All language subtitles for Scala (2024) (1080p BluRay x265 10bit r00t).eng.fst.fre_2L_track4_[eng]_DELAY 0ms

Hi, my name's Jane Giles and I'm the co
-director of Scala.

Hello, my name's Ali Cadrell. I'm the co
-director of Scala! With three

exclamation marks.

Very long subtitle. And we're here to
take you behind the scenes of the film.

That's the Scala auditorium in King's
Cross. The photograph was taken in 1990

a staff member named Maya Payne and
you'll see her work throughout the film.

This is a quote from City Limits
Reader's Poll Cinema of the Year when

was voted in about 1989.

It's beautiful graphics by our graphics
guy, Luke Insect.

Barry Adamson.

The great Barry Adamson.

Visage, magazine, bad seed.

Who are these people?

Look at the scratch mark.

More to the point. Boo!

When we showed this at the Prince
Charles, you knew it was the Prince

audience, because I went, fuck off!

The minute they saw Margaret Thatcher on
screen.

The poll touch riot.

And there we are again in the Scala
audience, back in 1990.

Gentlemen of the press, get ready, as
you are about to witness the biggest

event of the year.

Miss Point 45.

The hard way to come.

Scarface. Sansan Grey.

Apocalypse Now.

Mad Max 2.

Tarkadron.

Cleopatra Jones.

Orpheus.

Orpheus. Orphelia, good.

Wings of Desire.

Man of Culture.

Midnight Cowboy.

Mystery Train.

The Killer.

Blade Runner.

I'm someone very familiar with that.
There you go. It was like joining a

very secret club, like a biker gang or
something.

It's like they were a country club for
criminals and lunatics and people that

were high, which is a good way to see
movies.

That cushion was needle -pointed by his
mother, and it depicts the riot in the

aftermath of the Harvey Milk
assassination.

This is the Scala Theatre in Fitzrovia.

Scala means staircase in Italian.

The other cinema was built on the site
of the old Scala. It was a socialist

collective.

Nobody went.

They would show amazing things like
Battle of Algiers, didn't they?

And punk gigs.

That's the Schlitz gig. That's when the
pistols went to see the Schlitz play at

the other cinema.

Here we go.

This guy intrigues me. This guy's
standing stock still on the doorway.

I think he's wearing one leather glove
as well. It's quite bizarre.

When I discovered the Scala, it must
have been 1979.

I think I was...

So this interview was filmed in King's
Cross.

But Mark Moore's obviously talking about
Fitzrovia, the early days of this gala.

We love this photo booth picture of him
and his mate.

He looks exactly the same.

And I would spend the money on going to
the movies.

That's March 1979 gala programme, one of
the early editions.

before the format changed into the
monthly program that we know and love.

In heaven, everything is fine.

In heaven,

everything is fine.

Oh, here's trouble.

Yeah, on the third show, we'll crash
through the doors just as we're

interviewing Caroline Katz.

It was a great entrance.

Beginning of February, I just sort of
raised my head. Right now it's on at

place called The Scala.

Where it was made zero difference to me.

I came in completely... We call it the
Edward Hopper bar because of the look of

it. I think it's beautiful.

Of course, we know Peter directed
Barbarian Sound Studio in the fabric.

Flux Gourmet.

We thought the kind of look of this bar,
where he's sitting, was very Peter

Strickland as well.

Place where I thought... And Lynchian.

Thank you, Brickian. It was just another
world.

So a lot of the punters who went to the
Scala, especially the punters who went

to the original Tottenham Street Scala,
were quite nihilistic, you know, as we

all were, and they liked the dark side
of things.

And the Razorhead was certainly dark and
kind of ghastly.

You are sick.

It was like a real nightmare kind of
world. The chicken, you know, that was

still moving after it was cooked and
everything, you know.

Getting rid of the cheeks and all that,
and all those uncomfortable... I love

this bit.

A friend took me to see Eraserhead, and
I was completely... So, yeah, we always

thought Mary was American, but she's
not. She's Canadian. She grew up in

She used to write for the music papers,
didn't she?

She did, and worked with Chandler X,
best known for the notorious Becky Page

American Psycho.

