Английская Википедия:Academy 1-2-3 (cinema)

Материал из Онлайн справочника
Перейти к навигацииПерейти к поиску

Шаблон:Use British English Шаблон:Use dmy dates The Academy was a cinema located at 165 Oxford Street, Westminster, at the junction of Poland Street. Films (in the shape of Hale's Tours of the World) were shown at the address from at least 1906, and it opened in January 1913 as the Picture House to show The Miracle, with the intention of becoming "the home of the world's most realistic films".[1] The Picture House continued to show films throughout the 1920s.

It re-opened in 1931 as the Academy, becoming London's pre-eminent art house cinema, and for over 50 years introduced British audiences to major films, beginning with auteurs such as Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné; in later years, the Academy largely established the reputations of Ingmar Bergman, Andrzej Wajda, Satyajit Ray, Jean-Luc Godard, Miklós Jancsó and others in Britain.Шаблон:Sfn The Academy's high standards were maintained by a succession of three managers: Elsie Cohen, George Hoellering and Ivo Jarosy. The cinema was damaged during a bombing raid in 1940 and re-opened in 1944.

The basement housed a ballroom from the early 1950s where the Marquee Club held jazz sessions from 1958 to 1964 with musicians such as Johnny Dankworth, Chris Barber, Alexis Korner and Tubby Hayes. The Rolling Stones played their first gig there in 1962. The New Academy cinema expanded to two and then three screens in the 1960s to become the Academy 1-2-3, and closed in 1986 after operating almost continuously for 80 years.

Cinema history

Previous occupiers

Mander Brothers, varnish and colour manufacturers of Wolverhampton until 1998, had a warehouse at 165 Oxford Street in 1884.[2] In December 1901 a partnership between Henry Clarke of 165 Oxford Street, and three Mander brothers (including Sir Charles Tertius Mander) was dissolved when Clarke retired.[3][4]

Hale's Tours

Файл:Hale's Tours of the World.jpg
Entrance to a Hale's Tour

From at least 1906 the building housed a Hale's Tours of the World, one of London's first dedicated cinemas.Шаблон:Sfn This was an early virtual reality attraction (often found in fairgrounds etc.), in which a projected film played during a simulated ride in a railway carriage. The owner may have been the American film producer and director Charles Urban, who had a franchise for Hale's Tours with main offices selling films and equipment a few hundred yards away on Wardour Street.[5] The business seems to have been in liquidation by 1906,[6] when the franchise for Hale's Tours was acquired by J. Henry Iles,Шаблон:Sfn and a company named Hales Tours of the World Ltd. was set up in December of that year to take over the running of 165 Oxford Street.[6]

J. Henry Iles and Joseph Menchen

Iles (who later owned Dreamland Margate) was a director of an Anglo-American syndicate, European Amusement Parks Ltd.,[7][8] which brought Luna Parks to Britain and Europe from around 1907. His business partners were Frank C. Bostock, a circus owner; H. C. McGarvie, an experienced showman "who probably had more experience in international expositions than any other living human being";[9] and McGarvie's business partner Joseph Menchen, who had been in the seaside and trolley park entertainment business since 1899.[10] He had constructed cycloramas based on the Johnstown Flood of 1889,[11] and furnished the complex electrical lighting effects for the 'Trip to the Moon'[12] and other cycloramas at Coney Island.

The Picture House

Файл:Miracle Easter 01.jpg
Trade press advertisement for The Miracle, March 1913
Файл:Engelbert Humperdinck 01.jpg
Engelbert Humperdinck, composer of the full-length orchestral and choral score of The Miracle

The premises were remodelled/rebuilt by the architects Gilbert & Constanduros[13]Шаблон:Refn

The Picture House opened on Friday 24 January 1913 as a semi-permanent home for the world's first full-colour feature film, The Miracle, produced as a personal project by Joseph Menchen.

On Friday last the Picture House, Oxford Street, opened its doors for the reproduction of that extremely successful play, "The Miracle", as performed at Olympia. As most of our readers may be aware, the Picture House is in Oxford Street, at the junction of Poland Street, and exactly opposite to that long neglected playhouse, the Princess's Theatre. One steps from the street down a mosaic pavement straight into the stalls, which are fitted with tip-ups, upholstered in canary silk. Here and there the walls, in cream and gold, are relieved with exquisitely panelled paintings of seventeenth century figures, while the lower part of the walls are of solid mahogany. Lights branching from old-world vases are dotted about, and high overhead is a huge electrolier, beyond the crystal beads of which gleam and glow 500 lamps, bathing the hall in a soft, warm light.

The circle — there is only one — is reached by a broad stairway of white and green marble, and there is never a pillar to obstruct the view. But even beyond an outward display science plays its part at the picture house, in that the heating and ventilating arrangements are on the most approved system, and fire is certainly considered to be next to impossible.

