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Meanwhile back at the Odeon.........

It currently looks like this. Empty shop unit one side, and McDonalds the other side; welcome to Nottingham 2012. It also makes you realise it was actually a pretty ugly eyesore in the middle of Georgian buildings.

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Looking in from the rear - on Maid Marian Way - you see Odeon 1 and Odeon 2 from a new angle

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Another eighty years of history turned to rubble, what a shame my fond memories of the Odeon are not there for others to see. Shows like Little Richard, The Stones, & my all time favourite Bill Ha

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Regarding the earlier posts about what films were showing when the Odeon became a two-screen cinema, I also remember them as being The Sound of Music in Odeon 1 - and that it ran for over a year. Mar

Why can't they just incorporate a Georgian style facade, just to connect with the buildings either side? My guess is that it will be glass and steel frontage :(

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I like Fothergills style buildings but they need space...as Sean says,all that space needs is a Georgian frontage to fit in with the rest.Whether or not planning has the brains for that is another matter.

There's a hell of a lot of archeology under that building..it was the route through the last of the great gates in the ancient town wall at the top of Chapel Bar.I'd love to go back for a look see,especially as Derby Road was a series of sand hills riddled with caves with just a deep rutted track leading into the town.

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Regarding the earlier posts about what films were showing when the Odeon became a two-screen cinema, I also remember them as being The Sound of Music in Odeon 1 - and that it ran for over a year. Mary Poppins was the opening film in Odeon 2 and it also ran for quite a while, but not as long.

I expect most people on here have memories of the Odeon. Back in the late 1950s/early 1960s we could seldom afford to go there. I would have given anything to see Sink the Bismarck when that first came out, but no - my mother said we had to wait until it came to the Cavendish - only I don't think it ever did.

I went to the Odeon regularly from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, and if I remember right it was Odeon 1 upstairs (the largest) and Odeon 2, in plan a sort of mushroom shape the second largest downstairs. They were the two with big screens, then either side of Odeon 2 you had 3 and 4, with Odeon 5 in the basement, very small, with a small screen. Have I got it wrong, or did they then open an Odeon 6, also downstairs, in what had been a restaurant? Or was it 5 that had been the restaurant?

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I don't remember when the Odeon was converted to two screens, but I saw both, Mary Poppins, and the Sound of Music there probably 1963/64. Seem to remember it being just one big screen at that time. I remember seeing 2001 a Space Odysey at the ABC just up the street. They had a VERY large screen really did that movie justice that would have been around 1967.

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The ABC was the cinema that I mostly went to together with the one on Parliament Street, and the one at the bottom of Wollaton Street.

Not forgetting the Savoy. Strangely enough, I dont remember going to the Odeon, but I must have done?

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I can only remember the Odeon as a double screen place.

Gotta say, I never really liked it. Not a great place to see some of the better films of the 70's - Close Encounters, Superman, Star Wars etc.

I can remember a few other cinemas in town. The Gaumont - went to see JUngle Book there.

What was that strange little cinema on Market Street ? I think it became a porno cinema before it closed.

Anyone remember the Essoldo in Lenton Abbey on the way into town.

Is the Savoy still there on Derby Road ?

Guess there aren't too many places left in the centre of Notts.

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In the 1950s, Market Street was a News Cinema, the days before TV news.

I think at one stage it might have been a Cartoon cinema?

in the late 70s early 80s was that where there was a robin hood style pub with stone slabs?

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It certainly showed cartoons in the sixties, Mick. I used to get taken there after school every Thursday as a treat.

Think the Robin Hood themed establishment it became is well-documented somewhere on here.

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I think you've been slightly over-exotic Stu, it was The Scala, not the one in Rome! And I also remember being taken there in the mid-60s to see the cartoon programmes they used to put on for kids.

By the 70s-80s it had become The Classic and specialised in "adult" films (apparently)

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Welcome to Nottstalgia, Merthyr Imp. I look forward to reading your posts.

Thanks. I've just discovered this site, so as I trawl back through the topics I may be replying to stuff that was last discussed ages ago.

I see there's another thread going about cinemas which covers some of the things recently mentioned on this one.

Re The Scala on Market Street, which was its name when I first remember it, it would have been about 1964 or 1965 when it was converted to a News and Cartoon cinema, and my mother and I used to go there quite a lot. One reason was that as it was a continuous performance of short pieces you didn't have to bother about getting there for a particular time.

As I remember, the running time of the complete programme was about 80 to 90 minutes, so was a lot less than you'd get at a 'normal' cinema. It was there that I first got to see Laurel & Hardy films, as one of their 20 to 30 minute shorts would usually be included. There would also be a newsreel, a 'Look at Life' (or similar) or two, and of course the cartoons, I particularly remember Bugs Bunny.

I think it lasted a couple of years or so, then became the Classic, being twinned either then or later, and finishing as Cannon 1 & 2. In both cases, as has been said, it was noted for the, shall we say, risque films that were shown there. Although, as I remember, during school holidays it would show children's films on at least one of the screens. Off hand I can remember going there at least a couple of times myself in the 1970s/80s, once to see the Disney film 'Candleshoe' and once to see the Charlton Heston film 'Grey Lady Down'.

The building itself had quite a history, and it's sad that it was demolished.

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As the Odeon disappears even more completely, it's surprising to see how narrow the front entrance area was. Hardly wide enough to get two people in side by side.

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Pokey little area, really.

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But it reveals some interesting old buildings down the side, which you couldn't see previously.

odeon1-2.jpg

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