Proposed Cinema, Penzance
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Proposed Cinema, Penzance

June 7th 1935
Colin Drewitt's design for the new cinema to be built in Queen Street.
His design was not implemented.
Union Cinemas' Ritz was opened July 1936; Harold Ramsey played the giant electric organ.
Probably would have cost a great deal more; Colin was applying the motifs that he was used to using in Canada. He took all of his drawings when he left the practice in Penzance, except this drawing. It is in pencil on tracing paper. Fairly difficult to photograph, but too delicate to place in a scanner.
 
You have to place your mind in the place of a fine draughtsman who spent years in Canada where the pavements were very wide, and by that I mean the roads, as they call pavements sidewalks. I have one case on another drawing of New Street (more on that later) where the drawing shows sidewalk . These drawings in fact are no different from the original drawing of the new Market House, where a wide vista is shown surrounding the building, all to show the building off to best effect, as a building in its own right; we had many such fine draughtsmen in the 1970s, a lost art now, with computerised drawings of no personal character. These 1930s drawings were always made after a downpour, to offer reflections of the building, making it all the more graceful and a part of the landscape ....
 
The Ritz upstaged every cinema for miles around with the giant electric organ. Sometimes during the interval the lights would dim and with cheers from the audience - coming up, blasting out of the dark would arise good old Charlie Curgenven, sitting, playing and trying to smile over his shoulder at the same time. Such complications the maestro commanded for his performance - hundreds of keys and switches - floor pedals to operate - glass panels that changed colour - Even Captain Kirk might have shied away from this beauty.
Live music, news and films all for one shilling - worth queuing in the rain for.
 
Absolutely !!! A wonderful instrument. I remember Dudley Savage played there on occasion? What type of organ was it?
Not a Wurlitzer, but something akin to that?
 
I think the Plymouth Royal had a Wurlitzer that Dudley Savage used for his radio broadcasts . I don’t know about the Ritz, they were both ABC group cinemas - could be the same electric organs ?
 

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Penwith Picture Palaces
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