Who shot Andy Warhol?

And who shot Andy Warhol.

Sitting there in the Scala, watching
David Lynch's Eraserhead was just mind

-blowing. It just set the blueprint for
the kind of films that I wanted to see.

Certain cinemas go to certain types of
films.

So, yeah, Ralph Brown worked in the cafe
of the other cinema and the Scala in

Tottenham Street in Fitzrovia.

You'll hear more about that later.

He's better known as Danny the Dealer in
With Mel and I.

OK, so there's Stephen Woolley and Jane
Pelling standing outside the early days

Scala. The photograph is by Robert
Workman, courtesy of the Bishopsgate

Collection.

What else does the Bishopsgate
Collection specialise in, Jane?

LGBTQ+. Bishopsgate is opposite
Liverpool Street Station. It's a great

great library.

Yeah, they were very, very good to us.
They have an incredible collection.

So Stephen Woolley is the founder and
owner of the Scala, and that's his

collection of stuff.

Note the wolf behind him from... Yeah,
that was the wolf from the Company of

Wolves, the actual wolf, stuffed in a
box.

Wasn't that behind him when you were
being interviewed by Stephen Woolley?

he interviewed me for the job in front
of that wolf. It was quite

And that doll said from Company Wolves
as well, isn't it? That one behind him.

Yeah, from the Angela Carter adaptation.

Yeah.

This is one of Mark Moore's photographs.

And the woman lying on the floor
apparently is a best -selling author.

Joy Division, a bit of rock and roll.

There was a sort of like... Oh, there's
Barry and his cat.

That was sort of all about the, you
know, the idea of being subversive and

a subterranean scene, which people would
talk more and more about the Scala. You

should go to the Scala.

Scala's like, what's really going on
there?

So these photographs were done at one of
the gig nights by a photographer called

Philip Gray, who took some really
amazing live music photography shots.

Throughout that decade and into the 90s,
and he very graciously allowed us to

use his pictures.

He was front of house at the screen on
the hill, as well as a photographer.

It became another place, really, to sort
of see yourself through the community.

I always think of that Hall Schrader
script, Taxi Driver.

The many faces of Ralph Brown. All the
animals come out at night, whores.

Dopers, queens, pussies, junkies,
phenols, scum.

I was like, yeah, that was us.

You know, plus rent boys and wannabe pop
stars and just people who

didn't want to go to bed on Saturday
night, you know.

This is a handiwork of Davy Jones, one
of the best -known cartoonists from Biz

magazine, who you can see his hand of
fate there, drawing away the sketch.

There were certain...

passages where we couldn't find archive
form, so we used Davies to illustrate

them. This is one of his.

I'd sort of intuited quite early on that
there was a big crossover between the

Scala audience and the Viz audience.

I mean, I was certainly one who loved
both, so I thought, I can't be the only

one. And something about Viz,
particularly something about Davy Jones'

really is very Scala -y. You know, it
has that kind of very sort of surreal

aspect to it.

And then he was in.

So the snake was from a sort of cinema
commercial to look after your

property, a warning to thieves are
about.

And I needed to find a visual reference
for Davy to draw, so I went out on

Facebook and asked who could help.

A very helpful man called Jan Mancy came
back with an image of the snake. So we

gave that to Davey and he copied it on
the spot.

About ten minutes later, I can hear him
singing.

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we
went to Bangor?

He sang the whole song in the coffee
bar.

He's like a proper weirdo.

About three months later, I'm looking at
Top of the Pops and there he is at

number one with Culture Club.

singing, do you really want to hurt me?

He was a regular down there.

I didn't know who he was.

And I never saw him looking like that
again.

We did try to get Boy George into the
film because he was a regular, as Ralph

says, but he turned us down three times
because he was doing the voice of

Australia. But we did get that post
-craft by then. We did get that. At

got him in somehow.

Age 14, you normally got turned away. At
the Scarlet, they didn't care how old

you were.

They let you in.

Mark Moore was amazing. We could have
used him.

Well, we have, clearly. Used him quite a
lot.

I mean, he could have spoke the entire
film on his own. He was incredible.

He's one of the people who actually
remembered the films as well. A lot of

people we...

