"From the outside,
it was nothing more than a brown metal warehouse with a
pitched roof. Its frontal facade sported a double glass
door entrance, beneath a single strip of milky white
neon tubing, which, when lit, simply stated “KOZY.”
On each side of the
entrance were two plain wooden billboards where gaudy
sign writer’s brush strokes loudly proclaimed coming
attractions for the next week. It was an addition that
was definitely not in line with the bright, modern set
back shopping centre at the juncture of the Newcastle
and Stoke roads.
But, like all of
the simple little cinemas that had sprouted up with
advent of the motion picture, the KOZY was a convenient
inexpensive little community theatre that relied heavily
upon the Potteries working class for its existence. At
school, wags laughingly called it “The Bug Hut.” You
“walked in and rode out.”
The tiny foyer,
its “Western Electric” sound system brass plate next to
the diminutive ticket window, opened up to the curtained
light wall, preventing extraneous light from spilling
onto a 30-foot-wide free standing screen which exploded
nightly and Saturday mornings with Hollywood and British
drama and comedy.
Nostalgically,
the first epic I witnessed was “The Last Of The
Mohicans” with Randolph Scott. It was an unforgettable
Saturday morning matinee, a great picture drowned out by
screaming kids unleashed from school and home into the
semi-darkness of the mystical palace of dreams and
adventure. And all it cost was eight pence. It seemed
that the usher was constantly having the lights flicked
on as he shouted warnings to “stop the noise – or else”
followed by a hush. The lights dimmed, the projector was
cranked up again shooting a shaft of light from the tiny
projection booth over our heads, once again re-igniting
everyone’s screams, whistles and shouts.
But because
cowboys and Indians was the main course for boys my age,
I managed to squeeze out a shilling from my mum, to go
back that night and enjoy the whole picture with sound.
Picture palaces,
except for the zillions of pubs clinging to every street
corner in the Potteries, were the biggest draw for hard
working Potters, steel workers, store workers,
gardeners, butchers, and bored school kids. Long before
the advent of picture palaces like the Danilo looking
down on Campbell Place in Stoke, there was the Majestic
sandwiched between Berrisfords and other Campbell Place
stores. Around the corner on Church Street was the tall,
rambling Hippodrome, replete with its “Gods,” so far in
the air, it was joked you needed oxygen to sit up there.
The former opera house projection booth nestled so high
in the roof with the pigeons, the screen had to be
tilted back to align the images.
But it was at
KOZY where Dorothy tapped her shoes and ushered us into
Oz. Bogart grimaced and lisped as Sam Spade as one
projector broke down, and the audience agreed to watch
the rest of the picture on one projector, unperturbed by
the flashing numbers on the tails of each reel. It was
there that Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula had a stake
driven into his heart, which sent us spilling us out
into the rain, gagging and clutching our stomachs. As
the war rolled along, we saw the KOZY war in Hollywood
and British epics, glorious tributes to the fighting men
and women, and the KOZY was filled with servicemen and
women, ordnance factory workers, Home Guard and Civil
Defence volunteers snatching a break between air raid
warnings. During the dismal war days, we cheered our
troops as they kept Jerry on the run, sank his ships,
and razed Hamburg and Cologne.
Film noir was at
its peak, championed by such greats as Bogart, Cagney
and Edward G. Robinson, and Johnny Weismuller screamed
as he swung through the jungle as Tarzan. There was Sabu
in “The Drum,” and the classic “Four Feathers,” Maureen
O’Hara and Errol Flynn in swashbuckling pirate
adventures. But we also shared laughs with Joe E. Brown,
Laurel and Hardy, and the classic Ealing epics with
Allistair Sim and Will Hay, the irrepressible
schoolmaster, we all loved.
The KOZY was
there to entertain. No one seemed to mind that there
were no fancy lighting tricks or beautiful curtains
drawn back between the double features, usually a short,
a cartoon, coming attractions, and a newsreel. Or, for
that matter that the big, at least it looked big screen
stood on its own between two red “Exit” signs, its
cavernous voice bellowing out somewhere to the rear.
That magical box where the film was projected, we were
told, was reached by a ladder behind a door in the Men’s
room.
The seats were
adequate. Eight pence for the Saturday morning matinees,
one shilling for the centre, and one and a tanner in the
back, usually where courting couples sat. People always
removed their hats, and stood up to allow someone to
pass, and no one seemed to care about the perpetual
cloud of blue cigarette smoke that swirled through the
dazzling beam of the projector.
It was nothing
more than a tin house. Easily mistaken as a warehouse.
When it rained hard, the projectionist would have turn
up the sound to overcome the roar of the rain on the
roof. When the smoke became too thick, the usher would
walk down the aisle waving something that looked like a
garden bug sprayer shooting a fine mist of sweet
smelling disinfectant over our heads and up our
nostrils.
There were
dozens of theatres throughout the Potteries, ranging
from the more luxurious houses such as The Regent and
Odeon in Hanley, and Danilo in Stoke, to the many
smaller houses off the beaten track. Such was the KOZY,
its single tube of neon flickering and beckoning
thousands into its tiny interior over the years to
escape for an hour or so from the humdrum, or more
trying times of work., school, or the war.
The last
time I passed where it stood, a piece of concrete at the
fork in the road, I could hear the kids screaming and
Bogart lisping, the boom of the bass, and thrill of
Dorothy’s voice, and a gurgle of laughs, as the bus
lurched into gear and pulled away toward Hanford."
