Video

I used to go to the Odeon Southend Saturday morning picture club with my sister. Before the start of the film, a guy would be on the stage and shine a mirror around the audience and where it stopped, that person would win a prize. I won a Huckleberry Hound book.

Zero African migrant gangs shoplifting and stabbing people

When Southend and England were proud to be English

Does anyone have any footage or pictures of The Fantasy Dome that used to be there?, it was my favourite attraction as a kid but all memories of it seem to have been lost, and there isn't much footage of it anywhere sadly

The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy was played at The Odeon Cinema in Southend-on-Sea. A whole new generation were able to rediscover Laurel and Hardy films in 1967.

Oh how times have changed and not for the better!

Hi, very interesting video !! ..I was wondering what can you tell me about the marine bar, .. was there another underground area ? .. what was inside the tower sections on the left and right hand side of the face of the building and why was one tower left standing ?? Many thanks - Martin/DE-eVOLVED.

what a downgrade, Frank Bruno to Gemma Collins

This brings back memories. I noticed the play boards before the place shut down for the refit in early 1970 was 'Ann of the 1,000 days'. I went with my family to see this film on Christmas Eve 1969. As we left the theatre it started to snow. Never forgot that.

And the stalls who sold muscles and winkled

I lived just off the seafront 88 - 98... the best think I did was move.

Great place have sex under beachuts.

The Dinosour in the High st would now be canceled and arrested for public offence!!

This was the late 80’s. I used to work at the Currys store which was closed in 1990

You can't go down the seafront anymore without fear of being stabbed.

The air show was in 1989!? I was in Southend just finished A level ready to go to Hatfield Polytechnic!

Grew up here for a few years back in the early 50’s,my Dad & Brother were born in Southend.Loads of my Family still live nearby..Thorpe Bay,Westcliff,Shoebury…we moved from there to Toronto,then to Victoria B.C. then on to Southern California…Seal Beach.

Thanks very much Chris. These were brilliant as I’ve just bought a place in old Leigh. I was looking forward to living there, now I can’t wait. 🤞it all goes through. Kind regards, Jim.

Wow used to love that place Saturday morning pictures in late sixties early seventies great times look at what’s become of Southend now so sad 😭

Now it’s a no go area and we all know why

Which year was this ? I think I see my windsurf board on my balcony on Eastern Esplanade at 9:40 minutes, during the raft race ! I live in Derbyshire now ... miss the coast though.

The Odeon Southend on Sea was indeed a great place to watch a film once in its then fine untouched auditorium before it was modernised beyond recognition by Odeon . I watch my films here in holiday and was so excited to go there . I have followed its journey through time to present like I have all Odeon Cinemas and my life work in doing so. Odeon inherited a fine cinema group through time only to destroy all their atmosphere by twinning and tripling them in the seventies . This video shows what once was a great entertainment place where romances was made and happy people sat in seats of dreams of their favourite idols.

Born here 1970. Now live opposite side of the world.

Did you have a relative called Bert Izod had a second hand shop in Southend.

Southend was a lovely place!

This venue, which I can remember in it's pre- 1970 twin-auditoria days as a single auditorium theatre, should have been purchased by Southend Borough Council back in 1997 when the venue closed it's doors for the last time as a cinema, (and a fine one at that), and could have invested in converting it back to it's former 'dual' purpose role as cinema and class 1 theatre, (for which it was), as it had every front-line stage facility in place from the 1930's up until said restructuring in 1969/70 when it was reworked into a twin screen cinema with a supermarket below. The twin-screen cinema, it must be said, was very well executed and was not your usual cheap conversion; costing around £300,000, and gave the best large West End cinema's of the period, such as the Empire screen 1, a similarly 'plush' feel with decent levels of scale, and with excellent sight-lines toward a superb curved Cinemascope ratio screen. With the retaining of the original 1930's 'single' auditorium cove-lit arches in the ceiling inside Odeon Screen 2, it always felt like you were attending a special event in the most luxurious surroundings; especially on an opening night to see the latest James Bond film release when sat in the comfortable 'Pullman' seats. However, the original 1935 auditorium, stage, and the incredibly grand foyer spaces, (type in Southend Astoria and see the original black & white photographic images on Google), anyone will clearly see that these were far superior spaces to other auditoriums and represented the ultimate in restrained 'moderne' art-deco architecture that has never been repeated anywhere near as successfully since, - and especially when compared with the much simpler (and far smaller) Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff-on-Sea, and with the Astoria/Odeon theatre/cinema being right within the centre of the town, (which desperately needs restructuring from what is now a most empty and unsafe place at night), it would have infused some family life back into the High Street, instead of it merely being the stamping-ground preserve for the proliferation of nightclubs for adolescent drunks to tarnish. So much damage has been done by the encouragement of ill-judged decisions with lucrative contracts being pushed forward and put into practice by default in this once most fine of towns since the dreadful 1960's decade of post-war modernism using processed concrete all over the place for the kind of gains that no-doubt served the Council very well, but at the expense of such widespread destruction to the town's once rich and resplendent Victorian architecture that no younger member of the public under 55 will ever realise, simply because it's all been erased forever by certain tin-pot bureaucrats within local government. Rant over!

