Get ready to re-live opening night on October 12th 1936, 88 years ago with some amazingly written detail from the Manchester Evening News. What’s your favourite one liner!

There is hardly a person in Stretford who has not watched the foundations of the planned Longford cinema climbing gradually up to completion. And now that the new contribution to the gaiety of Stretford is finally ready to open, it is no longer a secret that the interior is one of the most unusual in the land. It is perhaps the first all electric theatre ever to be constructed. That isn’t just a catchphrase, it actually is equipped and vitalised completely by electricity, even the heating. One thing you will notice when you enter the new Longford for the first time, there is no scintillance or ornamentation. It’s is restfully simple without ever getting drab. Of course every cinema built since the days of the Pioneer wooden shacks has been spotlighted as an amazing creation, but in Stretford’s new entertainment palace there is something offered which is definitely distinctive, smart, and original.

Maximum of utility

The very maximum of utility, as you yourself will easily notice, lurks beneath the guise of architectural charm and simplicity, and nothing has been stinted to make sure that it is a cinema right in the front row as regard patron comfort. Foundations go down fully 9 feet into a bed of clay, and the hollow, soundproof walls are built into a framework of steel. And it is air-conditioned by a special roof. Seven fans are concealed in the roof. Each can be worked independently and at varying speeds. For heating apparatus passes under each individual seats, but it is so delicately adjusted that it is by no means ann imitation of the ancient “hot squats” of the 19th century railway carriages. The heat radiates gradually and subtly.

Galaxy of richness

Through the Manchester Road entrance, the patrons pass through a neon lit anti-hall to the inner hall, which is strikingly decorated by Gothic moulds deliberately planned to sweep the eye up to the ceiling, where a galaxy of richness and gaiety in decoration has spangled across from wall to wall. In recesses to right and left are two murals painted by Frederick H Bains DA especially for the new cinema, to tone with the decorative harmony. The colour note of the actual theatre is tangerine and silver gradiations of shade. Lighting, as would be expected from a new all electric cinema, is on a new style, it’s scheme is one of reduction from brilliant intensity of the entrance to the softness of the auditorium. Light is progressively dimmed to avoid eye strain in the sudden contrast on emergence between the inside of the theatre and the glare of the foyer.

Full Proof System

Messers W.H. Smith & Co. of York Street, Manchester, have been in full charge of the electrical installations, from clocks to curtain gears, and have done an exceptionally fine job. They are responsible for the emergency lighting, which is foolproof. It is always in operation, regardless of whether or not the main lighting has been cut off, and there will not be even a moment of interruption should there, for any external reason, be a failure of current. 

One of the most outstanding features of the decorations is the Venetian marble terrace flooring at the entrance. It was laid by the TerraDura Flooring Company Ltd. and has been exceptionally well executed. Everyone who has been involved with this cinema has been inspired by ann exceptional sense of achievement to make the best job possible.

Dictator designer

The whole of the design as far as possible, has been planned by one mind in order to (unreadable) blending which is (unreadable) when a dictator designer has complete control in this case of the Longford cinema, the master mind is Mr Henry Elder one of Manchester‘s younger architects and a partner of Roberts, Wood and Elder architects of King Street, Manchester. (next few sentences unreadable.)

All of it is utilitarian, but much of it is also highly artistic. The ventilation which has already been described, was planned and fitted up by Messers Henry Hargreaves and Sons Ltd of Bury who are among the most prominent ventilation engineers of the country. Their jobs in cinemas, public halls and other large crowded buildings have made them well worthy to tackle the delicate job of equipping the Longford cinema with an air-conditioning system fit to rank with the high standard of artistic appearance and decorative talent of the rest of the work. 

Pianos by Wagstaff

Woodwork throughout has been selected and installed by Messers J and J Parish Limited of Withington, Manchester, who have had panellings, stairways, and deluxe carpentry throughout the whole building in their care. Almost the only woodwork in the entire cinema which they cannot claim credit is that round the pianos, which are by Wagstaff, which is not unlike saying by Stradivarius with reference to a violin. New seat designs of a type that you could comfortably go to sleep in if there was any chance at all of that after such an amount of  painstaking trouble, the films would not be enough to keep anybody awake, are by Harvey Stewart’s prominent furnishers, who have been responsible for auditorium and lounge furnishings. Decorations at the theatre have been carried out by G.F. holdings. Limited, Brooks Bar, Manchester. The opening ceremony will be performed by the mayor of Stretford who has kindly agreed to grace an occasion that will certainly make history in the borough. It will be a big day, too, for those men, Harry and Arthur Jackson and Ernest Newport, who first conceived the idea of a luxury theatre that would be Stretfords very own, and who have laboured, against many difficulties, for a long time to bring it into final culmination. They will have an anxious moment on that first night, but there shouldn’t be any doubt at all that once Stretford sees its new toy, it will fall in love with it right away!