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Red Roses Tonight of shrapnel that had fallen beside a
Red Roses Tonight
patron in the stalls; it was still hot, but
the patron was quite cool. Another
time a shell-cap came through the roof
The conclusion of London Cinemas in the Blitz into the circle of the Granada
Tooting, bounced from the stairs
By Guy Bolton
almost the length of the theatre and
“I’m As Safe Inside As AnyWhere” Audiences became conditioned to ended up in the organ chamber.
The Luftwaffe raided London for the menace from the air. The threat of Whenever a theatre suffered the
91 nights with little respite. Thirty air death from bombing was accepted as a blast from a near hit, it was the policy
raid warnings a week was usual. normal risk. Fewer people left when to get a man in uniform on the door at
Cinemas audiences dwindled in the Alert slide was flashed on the once, to tell customers that the theatre
heavily raided and lightly raided screen (the slide became the would soon be open again. Granada
boroughs alike, but never stopped concession to a manager’s voice); policy was to keep open every theatre
altogether. The regulars, well known to nobody rushed out of the theatre; those even if it was a 3,000 seater running at
every suburban manager, came at their who went left quietly and would often a loss. “So long as we have money to
regular times and occupied their murmur apologetically to the manager spend,” the Managing Director argued,
regular seats. if they passed him in the foyer, as if “We shall stay open. When people see
Pensioners of both sexes arrived they felt a little ashamed. Another type theatres shut they may begin to worry,
unfailingly for their free weekly of slide made its appearance, ‘Mrs. So- and say to themselves, ‘Things must
matinee, whatever was dropping, and and-So was wanted in the foyer’. This be worse than we have been told.’
the contingent of blind people from a usually meant that her home had been We’ll keep our cinemas open whatever
nearby Home still turned up once a damaged, destroyed or was on fire; but happens.”
week at the Granada Clapham people appreciated the value of this In Woolwich and Greenwich,
Junction. Good business was still done service, and often said that at least if suburbs close to the river and within a
at matinees. they went to the cinema the police mile of the London docks, people were
would be able to find them, and if the target conscious. Through the worst
The atmosphere of those long
worst happened, they would know raids it was the military from the
nights was one of terrific tension, but
soon enough. Sometimes during a bad garrisons close by whose patronage
there was something companionable
raid half a dozen of such slides would kept these theatres open. They crowded
about it; a sense of comradeship, what
follow in succession. in whatever the raid, and as local orders
might be described as a clubby feeling,
that left audiences with a new affection Granada Theatres always flew the insisted on respirators being worn at the
for their local Granada. As one lady Union Jack. Some patrons complained alert position during a warning, the
said to the doorman at the Granada about this saying that the enemy would auditorium was often a strange sight.
Walthamstow, when the sirens mistake the buildings for a military After ‘The King’ had been played there
sounded just as she was going in, objective. To satisfy them the flags was a great clinking and rattling as
“Well, I always say I’m as safe inside were taken down. Rumour had it that hundreds of steel helmets were put on.
as anywhere.” People were as Lord Haw-Haw had broadcast that the During a matinee in mid-
frightened in cinemas as anywhere Lutwaffe had orders to destroy all September, a stick of four bombs
else, but were determined not to show Granada theatres. straddled the Granada Greenwich.
it. Managers and staff were continually Shrapnel regularly made a sieve of One dropped at the back, shaking the
asked, “Where did that one drop?” The roofs. Managers carried out daily building, another fell at the side near
doorman at the Granada Woolwich inspections and foremen spent hours the stage and two more fell in a lane
evolved a stock answer, “In the river” patching up holes with felt and pitch. and demolished two public houses. The
and many a patron went back into the Once at Granada East Ham an organist played himself down as the
show comforted. usherette brought the manager a lump manager came on stage to reassure the
audience. Perhaps his plea for calm
would not have been so confidently
given nor received had he known that
he was standing on top of an
unexploded bomb that had entered the
side wall and buried itself under the
stage beside the organ. The feature
showing was Opened By Mistake. The
theatre was closed for eight days while
the bomb was dug out.
The Empire Edmonton was
showing The Case of the Frightened
Lady when a bomb burst open the exits
at a moment of on-screen hysterics.
The audience were on their feet, but
A tribute to British spirit and superb wartime propaganda: Walter Pidgeon and Greer the scream tipped the scale, they sat
Garson in MGM’s Mrs Miniver (1942). down and saw out the show.

8 2003 CINEMARECORD