Odeon Leicester Square
Odeon Leicester Square in 2006
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| Address |
Leicester Square London, WC2 United Kingdom |
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| Coordinates | 51°30′38″N 0°07′45″W / 51.510556°N 0.129167°WCoordinates: 51°30′38″N 0°07′45″W / 51.510556°N 0.129167°W |
| Public transit |
 Leicester Square
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| Type | Cinema |
| Capacity | 1,679 |
| Opened | 2 November 1937 |
| Website | |
| Odeon Leicester Square | |
The Odeon Leicester Square is a cinema which occupies the centre of the eastern side of Leicester Square in London, dominating the square with its huge black polished granite facade and 120 feet (37 m) high tower displaying its name. Blue neon outlines the exterior of the building at night. It was built to be the flagship of Oscar Deutsch's Odeon Cinema Circuit and still holds that position today. It hosts numerous European and world film premieres including the annual Royal Film Performance.
The Odeon was completed by Sir Robert McAlpine in 1937 to the design of Harry Weedon and Andrew Mather on the site of the Turkish baths and the adjoining Alhambra Theatre a large music hall dating from the 1850s. The site cost £550,000, the cinema took seven months to build at a cost of £232,755 with 2116 seats. The opening night was Tuesday 2 November 1937; the film shown that night was The Prisoner of Zenda.
Until 1967, the interior was a magnificent art-deco auditorium, with a ribbed ceiling, concealing stripped lighting. Two bas relief sculptures of naked nymphs were positioned on the side walls, as if leaping towards the screen. All the seats were covered in a faux-leopard skin material. A rather misguided modernisation in 1967 destroyed most of this grandeur, although since the 1980s, restoration programmes have restored much of the detail, including the figures, seating pattern and much of the ribbed effect on the ceiling.
The first wide-screen (screen ratio 1.66:1) ever installed in Great Britain was premiered on 14 May 1953, the film shown was Tonight We Sing. The British debut of CinemaScope (screen ratio 2.55:1) following soon after on 19 November 1953 with the quasi-biblical epic, The Robe. The first cinema to show cinemascope in London was the Odeon Tottenham Court Road (9 June 1953) which was also the venue for the first screening of Cinerama.
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Wikipedia