Information about early cinemas is sparse. The first screening is reckoned to be that held at the Polytechnic in Upper Regent Street, London in 1896. The programme was made up of short films from the French Lumière brothers. Travelling fairs hired local halls for special shows, and music halls included films in their programmes. When businessmen realised that this was no ‘flash in the pan’, buildings began to be converted into cinemas. The conversion was fairly crude, often with just a whitewashed wall and boarded up windows. Government concern about public safety (the nitrate film used is highly inflammable) led to new regulations following the Cinematograph Act of 1909. This encouraged the spread of purpose-built cinemas.

Records show that in the early 1900s, the Cheshire Animated Picture Co. presented occasional screenings in Wem Town Hall. The nightly Picture Palace in the White Horse Assembly Rooms followed with shows from 7.00pm to 10.30pm; children's matinees took place on Saturday afternoons and admission was 3d or 6d. Activity moved back to the Town Hall with the Picture Drome by 1913 with screenings from Thursdays to Saturdays. Prices had risen, now being 3d to 1/-, with children's matinees at 2d and 3d.

There was a rapid expansion of theatres and companies in this period. The 1914 edition of the Kinematograph Year Book (KYB) shows:

• Shrewsbury with the Central Hall at Castle Gates, seating 650, run by Glynn Hill & Co; the Picture House, seating 700, run by Cinema Theatres Midlands Ltd., and the Theatre Royal & Hippodrome, run by W. Yates Gregory;
• Ellesmere, the Goulding Cinema Co. operated in Trimpley Hall;
• Llandrindod Wells, a 500-seater in the King Theatre ran by GM Hand.
• Wrexham Hippodrome Ltd. was also established for cinema operations.

As a new and popular entertainment for the masses, Cinema soon came under the scrutiny of the National Council of Public Morals. Fears were expressed but it was judged a lesser evil than the public house. Soon feature length films replaced the shorts.

Small regional circuits started to develop.

• 1931, the KYB shows Wem Cinema still in the Town Hall being run by Cambrian & Border Cinemas Ltd. of Wrexham. The Much Wenlock cinema was in the Memorial Hall with a nightly screening on Friday & Saturday from September to April operated by Walter Woof of Waljalen Cinema.
• 1933 Wem Cinema was still operating, Much Wenlock was closed but there were two cinemas in Whitchurch, the Grand and the Palladium, operated by TE Markham, of Ye Olde Wych Theatre (Nantwich).
• 1936, Wem was being run by Cosy Cinemas (Dawley) Ltd. with prices from 3d to 1/3. [400 seats; proscenium 18’ wide and dance hall.]
• 1935 Much Wenlock's cinema was again operating in the Memorial Hall with seating for 250, offering two performances nightly across four days. It used Gyrotone, an early sound system. The proprietor was Edward V. Taylor, who was born in Stratford on Avon, the son of wooden patternmaker from Leicesterson, John Henry,from Leicester, and Annie, from Northampton. He was listed as an electrical & radio dealer in Much Wenlock (1939). He died in 1957 in Shirley, Warwickshire. In the early 1940s, the chain's HQ moved from Much Wenlock to Builth Wells.
  The cinema chain in the late 1930s/early 1940s, consisted of:
  • Castle Cinema, Builth Wells
  • Castle Cinema, Llandovery
  • Castle Cinema, Rhayader, Radnorshire
  • Castle Cinema, Llanwrytd Wells, Brecs
  • Farndon Cinema, Cheshire.
  • Grand Pavilion Cinema, Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire
  • Plaza Cinema, Newent, Gloucs.
  • Savoy Cinema, Egham, Surrey
  • Wenlock Cinema, Much Wenlock
  • Wem Cinema, Wem

The cinemas are shown on the map below. The inclusion of the Savoy Cinema in Egham is unexplained.

Few of these cinemas survive.

• Much Wenlock closed in 1961.
• Farndon Cinema was built in 1922 by Thomas Roycroft. Edward Taylor leased the building in 1941, it seated around 100 people. Admission was from 8d to 1/2; children from 4d to 1/-. It ceased operating in 1956.
• Newent cinema began operating in the 1920s. By the early 1930s it was equipped with the little known SOS sound system. It was known as the Plaza Cinema when part of the Taylor chain of cinemas. It was still operating in the summer of 1971. The building is now a printer's.
• The Grand Pavilion in Llandrindod Wells operated as a cinema from the 1920s to the 1950s.
  

  Grand Pavilion in Llandrindod Wells

  Summer entertainments in Llandrindod Wells had been provided in temporary marquees at the Rock Park. Then the Grand Pavilion was built there in 1912 at a cost of ¤4,750 as a concert hall, dance hall and theatre. Originally there was a balcony all the way around the building, which was used by Lord Baden-Powell when he gave a speech to a Scout Jamboree in 1933.
  During the First World War, whist drives were held at the Grand Pavilion to raise funds for the Blue Cross, which cared for animals in military service. The army still depended on horses for heavy transport. Dogs served at the front in many capacities. The pavilion was also used for lectures by the Royal Army Medical Corps. More than 2,000 men, mostly from the RAMC, packed into the pavilion in March 1915 for a RAMC boxing tournament. Concerts given in the Grand Pavilion by RAMC men were popular. The RAMC's farewell concert, held here in May 1916, drew a large audience.
  The pavilion functioned as a cinema (900 seats) from the 1920s to the 1950s. During the 1930s and 1940s, as part of the Taylor chain and at other times it was run by the Welsh chain of Paramount Picture Theatres and by Whale Cinemas.
  Later it was primarily a dance hall. Powys County Council ran the pavilion from the 1970s until 2015 as a venue for conferences, discos, comedy and other events. The building was refurbished in 1994 by the Town Council. In 2015 it was closed and the County Council put the building and the grounds that surround it up for sale. In March 2016, Grand Pavilion Events, a community interest company, reopened the building as a venue for public hire and entertainments. The image shows that main hall still has the appearance of a cinema (minus the seating) and we were told that the stage was well suited to Welsh male voice choirs.

