Odeon Cinema

Odeon Cinema

Cinema built in 1935-6 by J Cecil Clavering of Harry Weedon and Partners for Oscar Deutsch and the Odeon group of companies. The building stands on a prominent corner site on the east side of Birmingham Road, Sutton Coldfield.

The structure is a steel frame clad in brown brick with faience tiling to the front facade, fin and staircase tower. Banded decoration runs across the sides, with flat roofs throughout. The design is a freestanding composition with a complex, carefully massed and expressionistic character, inspired by Schoffler, Shloenbach and Jacobi's Titania Palast in Berlin of 1928. The building originally comprised a double-height foyer, staircase and double-height auditorium with balcony on the naturally falling site, with each element defined as a separate block.

The entrance features four double doors set under a projecting curved canopy on the curved corner. To the left stands a tall advertising fin, now truncated, which originally announced "CINEMA". Beyond this, a large double-height foyer is expressed by four tall metal windows, each of two bays with square paned glazing. Smaller windows mark an emergency exit on the curved corner and continue down the sides, where faience tiling continues at ground floor level to a final emergency door. Vertical brick ribbed decoration appears on these elevations, with horizontal bands at cornice level. The remaining elevations feature horizontal brick banding. The cinema is notable for sustaining architectural interest through high quality brickwork on all elevations.

Inside, the double-height foyer now has a false ceiling, but original decoration survives above. The principal staircase retains its low curved balustrades in Art Deco style with brass rails. The auditorium has been subdivided, but the original proscenium arch and front barrier to the orchestra pit survive. Sidewall decoration features streamlined "go faster" mouldings serving ventilation grilles. The principal screen in the former circle survives well, retaining original textured and moulded ceilings. Many doors and staircase mouldings remain characteristic of the Odeon house style.

Oscar Deutsch's deliberate policy concentrated finances on producing a spectacular exterior in a distinctive house idiom, with a comfortable and modern interior and excellent films. Sutton Coldfield was the first purpose-built Odeon in the mature house style derived from the Titania Palast, spawning imitations at York, Harrogate and Scarborough, which are already listed. This style was first adopted by Clavering at the Beacon in Kingstanding, Birmingham, which was acquired by Oscar Deutsch during construction, leading to Clavering and Weedon being commissioned to design three further Odeons at Sutton Coldfield, Scarborough and Colwyn Bay (now demolished). Clavering later left to join the Civil Service, but Robert Bullivant subsequently copied his adopted idiom for Odeon designs. Sutton Coldfield is historically perhaps the most important single cinema in the development of the Odeon house style. Although the top of its central fin has been lost, the building otherwise survives remarkably completely.