We drafted him, could only remember the
kind of atmospheres, if you like, or the

infrastructure, the vibe of the Scala,
or who they went with, or the tribes, or

anything connected with the Scala, apart
from the actual films themselves.

But Mark was fantastic, he remembered
all of it.

He's also one of those famous people
who's incredibly lovely, as in he'll ask

you about yourself, you know, what are
you reading, what films are you

you know, that kind of thing.

and also clearly one of the best
-dressed men on the planet. You know, I

caught loads of times.

I would be, like, physically evicted.

So we did have to put a little patch
over the gaping shirt.

If you look closely, you can see that
we've covered up Mark Moore's tummy with

bit of CGI there.

There were quite a few specifically male
shirts up there which you had to patch

up like that.

Jordan.

Where

is

God?

It's got death.

And now we watch it and we love those
bits.

But I think at the time all the punks
hated those bits.

Yeah, quite a tectonic charm. There's
another

photograph by Robert Workman there from
Bishop's Gate.

which I'd never seen such a homoerotic
film.

And that was a great thing to see at
that age, you know, when you're sort of

discovering your way and just about to
start going to gay clubs and things like

that. So that was fantastic. What would
we have done without the BFI's Blu -ray

collection? Oh, look, there's Derek
Jarman by Gordon Rainsford being

1980.

It was a period of change in fashion.

Punk was on the way out. New Romantic
was beginning.

I remember seeing people dressed as
pirates, seeing people with knee

This is a really great archive film, a
programme made by Janet Street Porter

Danny Baker from 1980, and it's the
story of the new romantics in London.

It's called 20th Century Boxers. 20th
Century Boxers, yeah.

They wanted to do a showcase. They'd
done a whole body of work, and the

venue was...

The Scala.

And it was quite an occasion.

We think that's Marilyn.

And that's Stevie Strange, obviously.

Walking into... Or Stephen Strange, the
actual names.

This is a great example of Martin
Pavey's sound work, where he designed

sound to make it sound as if you were
coming into a gig venue and hearing the

sound from behind closed doors.

It's very clever.

We're also pretty sure you can see, we
think that's Martin Pavey behind those

two in a hat.

And standing halfway up the aisle as
well.

Long shot.

He doesn't think it is, but he was
definitely there at the gig. And it

like him, to be honest. Which actually,
you know, carried on throughout the 80s.

So it was a landmark gig.

I went to loads of gigs at Colin Totten
Street.

I think the first one I probably saw was
Sobbing Gristle, Leather Nun, Monty

Kazaza.

And there was this rumour going around
that Genesis Purage and Co had got this

positive ion generator, which was the
opposite of the usual negative ion

generator. We had one of those in my
hippie household.

This actually makes you feel bad.

It was like a big radiator or something.
It was a portable heater or something.

It was quite weird.

That's Cozy Funny Tootie singing this.

I remember going to see the Mr. Rons
with 23 Skidoo playing, and

I think it was the lead singer of the
Mr. Rons, he grabbed hold of the mic

and he just froze.

And no -one knew what was going on. He
was actually being electrocuted live on

stage. Drummer got up, kicked the mic
stand away, and then he went to another

mic and he went, oh, that was a shocking
experience, and then collapsed on the

floor. They're almost just, like, open
-mouthed, like, yep, we're at the Scala.

That's the sort of thing that happened.

It's another of Philip Gray's
photographs.

Oh, no, Channel 4.

So here's where the timeline slightly
converges, because we're talking about a

different building altogether.

We're talking about the new Scala,
King's Cross.

There is the Monty Python pan pointing
at the Scala there, the lady killer.

The King Sound was the nightclub that
was operative for about a year and a

in the King's Cross cinema at weekends.

It's all to do with Bowie and the rise
of Bowie and the fact that Bowie's

management was a guy called Tony
DeVries.

That's Tony DeVries standing behind Iggy
in a photograph by Mick Rock.

the great music photographer.

And that's the great old man of the
mountain of music journalism, Nick Kent.

Nick Kent talked fantastically about
this. He

talked in real time pretty much about
the gig that happened in real time.

I mean, you know, he talked about half
an hour non -stop.