  Our thanks to historypoints.org for the additional information.

Plasterwork, a reminder of the heydays for cinemas and theatres.

The main hall

Wem Cinema ~ 1959 Playlist

• Winchester 73 (1950) - James Stewart, Dan Duryea.
  [US Western]
• Carry On Sergeant (1958) - William Hartnell, Bob Monkhouse. [British Comedy]
• Gideon’s Day (1958) - Jack Hawkins, Dianne Foster.
  [British Police Procedural] Based on John Creasey novel of the same name.
• The Duke Wore Jeans (1958) - Tommy Steele, June Laverick and Alan Wheatley
  [British Musical] Songs by Lionel Bart, Mike Pratt and Jimmy Bennett (Tommy Steele).
• Flying Scot (1957) - Lee Patterson
  [British Crime]
• A King In New York (1957) - Charlie Chaplin, Dawn Adams, Sid James, Michael Chaplin.
  [British Comedy]
• Lucky Jim (1957) - Ian Carmichael, Terry Thomas.
  [British Comedy]
• The Wind Cannot Read (1958) - Dirk Bogarde, Yoko Tani, Ronald Lewis.
  [British Drama] Based on the novel by Richard Mason.
• A Night To Remember (1958) - Kenneth More, Honor Blackman, David McCallum.
  [British Drama] The sinking of the Titanic.
• The Deep Six (1958) - Alan Ladd, Dianne Foster.
  [US WWII Drama] Based on the novel by Martin Dibner.
• Where There's A Will (1955) - Leslie Dwyer, Kathleen Harrison.
  [British Comedy] The screenplay by RF Delderfield from one of his own plays.
• Orders To Kill (1955) - Eddie Albert, Paul Massie, Lilian Gish, Irene Worth, James Robertson Justice.
  [British WWII Drama]
• When Gangland Strikes (1956) - Raymond Greenleaf, Marjie Millar, John Hudson, Slim Pickens
  [US Film Noir]

Along with other small cinemas, Wem cinema was facing two growing problems, competition from TV and patrons being able to travel more easily to the larger towns where more current films were being screened. By the 1970s, films were only shown monthly on Monday nights. These were not the latest releases, but mainly from the 1950s (Carousel, 1956; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954) with occasional ones from the 1960s (Born Free, 1966).

Gone to Earth (1950) was also shown. This was not a surprising choice since it was filmed in Much Wenlock. It Starred Jennifer Jones, Cyril Cusack, Sybil Thorndike, George Cole, etc. Gone to Earth is based on the 1917 novel by Mary Webb - Hazel Woodus is a child of nature in the Shropshire countryside in 1897. Most of the film was shot at many sites around Much Wenlock. Local people were recruited as extras. The local Methodist church choir appears in the film but Michael Powell thought they weren't ragged enough to portray a choir of "country folk", only to be told "But we are country folk, Mr. Powell."

The arrangement was more akin to the film clubs that operated in many schools and no comparison to the situation in the 1940s and 1950s.

There were other sources of income for the cinema. Film-goers were a captive audience for advertisers. The only broadcasting medium (visual), the BBC, did not screen adverts and was most careful that programmes did not feature brand names for products. Adverts being screened into people's own homes only began on September 22, 1952 when Independent TV started broadcasting in the London Region (Associated Rediffusion). Other companies began to join the network but it was 1962 before there was countrywide coverage.

Advertisements being screened in Wem Cinema, 1945
Dates	Advert	Payment
April 30th - 5th May	Ovaltine, "This England"	£1 5s 0d
May 21st - 26th	Persil, "We Mothers"	£1 5s 0d
June 18th - 23rd	Gibbs SR, "Sound Sense"	£1 5s 0d
July 9th - 14th	Persil, "The Sisters"	£1 5s 0d
July 23rd - 28th	Rinso, "Bluebeard Had 8 Wives"	£1 5s 0d
August 6th - 11th	Lux Toilet Soap, "Bouquet of the Month"	£1 5s 0d
August 20th - 25th	Persil, "Surprise Kept"	£1 5s 0d
October 1st - 6th	Persil, "Ghost Goes White"	£1 5s 0d
October 2nd - 6th	Rinso, "Mystery of the White Handkerchief"	£1 5s 0d
November 25th - 30th	Pepsodent, "As Others See Us"	£1 5s 0d

Since 2006, Wem Town Hall Community Trust has worked hard to bring Wem Town Hall back into community use. Revival of the cinema was one of the ventures. Harry Futers, who as a young man had worked as a projectionist at the Gaumont in Manchester, volunteered to operate the cinema and worked with Paul Roberts the manager. Harry Futers boarded up the walls of the projection room leaving small portholes because previously it had huge amounts of glass that allowed a direct view of the interior and light interfered with the show. He also did all the adverts. As well as the film projector there was a digital projector operating from a computer that was used to show forthcoming attractions. Harry Futers and Rod Owen organised around 5 shows a week. Putting the film together was much more complex than the present digital system. Sarah Zacherak and Harry attended a lecture at the Odeon in Manchester on digital cinema. That spelt the end of the age of the film reels as a digitised system spread throughout cinemas in the 2010s.