The aim is to make this theatre the home of the world's most realistic films, and the start made on Friday with those wonderful pictures of "The Miracle" straight from Covent Garden Theatre has undoubtedly given the place a good send off. As at Covent Garden, "The Miracle" at the Picture House is portrayed to the accompaniment of Professor Humperdinck's beautiful music, which is rendered by an orchestra and a choir both under the guidance of Mr. Sydney Freedom, who was the leader of the orchestra when Professor Rheinhardt Шаблон:Sic produced the play at Olympia.

A special setting has been given to the picture by the erection of the convent and cathedral gates in uralite stone,Шаблон:Refn extending across the entire circle. With its doors, steps, towers, and windows, this grey entrance, 60 feet wide and 45 feet high, looks as though it had been taken bodily from some mediaeval German city. That the popularity of this picture is by no means on the wane has been proved by the vast audiences which have thronged the Picture House since its opening with "The Miracle".[1]

A company named 'The Picture House (Oxford-Street) Limited' was due to be wound up on 17 October 1915.[14] Menchen returned to the USA in 1917.

The Picture House continued to show films through the 1920s: the programme for October 1926 included Lady Windermere's Fan with Ronald Colman; The Sea Beast with John Barrymore; Ralph Ince and the alluring Olive Borden in Yellow Fingers; and The Sea Urchin with Betty Balfour.[15][16]

The Academy cinema

Eric Hakim

Шаблон:See also

By 1929 the cinema at 165 Oxford Street had been bought or leased by Eric Hakim (1900–1967). His forebears were Armenian, and he came to England from France with 'a wealthy relative' (possibly his mother).[17] In 1913, Hakim (aged 13) played at a gathering in Nice at the home of Claire Virenque, founder of the fr:Prix de littérature spiritualiste: "The virtuoso Eric Hakim played a fugue by Bach, and other old tunes; admirably accompanied by his mother, Mme Hakim, this young artist obtained the stunning success to which he is accustomed."Шаблон:Refn

He came to England, and played as an orchestral violinist in cinemas run by the Davis brothers.Шаблон:Sfn Hakim may have modernised the Academy,Шаблон:Sfn which he owned by 1929, when he bemoaned the lot of the cinema owner (or exhibitor) during the transition from silent to sound films: "At the moment the renter is in the fortunate position of being able to hold the pistol at the head of the exhibitor because, not only is there a shortage of silent films, but also the exhibitor, having spent large sums of money in talking equipment, is forced to show talking films, which leaves the renter in the position of being able to dictate terms."[18]

In 1931, Hakim directed the dubbing in English of the original German version of M which had played in US theatres with subtitles with little success.Шаблон:Sfn The dubbing was made in England, where Peter Lorre was one of the few original cast to be re-recorded in English.Шаблон:Sfn He went on to produce several films, the first two with his Eric Hakim Productions. The Outsider[19] did well in the US, being shown by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the US in its premier first-release circuit. Backed by the Rothschilds and with a 70% guarantee from MGM, he produced two more films both directed by Fred Niblo and starring Adolphe Menjou.[20] With the first, Two White Arms, Hakim brought Margaret Bannerman into the talking era,[21] and in 1932 he produced Diamond Cut Diamond (US:Blame the Woman).[22] In 1932 he also produced The Temperance Fête,[23] and The Crooked Lady, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with photography by Basil Emmott.[24]

Hakim had hoped to secure the services of Fritz Kreisler to star in Passion Hunger, a story of a famous violinist and his amorous intrigues; but the deal fell through.[25] He married Nina Vanna in September 1933,[26] but was bankrupt by 1934[27] with declared liabilities of $195,000 and assets of $230.[17] He remained legally bankrupt (although he had plenty of money) for at least 11 years with seven further petitions against him, and divorced Vanna after an affair with Norma Irene Zoe Plumby-Matthews ('Norma Dawn') in late 1945.[17][28]Шаблон:Refn

'Unusual films'

The Davis brothers owned a chain of 'Pavilion' cinemas in London. In April 1927 they sold them to the Gaumont British Theatres Ltd. circuit, with a contract which allowed them to show their own choice of films.Шаблон:Sfn Stuart Davis dedicated the 750-seat Avenue PavilionШаблон:Sfn at 101 Shaftesbury Avenue to 'continental' films[29] and started the 'Unusual Film' movement, showing first German and Russian classics, then French avant-garde works by such as Man Ray. A number of showings were organised by The Film Society, whose supporters included H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw.[30]

In 1929 Davies's contract with Gaumont expired and, at Davis' suggestion, Gaumont turned the remodelled Avenue Pavilion into London's first newsreel cinema.Шаблон:Sfn This left the Film Society without a permanent venue.

