Lumiere Cinema

Disney policy on July 21st, 1975. The Cinema was still called Odeon St. Martin’s Lane, Home of Disney Movies.

Odeon St. Martin’s Lane 21 Jul 1975, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The exterior gives off a strong scent of being designed by Richard Seifert and Partners, with similar “H” shaped pre-cast concrete sections as Centre Point.

This supposition on my part turns out to be correct:

National Archives – City of Westminster Archives Centre Architectural Plans of Cinemas in the City of Westminster 1926-1981 – Odeon Cinema, St. Martin’s Lane.

Plans are held dated 1964 (plans and cross-section – R. Seifert and Partners), 1965-6 (plans – Casson Conder and Partners), and 1968 (plan – proposed alterations to the advanced booking office and battery room – “unspecified architect of Rank Theatres Ltd.”)

I visited this cinema regularly in the late 70’s/early 80’s and this was around the time that the original floating screen was replaced. It wasn’t a case of tabs being fitted in front of the original screen, a stage was built and a normal screen frame with variable side masking was installed (the floating screen had swivelling masking which folding around for wide screen) and a little later the tabs were installed in front of this new set up. I remember a conversation with a Rank engineer who told me that they had installed Dolby Stereo but had taken it out because “it didn’t work” (!).I recall seeing a double bill of The Wild Geese and The Sea Wolves there, with The Wild Geese in excellent 4 track mag and The Sea Wolves (a Dolby Stereo film) in mono!

I rememeber seeing Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams in the late eigties. The inside of the Lumiere felt like it had been designed by Habitat, there was a cool and classy feel about the place. It was probably THE place to see arthouse movies at the time. Shame to lose it. Like the Odeon Haymarket and the Curzon Soho, these 600-700 seat cinemas couldn’t make it in modern London.

I saw many of the Disney presentations here and the the front of the cinema looked great all dressed up with the Disney logo and castle etc. I didn’t realize it was a home to Disney for as long as 5 years. It was a great place to see any movie, as was stated above, the rake and screen were perfect. I saw my first movie in a cinema with ‘subtiles’ at the Lumiere- ‘ThE Big Blue’. London lost a great cinema when this closed. Another being the Odeon Haymarket- what were they thinking?

Finally a scanned photo of the cinema when open (as the Lumiere) here :–

View link

The doors opened on the 7th Jan and are still open! Unfortunately to allow access to builders who will be converting it into a gym.I walk past every day.

Does anybody know whether the auditorium is actually in use as a coference venue?