John Waters

Adam Buxton

Stewart Lee

James O'Brien

Isaac Julien

Caroline Catz

Mary Harron

Beeban Kidron

Princess Julia

Kim Newman

Ben Wheatley

Ralph Brown

Graham Humphreys

JoAnne Sellar

Peter Strickland

Stephen Woolley

John Akomfrah

Thurston Moore

J.G. Thirlwell

Cathi Unsworth

Jah Wobble

Barry Adamson

Paul Putner

Jane Giles

Alan Jones

Douglas Hart

Matt Johnson

David McGillivray

Ali Catterall

Sarah Appleton

Andrew Starke

Edward Mills

Osbert Parker

Alan Marke

Jim Reid

Documentary

Scala!!!

Fifty Foot Woman

Channel X

Anti-Worlds

United Kingdom

CinemaSerf

This is quite a fascinating documentary following the fate of a cinema that even John Waters said "shocked him". It wasn't always on the same site in Central London, but the "Scala" name quickly became a magnet for all those who didn't conform to the more mainstream - with their own behaviour and/or attitudes and/or taste in films. Using an astonishing amount of well researched actuality and some interviews with the folks who worked there or attended over the years, we learn of a place that offered a venue for any combination of the Bohemian, the decadent, the drugged up, boozed up, gay - and, yep, even the serious film goer as it originally opened and closed many years later with "King Kong" (1933)! I did live in London in the late 1980s and King's Cross was a dump - full of hookers, rent boys and you never strayed far from an heroin needle. The "Scala" thrived amidst this alternative and hedonistic environment and though I don't know that I quite qualify for the groups that regularly used the place after midnight, my two visits were fun and never intimidating - the sound system there was not the best! Porn, horror, martial arts, cartoons - nothing was off limits until the local council took exception to "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and the subsequent legal fracas pretty much put paid to the place as a cinema. It's split into parts that illustrate the rise and fall of what was essentially an establishment that didn't really matter in which building it was located. Sticky floors, sticky seats, dark "back massages" offering a range of facilities from a sleeping berth to a shagging one. It can't resist the usual bit of Mrs. Thatcher-bashing at the end which adds a bit of authenticity to a cinema that existed precisely because it was so anti-establishment and pro free-spirit. It reminded me a little of the "Studio 54" (2018) documentary. A place that was legendary and fun and necessary - probably still is. Very watchable on a big screen if you can.

English

Trailer

Mark Kermode reviews SCALA!!! (2023) | BFI Player

Festival Trailer