Cinema House Replaces Alhambra Theatre

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 5

Cinema House Replaces Alhambra Theatre

The old Alhambra theatre in Leicester Square, which has been a London landmark for forty years, is to be torn down to make way for an ultra-modern motion picture theatre costing 1,500,000 dollars. This theatre will be the latest link in the big Odeon circuit, controlled by Oscar Deutsch, in which United Artists purchased a substantial interest about six months ago. The new Odeon, when completed, will be U.A.'s first-run house in the West End. Curiously enough, the last performance seen at the Alhambra, before the wreckers took it over, was that of Sebastian Shaw in “Othello,” which is one of the important sequences in the London film production, “Men Are Not Gods,” in which Miriam Hopkins, Gertrude Lawrence and Mr. Shaw play the leading roles under the direction of Walter Reisch.

With Lawrence Tibbett as a singing star and Wendy Barrie as a hot-headed heiress after his aria supplying riotous romance, Gregory Ratoff and Arthur Treacher collaborating on riotous comedy, “Under Your Spell” will be released by 20th Century Fox. Loaded with laughs and studded with swingy songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Deitz, Broadway’s rhythm kings, “Under Your Spell’ is the brightest musical of Tibbett's career.