The Walton Street Cinema
The Phoenix Picturehouse: Deborah Allison, Hiu M
Chan, Daniela Treveri Gennari, Picturehouse Publications, London, 2013. ISBN
978-0-9926461-0-3.
This 220 page volume, sub-titled 100
Years of Oxford Cinema Memories, purports to recount the history of the
cinema in Walton Street which opened as the North Oxford Kinema in March 1913
until its latest reincarnation as the Phoenix Picturehouse, as it has been known
since 1989. It is largely recounted as verbatim memories, either as related to
the authors or as held in family archives or others, notably of Oxford Mail/
Oxford Times (Newsquest Oxfordshire). But it is much more than that. As stated
in a frontispiece, quoting Jeremy Smith of The Oxford Mail and Times: ‘For those in love with Cinema
Paradiso, The Purple Rose of Cairo and The
Smallest Show on Earth, this is the real thing. Just set in Oxford…’. In the Introduction we have: ‘The
Phoenix Picturehouse has always been far more than a building ……. It is also a
site of pleasure, learning, social interaction and escape, “a place of necessary
sanctuary”….’. These are features
it shares with other cinemas in towns and cities around the world and it is a
strength of this book that it will recall memories and evoke feelings of
nostalgia, appealing to all who share a passion for world-cinema wherever they
have been viewed.
The book is divided into two parts: ‘History’ and
‘Appreciation’. The former has five chapters dividing the history into periods
of different management and name starting with Early Years 1913 – 1930, the
ownership of the Poyntz Family from 1930 – 1970, its nadir in the years 1970 –
1977 as Studio 1 &2 (later X) under the ownership of the Star Group with a
concentration on X-rated films and sleaze, in tune with the rundown nature of
Jericho during that time. Then, as The Phoenix Cinema from 1977 – 1989, it rose
from its ashes to become part of the Picturehouse chain in 1989. Each chapter,
thoroughly researched, records the views of owners, managers, architects,
builders and engineers, programmers, projectionists and
audiences, indicating the immense effort of dedicated work on the infrastructure
and programme planning, making visits to the cinema such an important part of
the cultural life of the City.
I moved to Oxford in 1956, roughly p71 in the
book, when the films of Ingmar Bergman were coming thick and fast but, as a
tribute to the authors, I will go back to my own early cinema-going days,
memories of which are brought vividly to life on reading the book. The first
French film I saw was at The Hampstead Everyman, Un
Carnet de Bal with the great actress Françoise Rosay. I was hooked! I soaked
up French films at the Everyman, with occasional excursions to The Curzon in
Mayfair and The Academy in Oxford Street. It was at The Everyman that I first
saw Les Enfants du Paradis, still
the best movie ever. Like many of my contemporaries, I was in love with Arletty
and identified with Jean-Louis Barrault, searching in vain for her in the
crowded ‘Boulevard du Crime’ calling for ‘Garance, Garance’ (Indeed there was
another Arletty film about herself and a besotted fan!) At Cambridge there were
The Arts Cinema and The Rex, at that time managed by Leslie Halliwell, later
author of Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion. At The Arts there was the Sunday
morning Film Society. Many times I sat at the end of the front row there, having
failed to make an early enough booking for a popular film. The Rex Cinema (next
to the Rex Ballroom often hosting Chris Barber – another story) is always
associated with the Marx Brothers’ films, including the funniest of all films A Night at the Opera. (I had not
realised until I read the memoires of Joseph Volpe, one time Managing Director
of The New York Metropolitan Opera, that this was in fact a documentary!) Also
Ulla Jacobsson in One Summer of
Happiness.
Regular visits to Grenoble in France during the
seventies and eighties and a longer stay in the early nineties introduced me to
Cinéma Meliés which filled the role of the Phoenix there, with the same fare of
French classics, (including Les Enfants
du Paradis), Bergman, Polish and Japanese directors but also British films.