Almost every second recollection of that
gig, it was quite spectacular.

Yeah, he couldn't remember what he was
doing yesterday, but he can remember

1972, like, at the back of his hands.

It's another Mick Rock photograph.

Taken out of Gala, or the King's Cross
Cinema, as it was known.

If Fellini had made a film in the late
60s and there'd been this completely...

love this guy with the... Yeah, who is
that man? We'd love to find him.

And the kind of... Shout out to the guy
in the T -shirt.

There was nothing like that music.

But what was outstanding was even...

He'd worked out these special moves that
he could do with the mic stand, where

he could, like, throw the mic stand
forward and dive on the stand and do a

somersault while the stand was in midair
and then land in the audience and

then crawl around on his belly like an
iguana.

He literally defied the law. His
photographs are so great.

Mick Rock's pictures of that gig are
just something else. They were

That guy is about 10 years old.

But to me, it changed my life.

I was 20 at the time. This was a really
hard photograph to license.

Thank you, Joe Stevens.

Throw yourself at the world.

You just throw yourself at the fucking
world.

We brought David Attenborough in at
great expense to do a voiceover here.

It's about 95 % of the budget. Thank
you, David.

This is an original animation by Osbert
Parker taken from an original

primatarium leaflet from 1980.

It's beautiful work. Osbert Parker is
eventually Quentin Tarantino's animator,

isn't he? He was.

That sounds ominous.

Oh, he's such a good actor.

From Tottenham Street up to King's
Cross, they were in a building called...

our executive producer, David Babsky,
took that picture. That's Alan Gregory,

Jane Pilling and Stephen Woolley on the
right.

First film they showed at the Monkey
House.

Was King Kong.

Who's that familiar face? Who's that?

Yeah, who is that?

Yeah, that's me. And that's Heath and
the cat.

Having a good sniff.

Ben Wheatley, wasn't he cute?

Shall we talk about that film? The
archive footage is called Satanic

Wheels and it was shot by an Australian
student in London in the mid -80s, a New

Zealand student.

She went back to New Zealand, she took
the footage with her and put it into the

New Zealand Film Archive, as you do,
where we tracked it down.

This is another student film, but shot
in 92,

by Ali Peck and Victor de Jesus.

They made a three -minute -long film
shot in this garden. This is another bit

amateur archive shot by Rick Myling.

I love this shot so much.

Yeah, this is by Josh Higgins, a really
talented cinematographer.

And that's a bit of Michael Clifford's
archive film, blending seamlessly with

Josh's.

It's already a little bit brightening.
It was a hot day.

I'd overdressed.

So this is summer 1985, I think.

I'm wearing skinny black jeans, big
black boots, probably a big long coat

that was way too hot.

So I met Joe.

We go in.

He's talking about Joe Cornish, his
childhood friend.

So we're trying to give a tour of the
cinema.

It's these marble floors and it's a
quite grand building that looks a bit

like... Blending it in with archive
footage from 1990, 1992.

This was the Scala mural, Stairway
mural.

You know, look around King's Cross in
1985, that's a little bit what it seemed

like. Didn't it originally have cartoons
of monkeys?

Yeah, when it was the primatarium. Yeah.

The star's still there on the floor of
the Scala.

Let's set up a cinema in the old
abandoned embassy from before time.

And the survivors and the mutants and
the others can all gather together

to watch entertainment from the old
world.

Yeah, that mural was done in 1986 by a
couple of street artists.

He also did the limelight in New York
and Hyper Hyper in Kensington Market.

I love this

photo so much. Amazing.

That photograph is by John Stoddard, a
celebrity photographer.

And that's the Jesus and Mary chain,
hooray.

And that guy in the middle is right
here.

And that's Douglas now.

We specifically asked people what they
wanted to be credited as, because we

some people can have their noses really
put out of joint if you miscredit them

in the captions. And Douglas, he is a
filmmaker, so he wants to be called a

filmmaker, not a musician.

Although he was with the chain.

through their kind of pomp years, if you
like, you know.

That was Douglas back then.

There's a bit of an in -joke here about
the song Loaded and about the Jesus Mary

chain. We don't want to labour it,
particularly.