Oh to be back to normal and good ole times just like this, before the horrible Covid-19 I miss my old home town Southend-on-Sea

what a waste. even had a bar :((

It's not been the place to be since Hammerson destroyed Talza. The beginning of the end.

from an ex projectionist,this video is brilliant, i love what was found bricked up,especially the wage sheet,really intriguing. hope all goes well for the place.

i worked in cinemas for 20 yrs as a projectionist, i watched this video with a lump in the throat, glad i witnessed what showmanship was really like when the curtains opened on the big screen, today its like watching a big telly,no feeling of excitement whatsoever

WAS...The place to be!!!

The council have totally fucked southend, good memories of years ago, now its a shit hole and full of wronguns, well done southend council you bunch of morons.

Who is the big black guy?

The propaganda dept out again. Southend is far from that now, had to go back last year, believe me, it is a s****hole now.

What is so exciting about another university? Birmingham builds the darn things like they were on a conveyor belt.

It wish we still had cinemas like this. Today's paradise....

The multiplex put an end to old chain town centre cinemas. A shame people never really what they had till its gone (everyone badly wanted a multiplex). I would much rather have these with their atmosphere and history than a soulless multiplex which our basically just food stands with films on. I know there are still plenty of old cinemas but most are independent and people must support them.

What has SBC done to Southend since those glory days? banned airshows, banned seafront bike shows, ruined the High Street, taken away seafront parking, ruined pier hill and driven the day trippers away, oh they must be bloody proud.

Hi there, we've been enjoying watching this. (especially as we make walks in soulful cities and have just filmed in in Leigh on sea and Southend), so it's lovely to see the contrast. It's also our home town. Thanks for taking the time to add it.

unbelievable!!! Just watched this with my wife and she's in it!! At the raft race, her and her brother and cousin. Totally blew her mind lol.

I remember the high street looking like that, just seemed much nicer then. I also remember fishing on the pier that summer and it was hot. Southend just seems so gloomy now like all the hope has escaped, maybe it's just me or maybe it's just Britain in the 21st century.

Sadly all but gone now. I was a member of the 1985-6 British Film Year Committee that met each month in the basement Marine Bar of the ABC cinema with various members who formed the Southend chapter of Dickie Attenborough's national drive to reverse the parlous state of cinema-going in the UK around that time. Local people; such as those from the film industry, Southend Collecge of Technology, Southend Library, Deans School, local enthusiasts, cinema archivist writers and of course, the three cinema managers from the ABC, Odeon and Classic, all participated in putting on special events across the town's three remaining cinema's. I latterly had a chance meeting two years ago with Lord (David) Puttnam; being introduced to him by a client of mine in the House of Lords, Westminster, and brought this up, - recounting our public premier screening of 'A Shooting Party', which was James Mason's last film appearance. We also had Pete Townshend down to promote his new album and video of 'White City', which a member of our committee who was a sound editor worked on and who secured the deal to get him down to Southend. Somewhere I have a full photo album covering the former event, including the special guests of the event arriving in the entrance foyer, including the Mayoress that year. The latter event was, by contrast, quite an electric evening, - including a pre-film private function with our guest at Chesters night-club in the High Street, and post-film, another reception down in the Marine Bar. Essex Radio being in attendance.

Is that Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine?

Even just 20 years back, everything seemed so ordered and 'proper', not like today's shambles.

Thank you ever so much for posting. I'd love to see more of the older photo's from when it was the Empire and the Rivoli.

Very interesting, thanks for uploading :)

Leigh on Sea born and bred