Bygone Cinemas in the Midlands............
Percy Dennis - Ollerton Pictures Limited:
It was on a grey winter afternoon in 1978, that I found myself driving to Langton Hall, just a couple of miles from Pinxton, in Nottinghamshire. The house was surrounded by mist, and in the distance, the sound of buffering coal wagons, at nearby Bentinck Colliery, made me think of some of the horror films that I had seen during my career in the cinema and theatre business.
I had come to visit Percy Dennis, one time cinema entrepreneur, who had agreed to give me an interview, regarding and the cinemas he had once owned, along with his father. Well that's how it was supposed to be, but on arrival, the visit was completely different to what I expected.
First of all this quite unassuming man, didn't like the idea of being kitted out with a microphone, and secondly, the sight of the tape deck threw him into complete confusion. I suggested that this was to be a recording just for personal use, so we should put the recorder on the table near him, and site the microphone somewhere near him - to hell with the acoustics of the large room - as long as I got what he had to say.
There now a follows a transcript of the interview in Percy Dennis's words:
"When we bought the cinema to Ollerton, it was a funny business; with the shops on one side the main road, and Coal Board houses on the other. All the privately owned shops, were built on what was once, one big field, which my father had bought originally, and sold off the land as plots, so the shops could be built. He ended up with just one plot, and decided that there was a need for a cinema, and that's how Ollerton got it's cinema, and Ollerton Pictures Ltd; was formed. As a company, we were the first of the local cinemas to install CinemaScope, the nearest was at Derby, which was at 'The Black Prince', on the site which is now Duckworth Square, this was the first in DERBY, while we were the first in DERBYSHIRE.
Within a year of setting up, the cost for new installations had come down to a quarter of what we had originally paid. I asked Clemence, who was then the boss at Western Electric Sound Systems, if was possible tore- wire the auditorium. This would enable the stereo sound system, to be used to show ‘House of Wax’, in the new 3D dimension and sound; the only other theatre was in London at that time. This was the only place in the country where this film was shown with Stereophonic Sound to accompany the three dimensional picture. Clemence replied that this would be no problem.
The additional equipment and installation cost us somewhere between £200 to £250, but remember, this was on top of the many thousands we had already paid beforehand. I wrote to Warner Brothers, and asked if it would be possible to get a three-dimensional copy with a stereophonic sound track, as seen at the Warner Theatre in London. They replied that we could have one of the London copies, and that they were delighted to help us with our project.
This made us the only cinema which was able to present 'The House of Wax', outside London, and in 3D too.
It was fantastic, and the nine additional speakers that we installed, bought total realism, especially in the scenes where Vincent Price turns on the gas taps, to burn down the building; and when objects were thrown towards the camera. I recall ducking down, along with the rest of the audience!
We experimented for a week with our new plaything, and impressed all that saw it. People came from all over the country to the Somercotes 'Premier', just to see it, and soon takings rose from about £150 each night, to around £1,600 for each performance.
Frank Brailsford, who owned 'The Scala' Cinema at Ilkeston, came every night for the first few weeks, and I recall him standing and leaning over, a four-foot barrier, just watching the film over and over again. He was very keen, and took great pride in the sound in his own cinema; he had the finest equipment you could get at that time.
My father leased in the cinemas at Pinxton and South Normanton, from Midland Empires Limited, and when he died, there was an option to buy both places, which gave me a chance to come back into the business, like I had done before the war. The option to purchase being at pre-war prices around £3,000, for each site.
In 1945 it was almost an impossibility to get equipment. The lease had been arranged for the buildings and not the equipment, and Bert Elton, who owned what was then Midland Empires Limited, told me that the equipment was coming out, it was old and needed replacing anyway. I managed to get some second-hand stuff, but later found out that Bert did this to stop anyone taking out the option; he thought no one would take the building without the equipment! (How wrong he was!)
The Empire at Somercotes was my own, and not part of Ollerton Pictures Limited, but after six months, we bought it under the control of our main group, along with 'The Premier' at Somercotes which was ours, until it's final closure. We later sold 'The Premier' to Walkers, who wanted it for Bingo, which by then, had become quite popular. All the projection equipment was returned to Western Electric, as it was on lease.
I managed the South Normanton 'Palace' myself for a time, and enjoyed the children's matinees, when we had a talent competition each week. For years afterwards, people would come up to me in the street, recalling their experiences of singing or dancing on stage, and at the peak of the matinees on Saturday, the audience averaged about 300 children.
Film bookings at that time, was done as deals, and you took the bad with the good. Frank Gill travelled for 'Renown Films Ltd; and did the distribution of what are now the 'British Classics', such as 'Old Mother Riley' etc; and something happened, and I fell out with his company. During this period, they released about eight films, which I never took, and this proved to be a good thing, for two years later, they offered us these same films, along with others, and we took them up on their offer at a much lower percentage then they originally wanted. This was good for business, and we would spend hours arguing about film bookings, sometimes we went late into the night.
Our ownership of the cinemas was really always a family affair, and as I read in the newspapers, where cinemas are closing down, I think we did the right thing in winding up the business when we did, but never again will there be such times that's for sure!
Percy and myself chatted for almost two hours, and I gleaned much information from our talk. Afterwards, we enjoyed tea, and he and his wife were pleased to show me their collection of antique Pinxton Pottery, which I had never seen before. Some years later Percy Dennis passed on, but at the time of writing, his wife still lives on, not at Langton Hall, but in Pinxton itself. I was pleased to be given the opportunity to meet this wonderful fellow, who did so much for the cinemas in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. I hope in turn this review of my interview of Percy Dennis, is a worthy thanks for the enjoyment he gave to many people over the years.
Copyright Bernie Bumpkin 2002.
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