Scarlet, where kind of outsiders and
freaks belonged and you felt welcomed.

We'd walk down Pentonville Road and get
up... Lena's one of Smoking Dogs,

formerly known as Black Audio Film
Collective, along with Donna Comfra and

Lawson. There they are. There's Black
Audio.

They were big friends of the Scala back
in the day.

It was a very difficult shoot, this one
on the roof, because...

The studio is directly above a gym.

And throughout the entire shot, you
could hear this boom,

boom, of weight kind of dropping on the
floor.

So we had to sort of navigate that and
the fact it was raining and windy at the

same time. So we're glad we got that in
the camera. And we celebrated that

difference. We like to look like that.
And we met people who look similar to us

there. And that's what was really
exciting, you know, for us.

The thing about this gala was you had to
be a member.

There we go.

I've still got it.

It's like a toffee club.

I never quite understood how it worked,
but Joe explained it to me as being a

kind of loophole, which enabled them to
show stuff that they really shouldn't be

showing.

Welcome to Cafe Blast.

So, yeah, these were all the films that
were not classified by the BBFC when

they were first shown at the Scala.

And the programmers, myself included, we
had to write to Camden Council every

month and ask permission to show all
this kind of stuff.

This is the activist Lisa Power, who's
co -founder of Stonewall.

The fold -out poster which would be up
on the wall with everything circled that

you wanted to go and see.

Everyone I knew had one of these in
their kitchen. I always had one in my

kitchen. It was very exciting to see
what the next one was going to be.

So elsewhere on this disc you'll find a
gallery of Scala programmes that you can

look at.

So Mike Leeson's company, 2D Design,
were the people behind the Scala program

right from the early, the first one,
1978 through to 93.

The concept of the program was based on
the American repertory programs of the

New Art and the Roxy in San Francisco,
New Art in Los Angeles.

Mike, explaining how he had to kind of
like unlearn his...

girls.

He now works at the Dogwoof studios in
Ironmonger Row.

Yeah, we're looking at the Dogwoof HQ
now and we're looking at some of his

handiwork behind him.

That's what you do as a graphic designer
99 % of the time.

You don't, you know, get high on acid
and start doing this.

Yeah, so that's Steve Martin's face,
obviously, in the middle of the

I never know if people register that or
not. It just gradually went out.

No matter how hard you tried, there was
always something, when you got it back,

that was slightly off -register and out.

So I think over time we just said, we'll
just go for it, you know.

And then once, it was almost like once
you opened the stable door, everyone

went, wah!

They were great.

You could pour over them. You could look
at them, the ads.

I always pause there. Whenever you see
bookshelves behind people in interviews,

don't you pause it and try and find out
what the books are?

Particularly if you've written a book
yourself, you think, is my book there?

Vainly? Somehow?

Could it be? What is the title of your
book, Ali? Do tell us.

My co -written book in 2001.

It's called Your Faith Here, British
cult movie since the 60s. Oh, look,

a resurrection... Sorry to bite him, but
there is a resurrection Joe, also known

as Lee Williams, and his good mate Ian
Crosdale.

These posters and this text is from a
sort of prelapsarian, before

-the -fall kind of time, whereby...
We're shooting throughout in the

They were lovely enough.

let us use the entire building to shoot
in which was very convenient for us it

was locked down at the time so we had um
we had kind of the run of the place um

except for the builders they were very
annoyed with i think they uh probably

quite rightly because we were getting
under their feet but we did uh somehow

survive it so there's trisha and trisha
is the person that designed the cover of

the um blu -ray that you're looking at
now it's a very naughty one And the

was very naughty.

Oh, my God, I wish the Scala existed,
though. I mean, honestly, I could do

almost every day. I'm not sure I could
do a whole week of the Lonesome Cowboys,

but, you know.

Oh, I love this bit of footage. So there
we go, we're in the Scala auditorium.

That's really what it looked like and
felt like.

And I don't remember there being any
usherettes and torches or anything like

that. It was like, off you go, good
luck.

And the other weird thing that I recall
was that there was never a point at

which the lights were up. It seemed as
if there was always something showing.