The highbrow literary film journal Close Up, published by the Pool Group from 1927 to 1933, played a significant part in promoting European and art-house films.[31]

Elsie Cohen

The Netherlands-born Elsie Cohen,[32] who had worked on Dutch and German film productions, took over the Windmill Theatre for six months in 1929 and successfully put on a highbrow season of recent Russian and German films.Шаблон:Sfn[33] Stuart Davis had already approached Eric Hakim, the owner of the Picture House, but Hakim wanted too big a rent.Шаблон:Sfn However, Elsie Cohen persuaded Hakim to let her manage the cinema, and it opened as The Academy in 1931 with Alexander Dovzhenko's Earth ('Zemlya'), one of the last silent films before the 'talkies' took over.Шаблон:Sfn

In order to encourage students and other film aficionados, a number of seats in the stalls were available at reduced prices.Шаблон:Sfn

Art-house cinema

A typical press advertisement in April 1932 announced G. W. Pabst’s "great epic of the mines" Kameradschaft; Mädchen in Uniform, Mutter Krausen, Road to Life, and Alone by Trauberg and Kozintsev.[34]

The BFI was founded in 1933,Шаблон:Sfn and the moderne-style Curzon Cinema in Mayfair was built as a rival in 1934.[35]

George Hoellering

George Hoellering was the director and producer of Hortobágy, a film about rural life in a Hungarian village of the same name. He arrived in Britain with the film (his main possession), his baby and his wife in 1936.Шаблон:Sfn He had previously worked as production manager (with Robert Scharfenberg) for Kuhle Wampe,Шаблон:Sfn which had been shown by The Film Society at the Academy in 1933.[36] Hortobágy was shown at the New Gallery Cinema by The Film Club; Cohen liked it, and he joined her as director of the Academy cinema in 1937.Шаблон:Sfn During World War II a bomb badly damaged the Academy in 1940, and in the same year Hoellering was interned as an enemy alien. The Academy re-opened in 1944 with Hoellering as director, a position he held until his death in 1980.Шаблон:Sfn His right-hand man was his stepson Ivo Jarosy, who started as the Academy's publicist in 1938 and wrote carefully researched press releases.[37][38] He worked closely with Peter Strausfeld (also interned with Hoellering on the Isle of Man) who created original linocut images for the Academy's distinctive posters since the cinema had a policy of not using any existing publicity material.Шаблон:Sfn

Apart from European features and avant-garde or experimental films, the Academy programmed a range of documentary films such as The Way We Live[39] by Jill Craigie, and Children On Trial[40] by Jack Lee (shown with Zéro de Conduite by Jean Vigo),Шаблон:Sfn and Herbert von Karajan conducting the St. Matthew Passion by J. S. Bach (1949).[41] A film which showed at The Academy after the war could obtain up to 1,000 bookings across the country, although the British commercial film industry had been slow to embrace documentaries.Шаблон:Sfn

Hoellering was approached in 1965 by the writer and filmmaker Peter Whitehead, who was obsessed by Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and wanted to publish the screenplay.Шаблон:Sfn Although there was no script as such (since Godard had just worked from a 'treatment') Godard, through Hoellering, agreed for £200, and Whitehead reverse-engineered the screenplay by analysing and transcribing the whole film almost frame by frame.Шаблон:Sfn Whitehead made a number of music videos for the Rolling Stones in 1966 and 1967 (see below).

Academy 1-2-3

The cinema re-opened as Academy One in May 1964, the smaller Academy Two started in March 1965, and Academy Three in April 1967 after some considerable strengthening and rebuilding in the basement.[42] Hoellering died in 1980; the theatres closed permanently on 2 April 1986 and were demolished in 1989.[43]

Basement

Institute of Contemporary Arts

Файл:1924 Klee bebende Kapelle anagoria.JPG
Bebende Kapelle ('Quaking Chapel') by Paul Klee, lent to the ICA's first exhibition in 1948 by Peter WatsonШаблон:Refn

In 1948, in order to remedy the lack of initiative shown by the Tate Gallery (and other institutions) in informing the British public about contemporary artistic movements, the ICA (with offices in Charlotte Street) mounted its first exhibition, 40 Years of Modern Art: a Selection from British Collections.Шаблон:Sfn The ICA signalled its new approach to the arts by choosing the basement of the Academy rather than an already sanctified ‘art space’.Шаблон:Sfn Organised by Roland Penrose, this groundbreaking exhibition opened on 9 (or 10) February 1948 and included works by Pierre Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Vassily Kandinsky, as well as British contemporaries Francis Bacon, Eduardo Paolozzi, Victor Pasmore and Barbara Hepworth.Шаблон:Sfn[44]Шаблон:Refn

The poet and literary critic Herbert Read, co-founder of the ICA, wrote about the exhibition:

"Such is our ideal – not another museum, another bleak exhibition gallery, another classical building in which insulated and classified specimens of a culture are displayed for instruction, but an adult play-centre, a workshop where work is a joy, a source of vitality and daring experiment. We may be mocked for our naive idealism, but at least it will not be possible to say that an expiring civilisation perished without a creative protest."Шаблон:Sfn

Файл:Marquee Club August 2007.jpg
Awning over the entrance to the Marquee Club

By 1954, the writer John Berger could accuse the ICA of being "no more than a jazz club",[45] since it had been organizing a series of historical introductory lectures to jazz; with the involvement of Elizabeth Lutyens and Eduardo Paolozzi jazz became part of the ICA culture; and even Melody Maker began advertising in the ICA's monthly bulletin.Шаблон:Sfn

Marquee Club

Шаблон:Main The Marquee Club opened in the basement (previously the Marquee Ballroom) on 19 April 1958.[46] The Rollin' Stones played their first gig there on 12 July 1962.Шаблон:Sfn

See also

20 Frith Street

References

Notes

Шаблон:Reflist

Citations

Шаблон:Reflist

Sources

Шаблон:Refbegin Шаблон:Columns-list Шаблон:Refend

External links

Шаблон:Coord

  1. 1,0 1,1 "The Miracle at the Oxford Street Picture House".Шаблон:Harvnb, 29 January 1913
  2. International Health Exhibition, 1884 : official catalogue. London: William Clowes and Son, p. 88
  3. The London Gazette, 3 January 1902 Шаблон:Webarchive, issue 27393, p. 29.
  4. Mander, Nicholas. "A brief history of the Mander family". Шаблон:Webarchive Owlpen Manor Estate. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  5. Шаблон:Cite journal
  6. 6,0 6,1 Шаблон:Cite web
  7. Шаблон:Cite journal
  8. Шаблон:Cite journal
  9. Billboard, 29 April 1922
  10. New York Dramatic Mirror, 26 August 1899, p. 14Шаблон:Dead link.
  11. Ocean Grove Times, (New Jersey), 9 July 1904 p. 1e.Шаблон:Dead link
  12. Hence Luna Park
  13. "Horace Gilbert" Шаблон:Webarchive. Dictionary of Scottish Architects (2014). Accessed 29 February 2016.
  14. The London Gazette 14 September 1915, p. 9125 Шаблон:Webarchive This company's directors may have been Menchen and/or Iles, or perhaps other EAPL members.
  15. "Cinema programmes 1922-26".Шаблон:Dead link Alamy.com. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  16. "Cinema programmes, inside pages, 1922 and 1926". Шаблон:Webarchive Alamy.com. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  17. 17,0 17,1 17,2 Шаблон:Cite news
  18. Kine Weekly, 22 August 1929, cited in Шаблон:Cite book
  19. Шаблон:Cite web
  20. Шаблон:Cite journal
  21. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 2 December 1931, p. 13c Шаблон:Webarchive.
  22. "Eric Hakim" Шаблон:Webarchive. BFI. Accessed 27 February 2016.
  23. The world film encyclopedia, 1933 Шаблон:Webarchive, p. 18.
  24. Motion Picture Herald, 2 April 1932, p. 10
  25. "Hakim's Kreisler Deal Off". The Bioscope, 6 April 1932, p. 10.
  26. Шаблон:Cite web
  27. Edinburgh Gazette, 11 September 1934, p. 774a Шаблон:Webarchive.
  28. Шаблон:Cite news
  29. Шаблон:Cite web
  30. "Film Society, The (1925-39)" Шаблон:Webarchive. BFI Screenonline. Accessed 29 February 2016.
  31. "Along these lines, the collection reprints an admiring essay on Elsie Cohen's ambitious Academy Cinema, as well as polemics about worker's films, art films, and so forth." Шаблон:Harvnb.
  32. Шаблон:Cite web
  33. Шаблон:Cite web
  34. Шаблон:Cite journal
  35. Eyles, Allen. "Cinemas & Cinemagoing: Art House & Repertory" Шаблон:Webarchive. BFI screenonline. Accessed 29 February 2016.
  36. Ciné Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 1, January 1933, p. 55b Шаблон:Webarchive (in French). In the same news item: Hakim had bought the rights to René Clair's Шаблон:Interlanguage link multi, and L'Atlantide (1932 film) by Pabst was showing at the Academy.
  37. Шаблон:Cite news
  38. Шаблон:Cite web
  39. Шаблон:Cite web
  40. Шаблон:Cite web
  41. Шаблон:Cite journal
  42. Шаблон:Cite journal
  43. Photo album at "Academy Oxford Street" Шаблон:Webarchive. Flickr. Accessed 29 February 2016.
  44. Massey, Anne (2014) Cataloguing the ICA’s history: an ephemeral past. Шаблон:Webarchive In: Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, 10–12 April 2014, Royal College of Art. Middlesex University. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  45. Шаблон:Cite journal
  46. Шаблон:Cite web