Christmas day in St Andrews in 1950 differed from previous years. While recent years had been unseasonably warm, on this morning the townspeople were greeted by a glistening blanket of frost. The overnight temperature had slumped to fifteen degrees below freezing. The children met this cold weather with delight as they tried out their new ice skates, and games of curling were played on the skating pond (St Andrews Citizen, 30 December 1950). Though there was holiday merriment, St Andrews was still suffering some of the hardships brought on by war, with residents experiencing power cuts due to fuel rationing (St Andrews Citizen, 23 December 1950). This burden was not reflected on screen, as three light-hearted musicals dominated the programme across the town’s two cinemas, The New Picture House and The Cinema House. 

At the time going to the cinema was an especially popular leisure activity during bank holidays. To escape the cold, St Andrews residents could enjoy some special Christmas events. The New Picture House and The Cinema House were both open and showing films on Christmas day. The New Picture House had a very popular café and smoking lounge. For those desperate to escape the kitchen, the cinema even offered a special Christmas day dinner (Citizen, 9 December 1950).  

Meanwhile at The Cinema House, the St Andrews branch of the British Legion sponsored a special children’s showing of Make Mine Music (Geronimi, Kinney, Luske & Meador, USA, 1946) (Citizen, 16 December 1950). Make Mine Music, an animated Disney film comprising ten unrelated vignettes set to music, ranging from The Andrews Sisters to Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” was originally intended as a sequel to Fantasia (Grant & Huemer, USA, 1940) but was delayed with the onset of War (Nicholson, 2002, 125). The Cinema House had a packed schedule for the whole family on Christmas Day; illustrating the important social role cinemas occupied in the community. 

The main showing at The Cinema House was the musical One Touch of Venus (Seiter, USA, 1948). The children’s special showing began at 10:30am, with a final showing starting at 9:10pm. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, One Touch of Venus stars Ava Gardner as the love goddess Venus, who was a statue in a department store before a kiss from a timid window dresser (Robert Walker), brings her to life. The British publicity emphasised that Gardner had been cast due to her resemblance to the Anatolian Venus statue (“Beauty by the Inch”). Indeed, the film is best remembered today as a star vehicle for Ava Gardner, who would be compared to Venus for the rest of her career (Williams, 2020, 45).

Across the road at the New Picture House, they were playing One Sunday Afternoon (Walsh, USA, 1948), the third film adaptation of this Broadway musical. The film was intended as a star vehicle for Dennis Morgan, who had shone in My Wild Irish Rose (Butler, USA, 1947), a film which had played at the New Picture House in April 1949 (Citizen, 30 April 1949). However, One Sunday Afternoon was not popular and barely turned a profit (Glancy, 1995, 66). Despite his popularity at the time, Morgan and his films are largely forgotten today. 

The presence and popularity of the cinema on Christmas Day highlights the hugely significant place that the New Picture House and The Cinema House occupied within the town as both entertainment and social centres. This post-war era of austerity, before the television boon, was the peak period for cinema attendance in Britain. A Christmas day trip to the cinema offered a chance to meet friends and, given the Hollywood musicals on show, escape from the cold winter of 1950. 

Brooke Daley (2020)

Works Cited: 

St. Andrews Citizen, 1949 – 1950

“Beauty by the inch”. Film News Sheet from Eros Films Ltd, 21 June 1950.

Glancy, H. Mark. “Warner Bros Film Grosses, 1921-51; the William Schaefer Ledger” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 15/1 (1995), 55-73.

Griffiths, Trevor. “A Seven-day Wonder? Cinema and the Scottish Sabbath” in The Cinema and Cinema-going in Scotland, 1896-1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 138-170.

Nicholson, Stuart. “Make Mine Music and the End of the Swing Era”. In The Cartoon Music Book, edited by Daniel Goldmark & Yuval Taylor (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2002).

Williams, Michael. “A Venus in marble and Bakelite: Ava Gardner and One Touch of Venus (1948)” Celebrity Studies11/1 (2020), pp.43-59.

The operetta enjoyed a different kind of rendition when put on by the St Andrews Amateur Operatic Society for the first time in St Andrews in 1966. The Society formed in 1939 to gather lovers of opera and create a base from which they could produce local plays and public performances of the masterworks of world opera together with some of their own favourites (Partial Personal Correspondence: NODA).

Instead of taking on the town’s well-known Byre Theatre, trademark host of many local plays and productions at the time, The Society’s performance of The Gypsy Baron ran in the New Picture House (NPH) on the 14, 15and 16 February 1966 (The Citizen, 12 February 1966). The Society began its relationship with the NPH – which was a site long used for local amateur shows – in 1947 with a production of “The Pirates of Penzance” (The Citizen, 8 February 1947) and throughout the 1950s both the NPH and The Citizen had well-established connections with The Society.