And either you were coming in at the end
of the... At this point, our producer,

Andy Stark, always says, look, there's
Piers Morgan.

It was never like, well, that's the end
of the last house.

And, OK, staff, let's tidy everything up
and get ready for the next performance.

It smelled weird and it was cold.

It smelled weird? It smelled weird?

Oh, yeah.

Well, it smells all right.

Maybe my standards are low on wheels.

Yeah, it had a very kind of mucky,
dairy, burny. Am I allowed to say that?

They were not comfortable feet.

They felt, I would say, wood.

I love the fact that the...

filmmakers who are organising this
documentary have managed to get one of

original Scala chairs, which is as
uncomfortable as I remember it from...

or it isn't? It is.

It is as uncomfortable.

I think he says it isn't.

Well, why would that... How would that
make sense?

I just want his shirt.

I want everyone's shirt.

What's happening?

Something's happening.

It's a great picture of the auditorium
light, which is still there.

And if you look at those Mick Rock
photographs, you can see the same light.

Is that cool?

Or is that just bad?

Kathy, her most recent book is The Book
of Goth, I think it's called.

Season of the Witch.

Yeah, it's about the history of Goth.

Whenever we see her, we always marvel at
the fact that our film and her book are

extremely similar, even down to the
chronologies and timelines and things.

As in, she starts with Thatcher and we
start with Thatcher and sort of go on

from there. But they are very, very
similar things.

Do get it if you're listening. By Susan
the Witch, by Kathleen Onsworth. It's

amazing. It's a work.

You would feel like, gosh, I could
actually be part of this world. I could

something from this world. I could take
into... She's wearing Westwood there, I

think, isn't she? She's incredible.

You know, you've got various members of
Everything But The Girl, that round.

Everything, but the girl did sit round.

They literally did. Tracy Thorne, we've
just got in touch with. They come to

our, kind of a screening.

I tried to get in touch with her via, I
don't know, Facebook Messenger or

something back in the day.

Recently sort of hooked up with her on
Twitter and said, I sent you a message

saying come and be, and I thought, no, I
never look at those.

We always have to start with the Scarlet
Cat, who I was very fond of. Or

Houston, more than Roy. Look, Scarlet
Cat.

Houston and Roy.

So Vic Roberts was one of our favourite
staff members. She was an usher who left

to be a bus driver, believe it or not.

So I had got up, I think, maybe just to
go get myself another coffee.

So Houston got up and went for a walk.

There he is.

He had this funny tail that just curled
backwards. It's meant to be a sign of

dominance in cats.

But, yeah, he had a very curly tail.

And startling every single fucker in the
row, which then set off this Mexican

wave of panic and fear along the row,
which then spilled back and forth.

were screaming simply because other
people were screaming.

Hey, where's the door? They heard the
cat.

Oh, Mrs Reeve, this is from the Michael
Clifford film, Scarlet, shot in 1990.

Mrs Reeve used to come with her son,
Melvin, and they always came to the

films, and they were lovely.

They used to give the cats Christmas
presents, like little ping -pong balls

treats, and she was very generous.

towards the end of the life of this gala
in the campaign to save the building.

She was born in 1914, before the First
World War broke out, and she was 102

she died, while we were doing the
editing. And we're in touch with her

Melvin.

Up in the air, you know, flying sort of
thing.

We like all that. I don't see there's
any harm in it at all.

I mean, I don't go out of here wanting
to chainsaw somebody.

The Scala program was very diverse.

It's the first time co -directing. It's
really impressed upon me how difficult

it is to shoot against light and how
light changes because those windows were

fucker to shoot against because the
light kept changing.

So to actually sort of edit that
sequence, it's very, very hard.

It's very...

It involved technical stuff, I'm
revealing here.

Place in the sun and from here to
eternity.

Just that face.

And the quality of his acting, but also
to know that he was one of us.

There were several films I saw here that
changed my life. I first saw Jeunet's

short film Chantemort here, and that,
again, that became a hugely important

for me. I was obsessed with that film.

The scene where he's blowing the smoke
through the wall into the other

prisoner's mouth is one of the most
erotic things I've ever seen to this

It's more sexy than any gay porn I've
ever watched.

