A real screen hero from Birmingham

Mar 12 2010 By Chris Upton

The first Odeon arrived soon after. Responsibility for securing the location lay with Jack Cotton, whose property developments were to transform the centre of Birmingham after the Second World War. In 1928 Cotton was a more humble estate agent, who persuaded the Birmingham Public Entertainments Committee to accept the application for a cinema on unoccupied land in Birchfield Road, Perry Barr.

Key to the committee’s role in the early 20s was managing the vast number of cinema applications, and ensuring that the suburbs were not swamped with long lines of picture-houses.

There already was a cinema at Birchfield, less than half a mile away, which inevitably objected to the proposal, but a petition from almost 6,000 local residents swayed the committee in Deutsch and Cotton’s favour.

Still, the presence of the Birchfield Picture House did present a problem. If a new cinema was to open nearby, clearly it could not simply be another “picture house”. What should it be called? The solution is attributed to Mel Mindelsohn, who (along with his brother and their families) had recently returned from a trip to Tunis in North Africa. “We saw the word ‘Odeon’ being used as the name of a building in everyday use, and it struck me as the word had possibilities. It was short, dignified and unusual, without being bizarre.”

The title had the additional merit of including the key letters of the founder’s name too. Only later – much later – would it be said to stand for “Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation”. What was most important – at least in the movie industry – was that it was original and memorable.

The name itself became part of the design. Later the lettering came to be thicker and more widely spaced, but the distinctive classical font, and the red letters fringed with gold were there from the beginning. They came courtesy of a young man called Harold Pierce, whose family firm had been making company signs since the 18th Century.

When the Perry Barr Odeon opened on August 4, 1930, then, it had many of the elements that would define the brand nationwide. But this first Odeon was not yet part of a chain. Only three years later, in 1933, would Oscar Deutsch embark on his project of “entertaining the nation”.

By the time Deutsch returned to Birmingham, the Odeon style was fully formed. First came the Warley Odeon (technically outside the city boundary, but only a stone’s throw from where Deutsch lived in Augustus Road, Edgbaston) in December 1934; then the Kingstanding Odeon on Kettlehouse Lane in July 1935; and finally the Odeon in Sutton Coldfield, which opened in April 1936.

The latter two were (and are) among the finest cinema buildings in the country, a suitable tribute to the Odeon’s Birmingham origins.

* There is an opportunity to visit the Birmingham Odeons at this year’s Flatpack Festival. Chris Upton will be conducting a bus tour on Saturday March 27, starting at the Electric Cinema on Station Street at 11.30.

For further information, visit the festival website at flatpackfestival.org.uk

For tickets, contact Ticketsellers on 0844 870 0000