The Baron was – unlike many previous Society productions – intensively advertised by The Citizenfor one month in advance: every week a poster was included between NPH and Cinema House programmes on page four of The Citizen. The phrase “show business” is studded across a large 22 January advertisement of the Baron. Underneath it reads, from the “stables that brought you the winners “Oklahoma” and “Brigadoon”” (The Citizen, 22 January 1966).

The Society’s method of advertising is doubly effective. On the one hand, the Society speaks to mainstream film production by invoking the language of Hollywood (“show business”) and two of Hollywood’s famous 1950s productions. On the other, the Society actually refers to the productions of the same name put on by the Society in the 1950s, which St Andrews locals may recall. It thus doubles The Baron’s chances of success by invoking two strands of popular heritage: that of global Hollywood and that of the local Society and their history with amateur productions in the NPH.

Moreover, the Society plays on the local sensibilities by targeting the family audience: The Citizen advertises the production as a “show for all the family” (The Citizen, 22 January 1966), while another issue reads “Bring Your Family to this Sparkling Show” (The Citizen, 15 January 1966). This serves both to draw local opera fans (and families and friends of the performers) to the cinema and potentially to bring an existing cinema audience to the local show.

The premiere and the whole three days were, indeed, successful. The Baron was perhaps unsurprisingly praised in a two-page glorious review in The Citizen, which proclaimed “A revel of gaiety and colour”, “flawless and effortless”, with its performances commended as well as its family appeal (The Citizen, 19 February 1966). The presence of critical engagement when it came to this, and many later, local theatre productions indicates that St Andrews continuously supported the efforts of local societies throughout the twentieth century.

The brief run of The Gypsy Baron shows a Scottish picture house going against the norm of allowing mainstream film exclusivity in UK programmes as the NPH, together with the local press, supported the successful exhibition of a local production put on by an Amateur Operatic Society. The desire to reach a different audience and to connect art forms can still be seen today with performances of operatic and stage shows, transmitted ‘live’ on cinema screens across the country. The operatic society also continues, now operating under the name the St Andrews Musical Society.

Mina Radovic (2018)

Works cited

The Citizen, 8 February 1947; 2.

The Citizen, 15 January 1966; 22 January 1966; 29 January 1966; 5 February 1966; 12 February 1966; 4.

“Glittering Operatic Society Show” in The Citizen, 22 February 1966; 3.

National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA)

1943: The allies capture Tripoli from the Nazis; Television Broadcasting continues to be suspended; George Harrison is born; and two St. Andrews students begin their film magazine, Monarch News

The ambitious Monarch – a hand-made magazine – was produced from 1943-1944. Manufactured against the backdrop of war, it provides a valuable glimpse into the period from the perspective of students, prospective film critics and members of the armed forces – all rolled into one. Founded by two St Andrews Students, Rollo Mitchell and Bob Edwards, and produced in Cowdenbeath, Monarch’s influences, and reports, came from far and wide: from London, to Hollywood and even Egypt.

The magazine is a testament to the enduring popularity of film throughout the war, highlighting and discussing many war films across its pages. It included film reviews which often celebrated patriotic war productions, such as In Which We Serve (Noel Coward, 1942, Great Britain), which the magazine praised as ‘one of the best films we have ever made’ [Monarch News, May 1943, issue 7].

The pages of the magazine also reveal the impact of war on the nation.  Conscription, bombing and rationing are all mentioned in the articles, while these challenges are more acutely felt in Monarch’s own efforts to source film and complete work on its own short production.

From May 1943, Monarch would also include short cuttings of ‘Stars Who Serve,’ which would detail each actor’s latest films alongside a small portrait. Star profiles included the likes of the British star, ‘Major’ David Niven, member of the Rifle Brigade (Monarch News, May 1943, Issue 7), and ‘Lieutenant’ Laurence Olivier who joined the Fleet Air Arm (Monarch News, July 1943, Issue 10). American stars like ‘Lieutenant’ James Stewart were also included in the sections (Monarch News, July 1943, Issue 9).

The ‘Stars Who Serve’ sections were cut outs from other newspapers and work to emphasise the film industry’s contribution to the war effort. Even those involved in propaganda films, like ‘Lieutenant’ Olivier, felt a strong obligation to ‘sign up’.

While stitched together in Scotland, each issue of Monarch was filled with references to war, both at home and further afield. Weekly interviews with the magazine’s collaborators, titled ‘Confess, Brother! Confess!”, detail the intimacies of the lives of these young adults. When asked what the worst experience of his life was, ‘photographic expert’ John Short answered: ‘The Blitz in Greenock’.

Even the satirical ‘Sadie Tripe: Don’t Believe it!’ column, would address female volunteering for the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) or the WRENS (Women’s Royal Navy Service), noting that Sadie knew it was her ‘turn to do my bit’ [Monarch News, January 1944, Issue 18].

