Now back to the Gaumont and the history of the site. Originally the Manchester
Hippodrome stood here offering great entertainment and water shows where
the stage could be flooded for water spectaculars. Eventually audiences
declined and the theatre closed. The building was pulled down in 1935
and the name was aquired by the Ardwick Hippodrome.
The site was purchased in 1935 by Granada Theatres who wanted to expand
their circuit northwards. About 65% of the Hippodrome was demolished but
the stage end retained and the new Granada came forward from this. This
could be the reason that this magnificent theatre only took about 9 months
to complete.
I have never been able to find the reason but 3 weeks before the opening,
Granada sold the nearly completed building to the Gaumont British Picture
Corporation. Fortunately Granada although having wired the frontage for
their sign had not actually erected it and Granada and Gaumont had the
same number of letters.
Frank remembers the Long Bar, I remember the wonderful Stanley Tudor
who played the Wurlitzer for the theatres opening with the Alfred Hitchcock
film The Thirty Nine Steps on 21st October 1935, Stanley was interrupted
by the war but returned until August 1953, and I was there when a very
shocked Stanley said 'he was not wanted anymore as the Rank people were
dismissing all their organists'. When tax incentives made live performances
cost effective Stanley returned to the theatre he loved from 1959 to 1960
for big film presentations such as The Sound of Music.
Whilst I often climbed petrified into the dark area above the stage (which
was as high as the stage itself) I never ventured under the stage where
I knew all the instruments for the Wurlitzer organ were housed in a special
sealed room, but it was many years later that I discovered this was the
old water tank from the water shows of the old Hippodrome.
The Gaumont met its fate in January 1974, first a night club then a parking
lot, now a multi storey car park, the top floor of which would have been
at projection room level where we showed CinemaScope films. Who can forget
Marilyn Monroe in 'How to Marry A Millionaire' on the biggest screen in
the North of England? Happy days - never to return.
Fascinating
accounts. I can almost visualise Manchester in the 50's. I was re-reading
and formatting your piece using my laptop computer in the Local Studies
Unit of the Central Library today 13 Aug. I walked out into Manchester
2001 and, passing the site of the Gaumont, I took the two photographs
that appear on these pages. It's a shame that the Gaumont disappeared
as it did. In its own way the Gaumont Oxford St Manchester is as significant
for cinema as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London is for opera.
Unfortunately cinema isn't treated as an art form, as it is in France.
Thanks to your pictures and accounts, we will never forget the Gaumont.
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