THE THEATRE ORGAN

Reginald Dixon, Mr. Blackpool

Click here to hear Reginald Dixon M.B.E. play his signature tune and other seaside tunes

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PART TWO:
BUILDERS OF THE THEATRE ORGANS

THIS PAGE IS WRITTEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH
GLEN TWAMLEY (FRIENDS OF BEER WURLITZER)
AND
PAUL BLAND

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Blackpool was very much a Theatre Organ Town during the heyday of its popularity with visitors.  At one time, there were seven Theatre Organs installed in the numerous ballrooms and cinemas in the town.

Four of these Theatre Organs were made by The Wurlitzer Company and were installed at the Tower Ballroom, the Opera House, the Empress Ballroom and the Palace Ballroom.

The Odeon Theatre Blackpool had a Conacher Theatre Organ that had once been installed at the Ritz/Odeon Theatre Southend (which was discussed on Page Forty-One).

The Tower, Ballroom (Top Left: in the 1950s; Bottom Right: in the 1980s)   &   Mr. Blackpool

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According to an article of December 2014, published in The Blackpool Gazette, there was once a Theatre Organ installed at the Imperial Picture Palace, a pre-sound cinema, which operated between 1913 and 1961.  However, according to the British Installation List (BIL) from Theatre Organ World and also according to the revised list, complied in 1974 by Mr. Clifford Manning for the Cinema Organ Society, no Theatre Organ appears to have ever been installed at the Imperial Picture Palace.

However, it is possible that the Imperial Picture Palace might have had some other type of musical instrument to accompany silent films.  For example:

• a type of Harmonium, which was also known as a Pump Organ, Reed Organ or Melodeon.  This instrument is a Free-Reed Organ;
• a Photoplayer, which is an Automatic Mechanical Orchestra used in cinemas to produce background/incidental music to accompany silent films; or
• a similar instrument undefined at present, but not a Theatre Organ, as it is defined today.

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In addition, the article of December 2014, published in The Blackpool Gazette, also stated that there was a Theatre Organ installed at the Jardin.  However there appears to be no information regarding a Jardin Cinema in Blackpool.

It is conceivable that a Jardin Cinema may have been confused with the organ builders, Jardine & Company.  The Company had built organs of a variety of sizes for cathedrals, churches, hospitals, prisons, private houses and cinemas and in 1921, built an organ that was installed in Blackpool.  This organ, although NOT a Unit/Theatre Organ. but a Straight Organ (i.e. a church/concert/town hall organ) of 2 manuals and 17 Speaking Stops, was installed at the Waterloo Cinema,  where it was opened by George Tootell.   It was removed in 1935 and re-installed at the Church of The Sacred Heart in Blackpool where it remains today.

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I had read that Jardine & Company was the first British Organ Builders to design and build an organ specifically for the cinema to provide accompaniment to silent films in 1921, however, Mr. Larry McGuire recently informed me that this was not the case.

Mr.McGuire informed that the West End Cinema Glasgow (later Empress and then the New Metropole; demolished in 1987) had a Hilsdon Organ with all electric action installed in 1913 for this purpose.  He also stated that:

The National Pipe Organ Resource (npor.org.uk) lists a large number of the organs which were installed in the UK (but not nearly all of them) and someone having the time and will could search it for all the organs they have been listed which were installed in cinemas, theatres and picture houses.  I am sure the ones I knew about will not be the only examples.

Jardine of Manchester built a number of ‘orchestral’ (straight and not unified in any way) instruments which were installed in film showing buildings, but they were far from being alone in that enterprise.  Almost every organ building company extant in the teens and twenties built at least one.  Even the staid firm of Henry Willis and Sons built a 4 manual 51 stop instrument for the Elite Cinema in Nottingham in 1920.  (That instrument was later transferred to the Brangwyn Hall Swansea in 1934).