Returning to the fifties: The Scala, as the
cinema had become, remained in private hands until 1970 when it became part of
the Star chain. In 1977 it was sold to Contemporary Films which was taken over
by the Picturehouse chain in 1989. In 2012, just in time to be included in the
book, the chain became an independently operated part of Cineworld. All these
changes are meticulously documented with details of the ups-and-downs, crises
and mishaps which have occurred along the way. On pages 136-137 it details some
of the embarrassments caused by choices of unsuitable films (although the
authors shy away from explaining the fuss over
Ai No Corrida), mix-ups of
reels and whole films, to which I can add a memory stirred by reading the book.
In 1999 as part of the celebration of ten years of twinning between Oxford and
Grenoble, The Phoenix put on a season of films about Grenoble and its Region
while the Cinéma Meliés ran films about Oxford. The first film shown in Oxford
was about the paedophile father of a schoolboy son involved in an exchange with
an English school!
In programming, Picturehouses keep up with the
shifting moral norms of the day. What in the 70’s used to be called ‘soft-porn’
is now a routine part of many films. The blurring of the boundary between
pornography and erotica continues apace. The publication of this book coincides
with the showing of the Sapphic tale of young love Blue
is the Warmest Colour, winner of the 2013 Cannes Festival Palme
d’Or, albeit with a prurient 18 Certificate.
The Cinema continues to follow developments in
comfort and technical facilities. With the coming of live high-definition
transmissions, first of opera in 2007, then of theatre, ballet and exhibitions,
internet booking of self-selected numbered seats is now possible. The
comfortable seating now puts the New Theatre to
shame.
The second, shorter, part of the book,
‘Appreciation’ contains a masterful essay by David Parkinson on films shown at
The Phoenix as representative of the history of world-cinema and ‘A Place like
Home’ by Gennari on the sociology of the cinema. It concludes with ‘Celebrating
The Phoenix’, a selection of reminiscences of the patrons. There are plenty of
footnotes but no index. I would have found it easier reading if the verbatim
quotes had been distinguished by indentation or different font size rather than
in italic.
This is an important book, compulsory reading for
all those interested in cinema, one which will stimulate many memories, enabling
readers to savour again some of their great cinematic experiences both at The
Phoenix and elsewher
12 November
2013
The Phoenix Picturehouse: Deborah Allison, Hiu M
Chan, Daniela Treveri Gennari, Picturehouse Publications, London, 2013. ISBN
978-0-9926461-0-3.
This 220 page volume, sub-titled 100
Years of Oxford Cinema Memories, purports to recount the history of the
cinema in Walton Street which opened as the North Oxford Kinema in March 1913
until its latest reincarnation as the Phoenix Picturehouse, as it has been known
since 1989. It is largely recounted as verbatim memories, either as related to
the authors or as held in family archives or others, notably of Oxford Mail/
Oxford Times (Newsquest Oxfordshire). But it is much more than that. As stated
in a frontispiece, quoting Jeremy Smith of The Oxford Mail and Times: ‘For those in love with Cinema
Paradiso, The Purple Rose of Cairo and The
Smallest Show on Earth, this is the real thing. Just set in Oxford…’. In the Introduction we have: ‘The
Phoenix Picturehouse has always been far more than a building ……. It is also a
site of pleasure, learning, social interaction and escape, “a place of necessary
sanctuary”….’. These are features
it shares with other cinemas in towns and cities around the world and it is a
strength of this book that it will recall memories and evoke feelings of
nostalgia, appealing to all who share a passion for world-cinema wherever they
have been viewed.
The book is divided into two parts: ‘History’ and
‘Appreciation’. The former has five chapters dividing the history into periods
of different management and name starting with Early Years 1913 – 1930, the
ownership of the Poyntz Family from 1930 – 1970, its nadir in the years 1970 –
1977 as Studio 1 &2 (later X) under the ownership of the Star Group with a
concentration on X-rated films and sleaze, in tune with the rundown nature of
Jericho during that time. Then, as The Phoenix Cinema from 1977 – 1989, it rose
from its ashes to become part of the Picturehouse chain in 1989. Each chapter,
thoroughly researched, records the views of owners, managers, architects,
builders and engineers, programmers, projectionists and
audiences, indicating the immense effort of dedicated work on the infrastructure
and programme planning, making visits to the cinema such an important part of
the cultural life of the City.
