REMEMBERING THE RITZ | Broughton Spurtle

Submitted by Editor on Mon, 08/06/2015 - 08:42

In Issue 241, John Ross Maclean fondly recalled the Ritz cinema, which used to stand on Rodney Street where the modern flats are now.

Reader David Boyd remembers it well …

We went often to the Ritz, which many people (my sister included) unkindly called 'Ritz Pitz'. This was unfair, just because the place was old-fashioned … that was precisely why I liked it. If it were there today people would treasure it as they do places like the Cameo.

ABC had four cinemas in Edinburgh (so did their Rank competition), their first being the Savoy in Stockbridge. Their second and purpose-built one was the Ritz (in 1929), then the Lyceum Slateford and lastly the Regal Lothian Road.

By the time we used it, the Ritz was effectively ‘ABC 4’, playing the same films although only one a time, it having only a single screen. I gather that ABC tried to get a bingo licence in the 1960s and was refused, but the place kept going somehow.

Your article has an inaccuracy: the balcony was not removed in 1969 but its use was discontinued. Common to a lot of ABC halls was the introduction of a ‘Luxury Lounge’, which was the stalls re-seated with extra legroom. This could be easily accomplished because the stalls’ floor profile is a continuous slope – the balcony was more difficult being stepped. This then meant that, price-wise, the stalls and balcony swapped places.

I was in the Ritz the week it closed, and stood in the balcony for the first and last time. The house lights had been left off in that area so it was a little dark, but I do recall the seats up there were quite worn whereas those in the stalls were not.

I know a story an old projectionist told me (he is quite elderly now but fit as a flea and with perfect recall). He worked there just after the war. The electroliers had been taken down for the duration of the conflict, and when they were being winched back into position the ratchet had been incorrectly set so that with each turn of the handle there was a shattering of glass. The lighting I recall was pretty humdrum 1950s vintage so that may explain why.

One memorable visit was to see Grease in 1978. People at school had been bragging about how many times they had seen it at the more expensive ABC Film Centre, but there they all were in the queue for the Ritz. We queued up and got to about ten from the door when we heard it was full. They hadn’t had a queue for years and really didn’t know what had hit them.

My father came to pick us up and we had to leave, having waited patiently hoping to be first in for the next show. So back we went another day and did it all again.

Last film I saw there was Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part I. The ticket price was £1.80, 20p cheaper than on Lothian Road.

When they closed it, I was running the Royal High School Film Society and had never seen a proper projection room. The manager, one Bill Lawrie, very kindly arranged for me to see it in the last week. The chief projectionist was called Ronnie Sinclair.

How I wish it were still there now, I loved the Ritz and it had real character.

[Mono image courtesy of dusachenka; more images available at edinphoto and, for interior, Kenspeckle's 9.10.13 post in Skyscrapercity (23 images down).]