A Brief History of the Electric Cinema

Jean Stanton

On 27^th December, 1909, Birmingham’s first film theatre opened on the site of a former taxi rank on Station Street.
Designed by the renowned theatre architect, Bertie Crewe, over two thousand people bustled through the doors of the new Electric Theatre on its opening day, a constant stream of arrivals eager to watch the moving pictures, for many for the very first time.

Film was still in its infancy and while some of the day’s screenings might not draw such crowds today, opening titles such as A Box of Chocolates, The Cabbage and Making Plate Glass would have seemed like magic itself.

One of the big draws that day was To Save her Soul, a morality tale directed by one of the industry’s first auteurs, D.W. Griffith, and starring a young Mary Pickford. Both would become giants of the fledgling film industry and go on to join forces with silent movie icons, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, to form United Artists, their own artist-led studio.

Newspapers of the day excitedly described the new film theatre as being “cosy and attractive” with “red tip-up seats”, with the latest Edison machines and an operating room that is “one of the finest in the city”. The silent films were accompanied by a pianist.

The name ‘The Electric’ was chosen to reflect the new technology of the time, though somewhat ironically, as the building itself was powered by gas! The original boiler is the oldest part of The Electric and still stands beneath the stage in what is now Screen One. The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, which opened a year later in 1910, took its name from Birmingham’s.

The 1920s saw a change in ownership and became known as ‘The Select’, continuing to show silent movies.

Then, in 1931, Jospeh Cohen, a prominent solicitor and property developer with a passion for all things film, bought the cinema. The owner of the Jacey Cinemas Ltd, he had big plans and, after acquiring the upper floors of the building,  which formerly were home to a Jewish school and a billiard hall, he appointed architect Cecil E. Filmore to create a balcony and changing rooms for the staff, before reopening as ‘The Tatler News Theatre’ in 1937. The ghost sign for this is still visible at the back of the building – stand opposite and look up!

Cohen also wanted to create an air of spaciousness and so a system of interlocking staircases was introduced, ensuring that the steady flow of people could move easily in and out of the building. Overall, the objective was to create for the cinema an atmosphere of warmth and homeliness, coupled with comfort and refinement.

The accompanying brochure for the opening on 20^th March proudly proclaimed it as:

Magnificently equipped, luxuriously furnished and artistically decorated, it creates a new standard in News Theatre construction.

It also tells us a little more about the new look that greeted eager audiences that day:

Externally ‘The Tatler’ presents an extremely imposing elevation. The upper portion of the façade with cream faience framed in green, artistically picked out in neon lighting, together with the black vitrolite entrance beneath a stainless steel canopy.
Passing through the swing doors one enters a delightfully intimate foyer … the attractive decorations incorporating the latest ‘pink mirror’ surrounds, concealed lighting effects and introducing numerous original touches.

A brilliant man, alongside the rolling news reels from Pathe and British Movietone, Cohen created his own roving news film unit, mounting a movie-camera on the roof of a van and driving around the city, filming local news and events, creating fresh, new and exclusive content for audiences, which were slotted in alongside the regular news reels. It is one of these movie cameras that is proudly on display outside the door of Screen Two.

During this period, the cinema also screened short films and cartoons, including many by Walt Disney, who sent personal thanks to Joseph Cohen for supporting his films and also visited the Cohen family home, the art déco Woodbourne Manor in Harborne.

Among many properties, Cohen also owned the upmarket Lissiter’s Restaurant on Bennett’s Hill, where he famously danced with screen idol Mae West.

Following World War II and the advent of television, the golden age of cinema was in the decline and, in the 1950s, The Tatler News Theatre changed its name to the Jacey Cartoon Theatre (the name derived from Joseph Cohen’s initials). However, with more cartoons being sold to TV and UK cinema reliant on Hollywood titles, with distributors operating a barring system in favour of large cinema chains, a change in direction was needed.

The Jacey Cartoon Theatre closed at the end of Christmas 1969 and re-opened as The Jacey on 22^nd January, 1970, with the aim of showing continental films.

Jospeh Cohen was friends with Kenneth Rive, the owner of Gala Films, a distributor of European arthouse movies. No one else was showing these films at the time, and the appeal was that because Hollywood films, until 1968,  were still subject to the Hays Code, continental films were able to depict more mature themes. Rive is credited with introducing British audiences to the works of Truffaut and The French New Wave, Chabrol, Bergman, Fellini and many more. The Jacey screened all the Gala acquisitions, as well as meeting demand for the new ‘naturist’ titles.

While audiences clamoured for sexploitation movies - and, indeed, it was these that kept the UK cinema industry afloat during such turbulent times – the owners grew disillusioned with the audience’s appetite for such titles. Following the death of Joseph Cohen in 1980, all the Jacey cinemas were sold off, and the company went into voluntary liquidation in 1981.

The 1980s saw the cinema become part of a major chain for the only time in its history. As one of Lew Grade’s “Classic” cinemas, this was when many of the original Art déco features were destroyed as the upper balcony was turned into a second screen.  In the mid-80s, the cinema became “The Tivoli”, continuing to show a mix of mainstream, arthouse and exploitation movies.

