Cinema King of post-war Rye

A recent book highlights the history of Shipman and King cinemas in Sussex and Kent including Rye and Tenterden.

With larger nearby towns such as Bexhill and Tenterden no longer having a local cinema of their own – their nearest major cinema chain venues being respectively in Hastings (Odeon) and Ashford (Cineworld and Playhouse) – Rye can indeed consider itself fortunate to have the excellent and highly innovative Kino just off of the town centre in Lion Street alongside St Mary’s Church.

The former Victorian library building it occupies is itself worth visiting in its own right having won a RIBA Award for its design and renovation and local folklore also tells us that in a past life it has also served as a place of worship.

However, the history of cinema in Rye predates the Kino and is itself well worth delving into which this writer – a self-confessed film buff and lifelong cinema aficionado – found mirrors my own cinema going roots in Essex to a somewhat astonishing degree.

A recently published book Cinema King A Granddaughter’s Memoir by Jennifer King examines in detail the legacy of her grandfather Sam King with a forward by no less a major British cinema luminary than Lord David Puttnam producer of movie classics including Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields.

Sam King and his partner Alf Shipman founded the Shipman and King cinema chain in East Sussex in the early 1920s opening their first venue the Pavilion in Hailsham. The chain grew and at some stage, but not necessarily at the same time, ran around sixty cinemas mainly in the southeast of England with a concentration of picture houses in Sussex, Kent and Essex.

This writer was born in 1950 in the market town of Braintree, Essex and for the first 11 years of my life I lived under the same roof as my paternal grandfather Charles – a somewhat celebrated pork butcher from Sudbury, Suffolk who was a regular cinema-goer.

We were fortunate to have two local cinemas – the Embassy and the Central – both run by Shipman and King in an era when films were rarely, if ever, seen on the initially single channel BBC television with ITV only launching on a progressively regional basis during the late 50s and early 60s.

Very few homes had a television in any case and the medium only really came into its own with the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 when neighbours crowded into the homes of the few local residents who possessed this emerging device. The prominent entry signs to Hastings proudly inform us, to this day, was that it was the birthplace of television.

The news, in moving image format, in the immediate post war period, and up to the late 50s, was the preserve of the newsreels that supported the main “picture” at local cinemas.

Cinema King tells us that Alf Shipman and Sam King, like their more famous contemporaries Samual Goldwyn (MGM); Harry Cohn (Columbia); and Oscar Deutsch (Odeon – as in “Oscar Deutch Entertains Our Nation”) all hailed from eastern European and Russian families displaced by early twentieth century examples of antisemitism and who settled in England, particularly London and the home counties of the southeast.

It was “Grandad Charlie” who probably instilled in me a lifelong love of the cinema and in school holidays and at weekends he took me to both the Embassy Braintree – which showed the “new films” on their first local showing- and the Central that took the movies on the second or even third time around.

I would also occasionally enjoy a bus ride to our nearby county town of Chelmsford where, as well an Odeon, there was a prominent Shipman and King cinema, The Regent, at the river end of the High Street.

The branding on the S&K Cinemas was distinctive and, for example, you can see to this day the distinctive lettering Embassy at one end of Tenterden High Street above the premises of the former venue there that is identical in style to its sister Essex venues in Braintree (still standing) and Maldon (now demolished).

The Tenterden cinema closed in December 1969 and has had several uses since – its most recent being as a lady’s fashion shop prior to that closing. Its Braintree sister venue has for many years been a Wetherspoon pub that has, to their credit, preserved many of its former features and design elements which they try to do in with former cinemas in other locations too.

Perhaps my most poignant memory of the Embassy was my mother taking me to a Friday evening showing of the wartime epic The Longest Day in November 1962 when the film was stopped halfway through with the house lights going up. A mix of three British and American police officers with a loud hailer went to the front of the cinema instructing all American Servicemen in the cinema (of which it was apparent there were many) to return immediately to the nearby USAF Airbase at RAF Wethersfield (itself in the news again recently over the refugee situation).

A considerable number of local girls were left in their seats who then nervously looked round for any friends in a similar state of abandonment and bewilderment.

It was only when my mum and I returned home after the film that my dad (who was minding my younger sister) informed us that President John F Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas and, as we now know, the USA was on a major high state of alert.

It is a truism that most people who remember this tragic and appalling event can recall exactly where they were when it occurred. I have yet to meet anyone in this country who has such a distinctive and poignant recall of that day and indeed a few years ago, on one of the notable anniversaries, a letter I wrote to The Times – which was inviting reminiscences – was published as a lead letter!

In Cinema King we learn that Rye itself has had at least four previous cinemas prior to the excellent Kino.

The Electric Palace at Landgate from 1911 to 1932 is now the location of Larkin House flats and there was the Bijou in Cinque Ports Street, which S&K acquired and closed in 1932.

Most notable though because its name and location remain prominent in the town to this day was The Regent which they first opened 1932 and which was destroyed in the infamous September 22  WWII bombing.

The new post-war Regent opened on March 11 1948 and closed on September 29 1973. It was subsequently demolished making way for The Regent Motel and four shops with Regent Square housing at the back. This writer, like I am sure most cinema addicts, is delighted when names remain in perpetuity albeit after perhaps the most notable, and maybe celebrated occupant, of a site has gone!

So celebrate we must the movie going tradition in Rye that has, to this day, been enabled first by Shipman and King and subsequently by the founders and owners of the fabulous Kino with its state of the art projection and sound systems in its two principle 96 seater (Red) and 48 seater (Blue) screens as well as the excellent food and drink choices and toilet facilities that are a match for any leading cinema chain. There is, of course, also a sister single screen venue in nearby Hawkhurst.

First published only last year (2023) the book is lavishly illustrated throughout, with many contemporaneous photographs reflecting the era when they were taken with an attractive sepia finish. There are also more recent photos, several in full colour of some former S&K venues that reman to this day albeit mainly repurposed. My copy, that I acquired upon initial publication, is a hard back copy but I believe that later copies may be in a paperback version.

Cinema King A Granddaughter’s Memoir by Jennifer King at a cover price £17.00 can be ordered online or locally at the excellent Waterstones-owned Rye Bookshop just a stone’s throw from the Kino in Rye High Street.

Image Credits: Richard Byham .