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Odeon Cinemas

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Odeon Cinemas is the largest chain of cinemas in the United Kingdom. It is owned by Terra Firma Capital Partners.

It was created in 1928 by Oscar Deutsch. Odeon publicists claimed that name of the cinemas was derived from his motto, "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation", but it had been used for cinemas in France and Italy in the 1920s, although the name is truly derived from Greek sources. The company is most famously associated with J Arthur Rank, the owner for the longest period in its history.

The first Odeon cinema opened in Brierley Hill, Dudley in 1928. The building has long since been demolished.

By 1930, "Odeon" was a household name and the cinemas known for their maritime-inspired art deco architecture. This style was first used in 1935 on the cinema at Kingstanding in Birmingham, which was bought by Deutsch to expand the chain. He liked the style so much that he commissioned the architect, Harry Weedon, to design his future buildings. George Coles was also one of their principal architects, remodelling a partially complete assembly hall in Portslade and designing his first purpose-built cinema in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, Kent which opened on 22nd October1934 and closed on 22nd October1960. It is presently a bingo club in the Mecca chain. It featured central linear lighting, a feature that became characteristic of his work.

Deutsch sold the chain to the business interests of J. Arthur Rank, who was in the process of forming the Rank Organisation.

In just 10 years between the first of the cinemas and Deutsch's death in 1941, 258 Odeons opened throughout Britain. After the sale to J. Arthur Rank Corporation, Odeon also operated a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary, Odeon Theatres (Canada) Ltd., with more than a hundred cinemas in Canada, coast-to-coast. The head office of Odeon Canada was in Toronto, Ontario, and later, the north Toronto suburb of Willowdale, Ontario. This business was sold in 1984 to Cineplex Odeon.

The Odeons had a different character to most other cinemas in the UK, often having unique and spectacular interiors. They also ran their own advertising company, called Rank Screen Advertising, in competition with the UK market leader Pearl & Dean, which it eventually overtook.

The flagship cinema, The Odeon Leceister Sqaure, is the largest cinema in Great Britain and host to most of London's West End film premieres, retaining its large screen and circle & stalls layout.

Since the turn of the century, the company has undergone a series of sales, firstly to Cinven in 2000 and then to a group of private investors in 2003. In 2004, the chain was purchased by Terra Firma and merged with United Cinemas International to produce the largest cinema chain in Europe. As a condition of this merger (imposed by the Office of Fair Trading), Odeon Newcastle upon Tyne, Sutton Coldfield, Poole, Quinton, Birmingham, Hemel Hempstead and London Bromley have been sold to Empire Cinemas. Many smaller, older cinemas such as Odeon Grimsby on Freeman Street were closed down to keep market-share within legal limits. The remaining UCI cinemas, including thefilmworks brands, were rebranded as Odeons from the November 4, 2005.

On 14 August 2006, ODEON announced that it will open its first cinema in Northern Ireland, in Belfast city centre, as part of Belfast's Victoria Square development.

The Republic of Ireland cinemas of UCI have also become part of the Odeon chain, and while they will be retaining the UCI brand name, some evidence of the merger has appeared in Ireland, for example when booking tickets by credit card, the name "Odeon" appears, as well as some dual branded campaigns. Rank/Odeon previously ran cinemas in Ireland (including the flagship, the Savoy Cinema in O'Connell Street) until 1982, when they were purchased by Ward Anderson.

Current locations

Current Odeon cinemas

Odeon.co.uk Controversy

Odeon's original website (launched in Summer 2001) made heavy use of complicated JavaScript to create menu effects. Due to the non-standard markup of the page, the main page would only display correctly on Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser; users of alternate browsers or operating systems would be unable to access any menu options. Also, the website could not be read by text-only web browsers (due to the image-based nature of the menu screen), and was inaccessible to many disabled users who rely on text-readers.

A fan-created website called Accessible Odeon was soon released, which provided a simple text-based frontend to the often confusing official Odeon website. It only contained the showing times, however; it was not possible to book tickets, unlike the official website. Accessible Odeon was shut down on July 10 2004 after Odeon sent a few "strongly worded" letters to the webmaster. Shortly after this, Odeon launched a separate text-only version of the film times section of their website for disabled customers (with the rest of the website, including the ability to book tickets, remaining intact and unchanged).

Nearly two years later, Odeon completely re-designed their website, largely based around the former UCI website's technology.

Bibliography

Odeon Cinemas: Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation, Allen Eyles, (BFI Publishing)

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