The Odeon in Parkway, Camden Town
NEARLY 100 years of film history is to come to an end with the closure of Odeon in Camden Town, the New Journal can reveal.
The picture house in Parkway, which first opened in 1937, is set to be turned into a new swathe of student housing.
The plans for the site are being drawn up by the landowners, named Camden Town Xchange and headed up by long-standing Camden Town property developer Chris Shaw.
It also emerged this week that the immersive entertainment group Secret Cinema has abandoned plans to set up a new venue despite winning planning permission last year to convert the adjacent bingo hall – also included in the redevelopment scheme.
It is famed for inviting guests to step into classic films and stories by dressing up and mingling with actors as they present the show.
Mecca Bingo called its final numbers and closed last November.
Architects are now working on a project that will see the cinema and bingo hall replaced by 250 homes for students and a further 40 affordable homes.
A new leisure offering – yet to be decided – will also be included, and it could include a cinema or immersive experience.
It could even lead to the creation of a new music venue.
No plans have been formalised yet, however, and the team behind the development has said it is open to ideas.
An Odeon cinema spokesman has confirmed to the New Journal the Parkway screens will fall silent in the new year.
It said they had seven other Odeons within a 30-minute journey from Parkway, adding: “Following talks with our landlord, we have come to a mutual agreement to close our Camden cinema next year.
“Supporting our local cinema team is our number one priority and we will be looking to secure jobs for as many of them as possible at our other cinema locations.”
It began life as the Gaumont and comedian Will Hay and the actor Lilli Palmer brought some glitz to official opening on January 25, 1937.
Falling audiences in the 1960s saw part of the site handed over to a bingo hall and then in the 1980s, cinema operator Peter Walker took it on.
The old bingo hall in Arlington Road
In 1993, a plan to close the cinema attracted anger and it eventually reopened as a multi-screen venue for Odeon in 1997.
Designed by architects W E and Sydney Trent and Daniel McKay, it took more than a year to build and gave work to 2,000 St Pancras workers.
It was seen as a state-of-the-art offering, with the stage alone costing £10,000 and it included a Compton Organ, built by John Compton of Willesden.
Opened by the Mayor of St Pancras F W Fincham, it’s first film was Showboat starring Paul Robeson – backed by a Mickey Mouse short and the James Dunn movie The Two Fisted Gentleman.
A children’s cinema club operated on Saturday mornings costing 3p and a live penguin was brought along from London Zoo to add to the fun.
It became a mascot of the club and attended regularly, with children invited to suggest names for the film-watching water bird.
In the 1940s and 1950s concerts were also featured at the cinema and stars included Bob Hope and the orchestra leader Mantovani.
At the end of the 1960s, the auditorium was deemed just too big for cinema audiences and part of the stalls area was converted into a Mecca bingo, with its now familiar entrance in Arlington Road.
It missed out on Grade-II listing in the 1990s due to extensive changes made in the 1960s.
It survived as The Gate cinema for two years before being the Parkway cinema under the management of Mr Walker.