The magazine even included articles in two issues from an ‘overseas correspondent’; overseas because he was serving with the armed forces. One of these articles discussed ‘South African Cinema’ (Monarch News, October 1943, 14), while the other was entitled ‘Church Bigotry versus Sunday Cinema’ (Monarch News, September 1943, 13). In discussing the relationship between cinema, war and Sunday screenings, the author, R. G Matthews (RAF), expressed his frustration at the closure of cinemas on Sundays, arguing that they could provide a source of moral education. Matthews also tells readers about his experience working in South African cinemas – an article he sends from his new post in Egypt!

The magazine’s contributors – predominantly young men – were inevitably also involved in war work. President Bob Edwards was waiting for ‘summons’, and producer and star of Monarchproduction, And So Goodbye, Rollo Mitchell was a member of the RAF. Rollo’s wartime role can be traced throughout the magazine. Monarcheven includes a newspaper’s report on Mitchell’s success in Frankfurt, where his plane came in on a “wing and a prayer” (Monarch News, February 1944, Issue 19).

While wartime is a recurrent topic throughout the articles, it does not hamper the predominantly optimistic tone of the magazine. Just as wartime film can be read as an escape from day to day life, Monarch allowed these young adults a chance to explore their own interests, away from the pressures of war, jobs or university.

Francesca Woulfe (2018)

The passage contains a rare, short fictional account of cinemagoing in St Andrews in the 1920s. For one of the two boys, six year old Alistair, it is his first trip to a cinema, prompting his friend Arthur to explain ‘They’re not real people, you know, they’re only pictures.’  Arthur’s frustrations continue at his friend’s ‘too spontaneous behaviour’ as he insists on talking to the actors on screen.

“I don’t like the look of you,” he told the villain. Against the driver who did not stop the train as quickly as seemed necessary when the hero and his horse lay helpless on the line his rage knew no bounds. Standing on his feet, with his hands clenched, he muttered against him. Towards the heroine he felt nothing but disgust. When in the “close-up” she was shown with large tears in her eyes, he could hardly bear it, and when the hero clasped her in a close and prolonged embrace, he nudged Arthur crossly to know what they were doing. “Kissing,” hissed Arthur shamefacedly, adding “the silly assess.” (P.180)

The scenario described within the passage – the hero and his horse on the train tracks – is a largely generic one, while the boys’ reactions similarly conform to popular perceptions of the time. In 1926 St Andrews had one cinema, The Cinema House, but there is little to locate this specific screening to St Andrews – aside from the mention of rain.

Recalling his own experiences attending The Cinema House in the 1920s, local resident Melville Reid similarly stated ‘there was always a girl on the railtracks who was tied down… I don’t know how they stopped the train but somehow they did.’ Reid remembered his favourite stars of the era – Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks – and particular screenings, such as The Green Shadow. His earliest memories involved trips to The Cinema House, entering via the back door on Muttoes Lane, which was  ‘crowded out on a Saturday afternoon by kids getting tuppeny seats, hard seats, on the front row.’ Gradually Reid and his friends progressed to the ‘red plush thruppence seats’, now entering through the front door. Ushered half way down (‘the nobility’ at the top) he would walk past the alcoves where, if you had enough money and a willing companion, you could go ‘for a cuddle’. The Cinema House would undergo renovations in 1930 and in the same year would be joined on North Street by The New Picture House.

Tom Rice

Works cited:

O. Douglas, The Proper Place (1926, republished by Greyladies, 2010)

This club was by no means unique to the town. Many major theater chains, such as ABC and Odeon Cinemas, had their own syndicated minors clubs that promised a morning of morally sound entertainment for children, while also offering parents some free weekend time to themselves. This can be seen in this ABC Minor’s Club commercial from 1963.

These commercial minors clubs were predominantly focused on providing entertainment.  Though minors clubs were a national phenomenon, the St. Andrews Minors Club appears to have catered for local concerns, most notably by initiating community outreach with a local hospital. Throughout 1966, newspaper reports and advertisements emphasised the club’s work with the senior citizens of the Gibson Hospital.

This sense of instilling values into the club’s members can be traced back to the Children’s Entertainment Movement, which was spearheaded by Mary Field and J. Arthur Rank in the 1940s. J. Arthur Rank and his organisation owned the Odeon Cinema chain and, recognising the growing trend of children’s film clubs, set up Children’s Entertainment Film (CEF). With Mary Field as producer, CEF sought to produce films that espoused good morals and values to this expectant Saturday morning audience.