I moved to Oxford in 1956, roughly p71 in the
book, when the films of Ingmar Bergman were coming thick and fast but, as a
tribute to the authors, I will go back to my own early cinema-going days,
memories of which are brought vividly to life on reading the book. The first
French film I saw was at The Hampstead Everyman, Un
Carnet de Bal with the great actress Françoise Rosay. I was hooked! I soaked
up French films at the Everyman, with occasional excursions to The Curzon in
Mayfair and The Academy in Oxford Street. It was at The Everyman that I first
saw Les Enfants du Paradis, still
the best movie ever. Like many of my contemporaries, I was in love with Arletty
and identified with Jean-Louis Barrault, searching in vain for her in the
crowded ‘Boulevard du Crime’ calling for ‘Garance, Garance’ (Indeed there was
another Arletty film about herself and a besotted fan!) At Cambridge there were
The Arts Cinema and The Rex, at that time managed by Leslie Halliwell, later
author of Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion. At The Arts there was the Sunday
morning Film Society. Many times I sat at the end of the front row there, having
failed to make an early enough booking for a popular film. The Rex Cinema (next
to the Rex Ballroom often hosting Chris Barber – another story) is always
associated with the Marx Brothers’ films, including the funniest of all films A Night at the Opera. (I had not
realised until I read the memoires of Joseph Volpe, one time Managing Director
of The New York Metropolitan Opera, that this was in fact a documentary!) Also
Ulla Jacobsson in One Summer of
Happiness.
Regular visits to Grenoble in France during the
seventies and eighties and a longer stay in the early nineties introduced me to
Cinéma Meliés which filled the role of the Phoenix there, with the same fare of
French classics, (including Les Enfants
du Paradis), Bergman, Polish and Japanese directors but also British films.
Returning to the fifties: The Scala, as the
cinema had become, remained in private hands until 1970 when it became part of
the Star chain. In 1977 it was sold to Contemporary Films which was taken over
by the Picturehouse chain in 1989. In 2012, just in time to be included in the
book, the chain became an independently operated part of Cineworld. All these
changes are meticulously documented with details of the ups-and-downs, crises
and mishaps which have occurred along the way. On pages 136-137 it details some
of the embarrassments caused by choices of unsuitable films (although the
authors shy away from explaining the fuss over
Ai No Corrida), mix-ups of
reels and whole films, to which I can add a memory stirred by reading the book.
In 1999 as part of the celebration of ten years of twinning between Oxford and
Grenoble, The Phoenix put on a season of films about Grenoble and its Region
while the Cinéma Meliés ran films about Oxford. The first film shown in Oxford
was about the paedophile father of a schoolboy son involved in an exchange with
an English school!
In programming, Picturehouses keep up with the
shifting moral norms of the day. What in the 70’s used to be called ‘soft-porn’
is now a routine part of many films. The blurring of the boundary between
pornography and erotica continues apace. The publication of this book coincides
with the showing of the Sapphic tale of young love Blue
is the Warmest Colour, winner of the 2013 Cannes Festival Palme
d’Or, albeit with a prurient 18 Certificate.
The Cinema continues to follow developments in
comfort and technical facilities. With the coming of live high-definition
transmissions, first of opera in 2007, then of theatre, ballet and exhibitions,
internet booking of self-selected numbered seats is now possible. The
comfortable seating now puts the New Theatre to
shame.
The second, shorter, part of the book,
‘Appreciation’ contains a masterful essay by David Parkinson on films shown at
The Phoenix as representative of the history of world-cinema and ‘A Place like
Home’ by Gennari on the sociology of the cinema. It concludes with ‘Celebrating
The Phoenix’, a selection of reminiscences of the patrons. There are plenty of
footnotes but no index. I would have found it easier reading if the verbatim
quotes had been distinguished by indentation or different font size rather than
in italic.
This is an important book, compulsory reading for
all those interested in cinema, one which will stimulate many memories, enabling
readers to savour again some of their great cinematic experiences both at The
Phoenix and elsewher
12 November
2013
