known as the 'tuppenny rush.' One doorman remembered the rush being so great that he ended up flat on his back with the children stampeding over him as in a Mack Sennett comedy - and most of them getting in for nothing!

The programme advertisements in the local paper, the Harwich and Dovercourt Standard, of 1912 and 1913 are full of fun and exclamation marks. Great play is made of the superb ventilation, the regular disinfection of the auditorium, the sedate and orderly composure of the clientele, and the exclusiveness of the films.

From the outset the films and vaudeville acts were accompanied at the piano. Billy Good, the pianist from 1920-1922 recalled the very long hours worked by all the staff and particularly himself arduously craning up at the screen from the rather dingy pit recessed into the floor in front of the stage. However, the 'pit neck ache' didn't matter since he was 100% engrossed in the music and loved every minute of it playing two houses every night except Sunday for £1-15s-0d. a week. Billy's career changed course in 1922 when one day a potato chip machine took slices from his fingers rather than the potato. He carried on playing 'with left thumb and little finger 'hors-de-combat' but it didn't take 'old Gilbert', the manager, long to notice the difference. He poked his head over the pit rail and said "You young rascal, you've got a bloody cheek" which under the circumstances was rather appropriate, and possibly literally true. So Billy went off to sea to harden up his injured fingers and when the cinema reopened in 1981 Billy Good, by then in his eighties, returned to the cinema to provide musical accompaniment once again to the occasional silent film.

Community

Since reopening in 1981, the cinema has been managed by a Limited Company which is a subsidiary of the Harwich Electric Palace Trust that owns the building. Almost all the staff of the Limited Company work as volunteers, this includes the directors, projectionists, managers and sales people. The Limited Company usually makes a small profit which is then paid over to the charitable Trust and thereby used for the maintenance and upgrading of the building. The cinema runs on a club basis and most of the Club Membership income is used to pay for insurance - one of its chief expenses.

The cinema has no subsidies except for very special events when a grant makes it was possible to present gala screening, for example - of a silent classic with live orchestral accompaniment. The motivation for the project has been the saving and restoration of a very special building and the renaissance of cinema in a community that had had no cinema for many years. This has been a considerable benefit to many different parts of the community. Special films can be booked for groups such as local schools of relevance to their school curriculum, societies with a specific interest, the showing of art films combined with a meal at The Pier Restaurant. Live events include regular jazz concerts and productions by amateur drama groups. The local authority is now totally in tune with the preservation and upkeep of the cinema and has been very helpful. The success of a venture such as this is fragile as it depends on inspiration, goodwill, and continued enjoyment by all the volunteers who have made it such an outstanding success.

Programming is carried out by the volunteer directors on a pragmatic basis. In general most of the selected films come from the Screen International Top Ten each month. Films are shown about two months after the films are first released. This has the advantage that the percentage rates are lower and knowledge of the track record of product is higher. This enables the cinema to make a modest profit on most films and this is transferred to the Trust for maintenance and upkeep of the building. Independence also means that other films, which may not necessarily appear in the top ten or even top twenty, can be shown.

Famous visitors to the cinema (1911-2011)

HRH Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Phillip (The Duke of Edinburgh), British film directors Terence Davies and Mike Hodges, Graham McPherson (Lead singer of British Ska band Madness), Spanish theatre actress Anna Campoy Bartes, British actor Kenneth Cranham and, of course, the cinema's patron Clive Owen.

External links

• Official website
• Tendring District Council