Paris Pullman Cinema

The Paris Pullman is a former arthouse cinema, in the Brompton district, of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea London, England. It was closed and the building sold for redevelopment in 1983.[1]

Paris Pullman cinema
Address65 Drayton Gardens, London SW10
LocationBrompton, London
Coordinates
Public transitWest Brompton station
Earl's Court tube station
Gloucester Road tube station
TypePicture house 1911–1947
theatre 1947–1955
1955–1983 cinema
Capacityoriginally 249 seats
Construction
Built1911
Opened1911 (1911)
Renovated1947, 1955

History

In 1910–11, along a predominantly leafy residential street, that is Drayton Gardens, an entertainment venue opened at no.65 as the Radium Picture Playhouse, having been converted from the earlier gymnasium or arms training hall.[2] By 1947 it ceased to show films and had become "Bolton's Theatre Club" instead. To avoid censorship of its productions by the Lord Chamberlain's office, it operated as a private theatre club with compulsory membership.[3] Many of its plays transferred to runs in the West End. They included, The Horn of the Moon by Vivian Connell, with Jack McNaughton, Denholm Elliott, John Wyse, Pamela Alan, Martin Boddy and Jessie Evans. Directed by Colin Chandler.[4] and Dr John Bull, with John Louis Mansi and others.[5]

The building was acquired in 1955 by Charles Cooper of Contemporary Films, the noted producer and cinema administrator, James Quinn of the British Film Institute and two other directors, Brian O'Sullivan and Ralph Stephenson.[6] After a makeover displaying its characteristic 1950s large lemon yellow facia dotted with lights on the front, the venue reverted to showing movies, only now they were mainly contemporary foreign films under its new brand, the "Paris Pullman Cinema".[7] Initially, it captured the bohemian audience of the neighbouring Earl's Court and Chelsea areas, but with the "Swinging Sixties" it caught the mood of the time and became a first class arthouse destination for a much wider audience.[8] By the late 1970s the yellow facia on the front entrance had been replaced by a much more austere concrete finish, akin to the incoming Thatcher years. Contemporary films owned two other cinemas under the "Phoenix" brand, in East Finchley and in Oxford, England and after the closure of the Paris Pullman, it has continued to distribute films to cinemas and TV, and videos and DVDs to the general public, as well as supplying footage to programme-makers.

The residential block that replaced the cinema is called "Pullman Court".

The roll-call of film directors whose films were screened at the Paris Pullman included: Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Walerian Borowczyk, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Claude Chabrol, Sergei Eisenstein, Milos Forman, Werner Herzog, Philippe Mora, Yasujirō Ozu, Nagisa Oshima, Roman Polanski, Satyajit Ray, Jean Renoir, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrzej Wajda and Rainer Werner Fassbinder whose Veronika Voss was the last film screened at the Paris Pullman on 8 May 1983.[9]

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References
  1. Stephen Benton. "SW!0-From Sex to the World's End: Walking London, One Postcode at a time". Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  2. 'Little Chelsea in Kensington', in Survey of London: Volume 41, Brompton, ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1983), pp. 162–194. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol41/pp162-194 [accessed 29 April 2019].
  3. Derek Jones, ed. (2001). Censorship: A World Encyclopedia (reprint ed.). Routledge. p. 1088. ISBN 9781136798641.
  4. Howard, John (29 October 2016). "Theatre Clubs in 1950s London – The New Lindsey". Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  5. Gaughan, Gavin (1 September 2010). "John Louis Mansi obituary". Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  6. "Official Website". Contemporary Films. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  7. Cinema Treasures
  8. Angela Mandrioli (2016). "Michelangelo Antonioni's popularity in 1960s Britain – a path of discovery through the archives". Bill Douglas Cinema Museum – Exeter University. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  9. Cinema Treasures


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