Embassy Cinema

Harry Weston designed the Embassy Cinema in a more lavish style than would have been usual for a Gaumont Cinema. Its façade had a Modernist horizontal emphasis, faced in cream/'biscuit' coloured faience tiling above and black faience tiles below, with chromium plated fittings, enhanced by neon strip lighting and illuminated signs at night. There is a large window over the entrance which allows light into the ballroom. The double-height entrance foyer behind featured Art Deco metalwork and a floodlit glass column of crystalline rods. The auditorium originally had a ‘saucered’ floor to improve sight-lines from the seats. The splay walls featured horizontal fins which extended across…

The Embassy Cinema encompassed a number of innovative ideas, some of which were unknown in the cinema world at the time. It featured a tea-lounge and artistic café, as well as a ballroom for dancing to the sound of a live orchestra. A 24-foot deep stage and orchestra pit, in the auditorium, could accommodate live performances as there were also four adjacent dressing rooms. The large screen was controlled by a mechanism, that could make it move backwards and forwards. When a picture was showing it was lowered towards the audience, thereby minimising eye-strain. The latest system of Western Electric wide-range apparatus provided rich sound quality and substantially high production value;…