A Horse's Tale — Stop 5
Hannah Goes To The Cinema
Hannah heard that there was a cowboy film with horses on at the Empire, or the Bottom Pictures as everyone called it. She really wanted to see what horses got up to in the Wild West.
Illustration by children of Livingstone School
Beatrice, who sold the tickets, didn’t notice Hannah sneak in past her as she was busy telling a crowd of people about a murder that had happened in the cinema passage.
A man had strangled his wife because she had left him. The man had been sentenced to hang but now he had been reprieved and could stay in prison instead.
Hannah went to the back of the cinema sniffing the mingled smells of fish and chips from the shop next door and freshly cooked popcorn. Next to the screen was a curtain round a brass rail and a piano. When the pianist walked down everybody cheered.
The room went dark and a fuzzy picture appeared on the screen - it was a film called Stagecoach starring John Wayne but, just as it started, a light shone in her face. She’d been caught by Walter who checked everyone was behaving, he shooed her out. So Hannah didn’t find out what the Wild West was like, though she did manage to grab a mouthful of delicious popcorn.
Film reels were often worn out and fuzzy by the time they reached Mossley and sometimes they didn’t even play to the end. Beatrice and Walter kept order and often threw people out for misbehaviour.
The Empire Cinema opened in 1912.
It was badly damaged by fire in 1940 but reopened again in 1950. The last film to be shown at the Empire in 1973 was Live and Let Die.