In 1950 the CEF closed, but the government-backed Children’s Film Foundation soon took its place. The CFF had a fairer distribution system that helped independent cinemas, such as The New Picture House, get first-run pictures. Indeed on 1 May 1965, The New Picture House held the Scottish premiere of the Children’s Film Foundation production, Eagle Rock. Henry Geddes, the newly appointed head of the CFF, directed the film. In keeping with many of these CFF films, Eagle Rock emphasised the importance of teamwork.

According to The Citizen, the NPH was chosen on the strength of its local minors club. ‘Our club was formed here in December’, a report explained, ‘and already we have more than 600 members’ (The Citizen, 1 May 1965). The premiere attracted Forsyth Hardy, a prominent Scottish film critic and film historian, and provided occasion for committing the St. Andrews Minors Club itself to film. The club advertised that the children arriving to the premiere would be filmed from 10:00 to 10:30 on 1 May. On 5 June, a month after the event, the cinema invited all members and parents to see the result; a chance to see themselves up on the big screen.

The choice of St. Andrews for the premiere may appear surprising given that the Minor’s Club was only a few months old. However, the St Andrews Minors Club was bucking a national trend that saw a marked reduction in the number of Children’s Cinema clubs during the decade. Furthermore, while other minors clubs had descended into raucous meeting places for children, the St. Andrews Minors Club publicly presented itself (however accurately) as a moral, education meeting place that harkened back to J. Arthur Rank’s original vision for these clubs.

Sarah Mankoff

Works cited:

Field, Mary, Good Company: The Story of the Children’s Entertainment Film Movement in Great Britain, 1943-1950 (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1952).

St. Andrews Citizen 5 Dec. 1964, 5.

St. Andrews Citizen 1 May 1965, 5.

St. Andrews Citizen 15 Oct 1966, 5.

St. Andrews Citizen 17 Dec 1966, 5.

Many of the responses recall first experiences at the cinema, primal scenes that have left an indelible mark on the moviegoer. For Anne Morris, for instance, this was a first trip with her Grandmother as a seven year old to see Pinocchio at the New Picture House. ‘Unfortunately, it was a disaster’, she recalled, ‘and I had to be led sobbing from the cinema. The sight of Pinocchio’s nose growing every time he told a lie was to me very cruel and unbearable.’ She noticed a positive outcome to this – ‘I found it very difficult to tell a fib thereafter’ – but also acknowledged that it was quite a while before she returned to the cinema.

Another respondent remembered a school treat to see Rear Window at the NPH, which left her terrified and too frightened to return to the cinema. ‘My parents were very fussy after that’, she concluded. The impact of the cinema on children’s minds is a recurring theme throughout the responses. Intriguingly, and no doubt much to his delight, Alfred Hitchcock often appeared responsible for these extreme formative responses from the local cinemagoers.

The responses tease out the minutiae of the cinemagoing experience, details that are otherwise lost; responses – smells, sounds, sights – that remain etched in the mind of the cinemagoer. The ‘smokers haven’, ‘choking cigarette smoke’, ash trays ‘attached to the back of every seat in every row’, the ‘fug’ which swirled around the cinema and ‘almost made the film appear through gauze on some occasions.’ The snacks (‘sweet papers littered the floors’), the national anthem (‘anyone that left before the anthem was deemed to be a social pariah’), ‘the lovers seats’, the children’s shows (‘wild children sat at the front’) and the queues around the block. Particular historical moments form the backdrop to these memories. For example, Cynthia Tero recalls walking home from The Cinema House in the dark as ‘the wartime blackout was in force.’

Other responses recall shifts in film history and technology, some of which have made a recent reappearance in St Andrews. For example, Valerie Douglas remembers ‘the cardboard spectacles with coloured cellophane lenses’ handed out to watch 3D films in the 1950s.

There are particular screenings that appear memorable to local residents, many of them somewhat unexpected. Pete Wilcox, a projectionist at the NPH, remembers a one off special showing of Disney’s Fantasia in the early 80s that had people queuing up ‘around the block’. The start was delayed by half an hour ‘in order to pack in his many bodies as possible’, while people were ‘actually paying to get in to stand in the aisles’. While noting that this was evidently an age before ‘health and safety’, Pete Wilcox concludes that he has never seen an audience response like this before or since.

Finally, the questionnaires reveal the changes within the town and often serve as a paean to a lost world. In particular, there are fond reminiscences of The Cinema House, but also poignant reminders of the irreversible changes that even film, that recorder of space and time, cannot prevent. Valerie Douglas writes with great affection of The Cinema House, of Jack Humphries, Alec Gourlay and Mrs Brand, the Usherette. Yet her last visit to the Cinema House was a sad one. ‘The projection was poor, I had a seat uncomfortably near the front, the seat next to mind collapsed, it was’, she concluded, ‘a very sad end to a once glamorous building.’

If you have memories of your own about film in St Andrews, we would love to hear from you.

Tom Rice