Odyssey Cinema, St Albans facts for kids
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The Odyssey Cinema
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 Odyssey Cinema
Location in Hertfordshire
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| Address | London Road St Albans England, UK |
| Coordinates | 51°44′53″N 0°19′57″W / 51.7479352°N 0.3325751°W |
| Public transit | St Albans City |
| Owner | Private investors |
| Designation | Locally listed building |
| Type | Independent cinema |
| Capacity | 500 (previously 1,728) |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1908 |
| Closed | 1995 |
| Reopened | 2014 |
| Rebuilt | 1931 |
| Years active | 1908–1995; 2010–present |
| Architect | Percival Blow, James Martin Hatfield, Kemp & Tasker |
The Odyssey Cinema is a movie theater in St Albans, England. It's a special building with an Art Deco design, which means it has a cool, old-fashioned look. It's located on London Road, not far from St Albans Cathedral. The building you see today was built in 1931 and was first called the Capitol Cinema. But before that, there was an even older movie theater on the same spot called the Alpha Picture Palace. This first cinema was very important because it was opened in 1904 by a movie-making pioneer named Arthur Melbourne-Cooper. Many people think it was the very first cinema in Hertfordshire!
History of the Cinema
Arthur Melbourne Cooper was born in St Albans in 1874. When he was a teenager, he was inspired by Birt Acres to get into the new world of moving pictures. Arthur became a very important person in the early days of movies. He started his own company, Alpha Trading Company, in 1906. His company made short films, cartoons, and even news reports for the cinema. One of the first animated movies he made in St Albans was Dreams of Toyland (1908).
Arthur wanted a place to show his movies to people. So, he bought a public hall on London Road. This building was designed in 1903 by a local architect named Percival Blow. On July 27, 1908, Arthur opened the Alpha Picture House. This was Hertfordshire's first permanent cinema! It even had a restaurant, a swimming pool, and a hair salon inside. The cinema was sold in 1911 and later became known as the Poly. Sadly, a fire destroyed it in 1927.
After the fire, plans were made to build a new cinema. The new building was designed by Percival Blow and James Martin Hatfield. It was a very grand cinema with seats for 1,620 people. It also had a big stage, a special Compton theatre organ, a café, and dressing rooms. Because the land sloped, people entered the cinema on the balcony level and then walked down to the main seating area. This new cinema was called The Capitol Cinema, and it opened on December 3, 1931.
In 1932, The Capitol was sold to a company called D.J. James Cinema Circuit. In 1934, the cinema was made even bigger and updated by the architects Kemp & Tasker. It could then hold 1,728 people! The cinema changed hands again in 1937. It was bought by Eastern Cinemas, which was part of a bigger group. Then, in 1943, a very large company called the Rank Organisation took over. They changed the cinema's name to the Odeon Cinema on January 1, 1945.
On October 30, 1963, some very famous musicians played at the cinema. These included The Rolling Stones, The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and Julie Grant!
Even though television became popular in the 1950s and 60s, the St Albans Odeon was still doing well. It showed new Cinemascope films, which had a wide screen, to attract audiences. But in the 1970s, fewer people came to the movies. So, in 1973, the Odeon was split into three smaller movie rooms. It opened again on January 21 with a showing of A Clockwork Orange in one of the new screens.
The Cinema Closes
By the 1990s, big cinema companies started building huge movie theaters with many screens, called multiplexes, outside of towns. They began selling their smaller cinemas in town centers. When a new cinema complex opened in Hemel Hempstead in 1995, the Rank company decided to close the St Albans Odeon. Even though a local group tried to save the cinema, it closed on August 20, 1995. The last movie shown was Waterworld. After it closed, everything inside the building was taken out.
The Cinema Re-opens
For many years, the building was empty and falling apart. A person who buys land to build on bought it and wanted to knock it down to build apartments. A local group that cares about the town's history tried to save the cinema, but the local council voted to have it knocked down. One council member even said that "nobody wanted it back as a cinema."
In November 2009, a local businessman named James Hannaway bought the old cinema building. He had a plan to fix it up and open it as a cinema again! James had already helped open another old Art Deco cinema called The Rex, Berkhamsted. A fundraising effort began to restore the cinema to how it looked in the 1930s. A public competition was held to choose a new name, and The Odyssey was picked. It was named after the famous movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, to honor its director Stanley Kubrick, who had family connections to St Albans. The restoration work started in 2013, and the cinema re-opened to the public on November 30, 2014. It is now an independent cinema with one screen, showing special movies, and it has seats for 500 people, plus a café and bar.
Building Style
The Odyssey Cinema is famous for its Art Deco style, which is a popular design from the 1920s and 1930s.
