Through the Magpie Eye: Old Cinemas of Manchester

19.08.2015

The Oxford cinema, with The Picture House carved above, showing The Possession of Joel Delaney and Blind Terror

Without coming across like one of those whinging, ‘old stuff was better’ bores, old cinemas did look loads better than modern cinemas.

They may not have had eight massive screens and an on-site Nando’s, but the signs were big, the lights were bright and they were made to last.

They also employed old women to wander around the aisles flogging ice-creams in the intermission.

Whilst most of these old time cinemas have now been flattened or turned into swanky bars, thanks to these photos from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Flickr page, you can once again be whisked away into a simpler time — a time when cinemas had weird names and showed high-quality epics like Doctor Zhivago and Fritz the Cat…

A green and cream tiled cinema building on a street corner, topped by a dome, with a Riley sign above the shops

The Tatler cinema advertising Uncensored Entertainment and Who Did Cock Robin, someone in a green coat walking past

A red-brick cinema building with small corner towers, arched windows and a balustraded balcony above the entrance

The Odeon, a white stone cinema with a tall red Odeon sign, its canopy reading New Oxford and Soldier Blue

Studio 1 to 5 cinema with a bulb-lit canopy listing Prime Cut, Fritz the Cat, Exposed, Joe Kidd and Shaft's Big Score

The Scala cinema's white gabled front, with posters and a large sign all advertising Doctor Zhivago

The Gaumont, a large stone cinema with red Gaumont signs, a red car blurring past in front

A curved red-brick building with a holiday billboard and Mr Pool sign over shopfronts, a Wilsons Ales sign beside

See loads more interesting stuff on the MMU Flickr page.

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