Wigan Album

It seems that "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" was showing, Veronica, if I'm reading it correctly, (it's a bit blurred), which would date the photo to the 1950s. We didn't get films shown simultaneously in towns back then....they were shown in the bigger towns first and cinemas had to wait their turn until the film came round to them. I went to The Court Cinema a few times as a child, sometimes with friends and sometimes, (unbelievably theses days!) on my own! Can you imagine a young girl, or even a boy, going to the pictures on their own these days?! I also remember going to The County across the road, but mainly I went to The Ritz down Station Road. That's where I went on my first date with Peter in 1968....I was 15 and he was 17 and he bought a box of Clarnico Mint Creams from The Kiosk. We saw Bonnie and Clyde. We sat on the back row. He never took his eyes off the screen, ate all the chocolate creams without offering me one and made me leave before the end because they all got shot! He was lucky I didn't shoot HIM!

I saw that film at the Scholes Pictures Irene. We used to go sometimes three times during the week. We didn’t have a telly so we went there in all weathers. I’ve seen it a few times since! Fancy Peter eating all the chocolates himself! I might have been in the Ritz at the same time I remember the Bonnie and Clyde film it would have been ‘68. They always got the best pictures at the Ritz. It’s a different experience now going to watch a film. All that thumping noise…plus at Middlebrook it’s like walking into a Cavern to get to the right place. The last one I went to see on my own was the one about the American Journalist in the 2nd WW. She was called ‘Lee’. Believe it or not there was only one other person watching it! I quite often go if there’s something I fancy but it’s in the daytime when I do.

Going off the girs clothing I would say this photo is more like the 1970's?

Rich - correct regarding the date.
The new Tesco building can be seen to the left of the photo.
Re the poster for 'Seven Brides' - In the last couple of years before the Court closed as a cinema they showed a lot of old films, rather than the latest ones.
Circa 1971, I remember seeing Bridge on the River Kwai there, which was made in the 1950s.
By this time the cinema was a bit of a dump, and the screen had a big tear in the bottom corner, which looked like it had been stitched together with an old towrope.

The film I saw was about Lee Miller the photographer not journalist who took graphic photographs during the war. One of her famous ones was when the Allies reached Berlin was of herself taking a bath in Hitler’s personal bathroom
( after he committed suicide of course.)

You are probably correct, Rich....the poster for the old film threw me, and I know that wide trousers for women WERE popular in the 1950s, but I realise that the girls in the photo look more like 1970s girls, when wide trousers were fashionable again. I remember seeing "Bridge on the River Kwai" there too, Les....not as late as the 1970s, but certainly long past its release, so perhaps they often showed old films.
Veronica, our daughter booked and paid for Peter and I to see the Downton Abbey film at the cinema at Robin Park a few years ago, and how right you are about the sound! At The Ritz, the lights used to be on until the film started, but it was pitch-black at Robin Park and we couldn't find our seats! Then when the adverts and trailers came on, they were so loud I had a headache by the time the Downton Abbey came on, but daren't have left my seat to get tablets and a drink or I would never have found my way back! WHY do they have it so loud??

Rich,you are correct in saying the photo looked like 1970s..an auntie gave me a treadle sewing machine and I made two pairs of trousers just like those on the photo..wish I had that machine now.
Re films,I went to see Annie Oakley..Doris Day was my favourite film star so..after seeing her I went to the hairdressers and had my hair dyed platinum blonde..my mam went mad,my dad was working away but I knew he would wouldn’t shout at me.lol
But I had a hard job convincing the boys at the ‘Emp’..but I would have done anything to look like my idol.
Then on to the Court cinema to see it might have been Seven Brides for Seven brothers ..and seen it twice on T.V. since.
A young chap from the Emp took me to a picture place once but forgotten which one,probably clouded with the thoughts that I had a terrible cold and my nose ran all through the film..no hanky of course..the shame..never forgotten it..this a repeat..Mam and Dad queueing up at the County ..then dad saw a horse galloping up
King Street..he grabbed the poor thing to stop it banging into someone or something..he got a real thank you letter from Mr Paul …… I have the letter upstairs but in the middle of about 200 more..it is on WW but forgotten where ..just where would we have been without our cinemas.

My memories of the Court are much older than the foregoing
I saw Will Hay there and Huckleberry Finn
During the latter the screen announced that the sirens had gone but no one moved