Star Cinema Advertisements

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Star Cinema Advertisements

Media Archive for Central England
Erdington
1937
Silent
6m

From drapery and gas fires to pork butchers and hairdressers: vintage cinema adverts from Erdington's pre-war picture palace.

Everyday advertising such as this reel of pre-war commercials from the long-gone Star Cinema at Erdington in Birmingham acquires a charm and nostalgia over time. The local ads range from charming graphics promoting Doreen (for frocks and costumes) to more complex live-action ads showing a woman enjoying her ventilated gas fire. It's back to graphics though to promote Mr Therm's other great innovation: a gas laundry washer complete with wringer.

The Star Cinema on Slade Road in Erdington, where this unfortunately now heavily spliced and decaying reel was screened, closed in 1958. The following year the building re-opened as a film studio for Birmingham Commercial Films who were makers of industrial and advertising films.

Near Your Local Cinema

Local goods for local people! Screen advertising wasn’t all national brands and chain stores.

Purpose-built cinemas began appearing around Britain shortly before WWI, booming in popularity during the War and developing into the ‘picture palaces’ of the 1920s - when adverts jostled for space alongside newsreels before the main feature. Local businesses were quick to see the potential of a big screen and a captive audience to promote their wares.

While they didn’t have access to the budgets of the national brands, regionally-specific businesses had the benefit of that personal touch. Products and services evolved over time, but that scratchy ad for your local Indian restaurant, so integral to the cinema-going experience into the 1990s, had its roots in the booming entrepreneurship of the industry many decades before.