The Savoy Cinema, Cork

The Savoy Cinema, Cork

Cork Film Festival, Savoy, Patrick Street, Claus Holm, Bernhard Grzimek

This is a black and white photo of the art deco façade of the Cork Savoy cinema on Patrick Street, advertising the 1959 festival. Flags of the participating countries adorn the building in a daytime street scene. A group of boys on the left of the picture face the camera, just about to cross the street. Behind them, bicycles lay strewn on the pavement and besides them, two cars are parked at the kerb-side. To the right of the Savoy, we can see the old façade of the Irish Tourist Bureau (Oifig Fáilte).

Amongst the cinema posters on display, we can just make out posters advertising the appearance of the German actor Claus Holm (1918-1996) and the German screenwriter and director Bernhard Grzimek (1909-1987) who was the director of the documentary Serengeti Shall Not Die (Grzimek, 1959). It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1960.

The Savoy cinema was opened on 12th May 1932 by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Frank J. Wallace with a screening of Peach O'Reno (William A. Seiter, 1931). It could hold 2,242 patrons and boasted an Art Deco façade. In his book on Irish Cinemas, Jim Keenan noted the Savoy had an "ornate 'atmospheric' auditorium, which, like the Savoy in Dublin, was designed to resemble a street scene in Venice... Small lights set into the ceiling of the auditorium were designed to create the illusion that the audience was seated outdoors at night beneath the stars. In the 1930s, a 'cloud projector' beamed images of moving clouds onto the azure-coloured ceiling to further enhance the fantasy." (Jim Keenan. Irish Cinemas: A History in Photographs, pp. 105-106.)

University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, Ambrose O'Mullane

Cork Film Festival Collection

University College Cork

1959

Ambrose O'Mullane

Photo
TIFF
JPEG

English, eng

1959
Cork, Ireland

Photo

165 x 213mm