Odeon Cinema

Cinema. Built 1935–1936 by architect George Coles for the Muswell Hill and Harlesden Property Company, of which Oscar Deutsch of Odeon Cinemas was a director.

The building is constructed in red brick with the cinema facade clad in black and cream faience tiles and a flat asphalted roof. The cinema is positioned on Fortis Green Road because the prominent corner site originally intended was opposed by members of the church opposite. Due to this constraint, the facade was deliberately made relatively low-key in design.

The external facade features a curved centrepiece with vertical fins, stepped up to centre, between blind projecting end bays clad in contrasting black faience. There is no fenestration; instead, five pairs of original double doors with margin-light glazing to one side and central transom provide entry. The outermost pairs are separated by walls for billboards and a projecting curved rib. The name ODEON in neon is affixed to the parapet.

Interior layout comprises a double-height foyer with curved ends, having paired columns at either side with banded decoration reminiscent of the 1935 film set of 'Things to Come'. Banded motif decorates the walls, with a coved ceiling lighting arrangement. A staircase to the right incorporates further horizontal detailing. At the top of the staircase is a circular landing with similar coved circular ceiling opening and central circular lighting.

On the ground floor, a vestibule leads to an inner vestibule formed from the former rear stalls area, leading to two smaller cinemas inserted under the balcony in May 1974. At first floor, original double doors open to an inner vestibule originally intended as a tearoom and now a bar, with two large columns and sloping ceiling featuring horizontal grillework on the wall facing the auditorium. From the centre of this wall, doors and stairs provide access to the auditorium.

The double-height auditorium features a balcony whose curved front complements the steep curve of the front wall to the proscenium. The proscenium has moulded horizontal and vertical bands. Horizontal banding on the ante-proscenium contrasts with three stepped rounded pilasters concealing coved lighting. The side walls are moulded with horizontal bands and vertical accents, styled on the lines of German cinemas of the late 1920s. A central laylight between ribs of separate small lights is designed to resemble a roll of film running down to the proscenium. Banded decoration on the side of the ceiling forms a deep cornice. Odeon clocks are positioned over exit doors to either side of the proscenium. An orchestra pit in the front area of the stalls no longer is used. Bronzed handrails round the central vomitory and metal crush barriers remain in the stepped seated balcony.

The Odeon Muswell Hill features the most elaborate interior of any Odeon cinema to survive. Because restrictions were placed on the external facade, opportunity was taken to make the interior more lavish than was usual in the Odeon circuit, resulting in an elegant design of unusual imagination and crispness. With the New Victoria in the City of Westminster, the Odeon Muswell Hill best demonstrates the influence of German expressionism in British cinema design. As all the most famous German models have been gutted or demolished, these English examples are particularly important. The style was adopted in Britain as a more sophisticated alternative to the historicist pastiches employed in cinemas of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and one more suited to the middle-class clientele of Muswell Hill. The style of the cinema, with its contrasting faience motifs, is continued in the adjoining shops and flats.