PICTURE THEATRE ROMANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 13 August 1920, Page 6

PICTURE THEATRE ROMANCE

A romance of moving-picture enterprise is revealed by the purchase of the Empire Theatre and Queen's bole! in Leicester Square, London, by the Allen Enterprises of Canada. ■ j Twelve years ago (says the Lon-' don' Daily Mail) the brothers 1 Allen uoeno-i ’a oictu v e »he amo . fn ( a small store at Brantford, ’■ Intario,1 with a sheet, a tiny lantern, and, 150 kitchen chairs. A year later they became the Allen Enterprises of Canada c day tl,ev own 05 theatres in the Dominion and 13 inJ Hie United States, with a capital of more than £4,000,000. i In purchasing the Leicester Square site for their two superkinernas, rhey embark on a still more ambitious scheme to complete eventually a chain of super-kine-mas throughout England, modelled on the lines of their latest houses in Canada. They hope to have a picture theatre in every town with 100,000 population, and to give preference to the production of British films. Mr S W. Smith, the European manager of the company, told a reporter;—“We are going to spend £1,000,000 in erecting two of the fines: theatres in the world in the heart of London theatreland. By September next we can pull the present buildings down—provided the London County Council building restrictions are removed by then—and build our super-kinema. “One building will seat 5,000 people, and will be devoted to the production of the latest pictures obtainable. The second theatre will seat 3,000, and we shall keep one ‘star’' picture running just as long ( as the public will come and see it.’’