Another change of owner came in 1993, with Bill Metcalf, and the cinema once again became ‘The Electric’. Famously, the front façade became an art installation, crimson with an array of shop mannikins in each window, in various attire and poses.

‘Thatcher’s Children’ was the work of John Buckley, famous also for the Headington Shark in Oxford and the legs which are now on the Duke of York’s Cinema in Brighton. The installation was designed specifically to shock and grab attention.

When the cinema changed hands again, in 2004, new owner Tom Lawes, a local film director and producer, spent hours painstakingly chipping away at the crimson tiles, with the resulting shower and red covered pavement featured in local new.

Lawes had originally intended to use the building as a music studio but quickly realised its potential as a cinema still.

Following a £250k refit and renovation, in which the building was restored to its original 1930s Art déco look, The Electric re-opened on 12^th December 2003. The bar is reportedly styled on that in The Shining.

For nearly two decades the cinema continued to show an eclectic mix of mainstream, independent and arthouse movies, along with a variety of special events such as gala screenings of Ab Fab, Spectre and Mamma Mia!, the annual Shock & Gore Film Festival, and hosting such guests as Richard E. Grant and director Bruce Robinson for the 30^th Anniversary Screening of Withnail and I. It became a licensed wedding venue, produced its own magazine, ‘The Electrolyte’, and had its own house band, The Electric Cinema Film Orchestra.

In recognition of The Electric’s Centenary in December 2009, local MPs Tom Watson, Khalid Mahmood and Richard Burden raised a motion in the House of Commons, stating that the House:

…recognises the value of independent cinemas to the cultural and social life of local communities; celebrates the continued success of Britain's oldest working cinema, The Electric in Birmingham; notes that on 2 December 2009 a centenary celebration is taking place for the cinema that started life as a silent movie theatre, became a news theatre during the Second World War and succumbed to dereliction in 2003.

In 2011, The Electric was the subject of the award-winning documentary The Last Projectionist, directed by Lawes, charting the history of UK independent cinemas. The Guardian described it as,

...a beautiful, timely, and ever-so-slightly heartbreaking documentary about the changing face of cinema in the UK, interweaving the reminiscences of stalwart projectionists (fast becoming an extinct species) with the history of Birmingham's Electric cinema.

Sadly, and somewhat controversially, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a mass redundancy of staff, with the uncertainty over the impending end over the 88 year lease cited as the main reason for the cinema’s closure.

For a while, the future looked bleak for The Electric but then, in January 2022, The Electric once again re-opened its doors following another refit, including a new 35mm projector whose only other use had been for the Scottish premiere of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart!

The Markwick family had cinema in their blood, and were the owners of another successful heritage cinema, The Picture House in Uckfield, East Sussex, built in 1916. Following a sell-out first screening of Belfast (for which Kenneth Brannagh personally sent a signed film poster congratulating them on the re-opening), the cinema continued to go from strength to strength.  

Over the next two years, The Electric welcomed audiences to The Flatpack Film Festival, The Wine Events Company, Solve Along A Murder She Wrote, The Annual #WithnailBrum screening (and cake!), The Cine-Excess Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Birmingham Indian Film Festival, Sing-a-long-a-Wicker Man. Bespoke cocktails with a film flavour were always on the menu.

Carlos Acosta and the Birmingham Royal Ballet hosted a special screening of their filmed production of ‘Don Quixote’, and ‘The Gerry Anderson Podcast Live’ at The Electric saw a packed house of Thunderbirds fans keen to meet Jamie Anderson, Jon Culshaw and Parker himself. The opening day of Barbenheimer – with Christopher Nolan’s Oscar winner screening on 35mm – is one few will ever forget, while the building tours for Birmingham Heritage Week were also quick to fill.

TV production companies chose to shoot there; students were always stopping by to make their final year films, while local filmmakers were given a platform to screen and talk about their work. Local groups held special interest screenings, not to mention the birthday parties, anniversaries, schools visits, a marriage proposal, and a wedding reception where the guests threw hundreds of plastic spoons at the screen (If you know, you know!)

But the sword hanging over The Electric finally fell.  Despite best efforts, a new negotiation for the 88 year lease couldn’t be reached and the cinema once again closed its doors on 29^th February, 2024.

The story does not end there. The public outcry has seen almost 20,000 people sign the petition against the proposed re-development of Station Street, which is also home to The Crown, the birthplace of heavy metal, where Black Sabbath played their first gig, and The Old Rep, the UK’s first purpose-built repertory theatre. Both The Rep and – after a storming campaign – The Crown have grade II listed status and a similar decision is awaited for The Electric.

For 115 years, The Electric has borne witness to the entire history of movies, the first purpose-built cinema in Birmingham and, until 29^th February 2024, the oldest working in the country. One of the few cinemas equipped still to screen on 35mm as well as digital. A trailblazer in technology, and an important player in introducing audiences to everyone from Walt Disney to the French New Wave.

But, most of all, it has been a part of the community. A cinema for the people, generation after generation, a part of our collective history and our own special memories.

Long may it stand.