And I did write a book about
Enchantement, I should say.

Did I mention my book, Your Fate Here?
It

doesn't have Stuart Lee in it, but it
has a big paragraph about the gala in

Ever since Jane and I...

Sort of left the Scala, her in her
professional capacity and me as a

We were both writing continuously about
the Scala for a good sort of 20 years, I

suppose. One way or the other, through
magazines and articles and what have

books.

And it never left us. It's a big, huge
form. It's part of our DNA.

...why we were there and what was wrong
with us. And yet he would then sit down

and continue watching it.

You know, you don't get that in a
multiplex.

Paul Putner, he's in Little Britain.

He's also the Curious Orange.

I remember the Lee and Herring's Curious
Orange. And there's David Jones' Magnum

Opus. Magnum Ice Cream.

Magnum. Get back to the screen and see
something just as enjoyable because of

all the eccentrics and the freaks and
the cats and all the mayhem that would

sometimes happen in there.

This place just felt really wrong.

It felt sort of like anything could
happen. But you knew that someone

in the process really cared about what
they put on, right? And so it's almost

like the building itself had recommended
these films to you.

This is from the Satanic Dollies on
Wheels, New Zealand student film that I

mentioned before.

That was when the lightbox worked.

Mostly the lightbox didn't work.

On Mondays, which were a slow day at the
Scala, me and my co -programmer... So

Joanne Seller was just 19 years old when
she got the job of programming and

running the Scala, 1982.

Just imagine it. And particularly when
she talks about some of the stories that

you'll hear later.

Just remember that's a 19 -year -old
girl fighting the video nurses and

corpses out of the cinema.

And she went on to become Paul Thomas
Anderson's producer, so she produced

things like Boogie Nights and They'll Be
Blood and what have you.

One

of

the things that I found the most
perverse was being asked to put on an

tray and carry the ice cream tray into
the...

Double bill of a rough mayor or a double
bill of some sexploitation and sell ice

cream to the punkers. That was bizarre.

And having felt myself to be a
radical... Loathly with the makeup ice

we sold.

Loathly. And I enjoyed how perverse that
was. Seemed very glamorous back in that

day.

There's the hand of Davey again.

We were showing Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

There's a spelling mistake.

Good God.

So

this

is a story that seems to appear

in Sam Mendes' Empire of Light, doesn't
it?

Someone finding a... Yeah, funny that.

This interview was shot in the New
Beverly cinema in Los Angeles, which is

Quentin Tarantino's 35mm only cinema.

I said, I think I have a dead body in my
office.

So the ambulance came and everything.

I was thinking the policeman was exactly
like the one he said, get in the back

of the van, and with Nan and I.

I'm sure that's who he's based it on.

There was a huge, huge, we had a huge
billboard from Evil Dead up in the

It's Graham's artwork for Evil Dead. It
was massive. And they were like, oh,

showing one of those video nasties.

Was that the reason?

Because the Scala showed all of the
video nasties. Well, not all of them,

most of them. Cinemas could show video
nasties. It was home entertainment that

was restricted.

It's impossible to discuss the history
of the Scala.

Oh, here he comes.

Wonderful David McGillivray, who's,
um... Julian Terry's scriptwriter.

Incredibly arch, gentlemen.

I remember him saying to our sound
editor once, Do you like Decadent?

Everyone loves Decadent, don't you?

The sound editor sort of looking at him
non -plussed, saying, um, yeah, I think

so. There you go.

Decadent. And talking of decadence,
here's the reason we've got an 18

certificate. There it is. There it is.

The film's been invited to the Mumbai
Film Festival, and I did give them

permission to cut that bit out, but I
think they're quite happy with it. This

too much.

I shouldn't really be watching this.

It was screaming... I love the fact
you're through the gorilla's wristwatch

this point. Perfect.

So Ali not only sold, Ali Kelly not only
sold ice creams to porno punters, but

also was...

Did some projecting as well. I have
always maintained that the Scala was

to show any length of celluloid that had
half a dozen intact sprocket holes. So

because of that, the films tended to
break.

Occasionally, you'd get the thing where
the film would get stuck. It was a bit

drossy, wasn't it, the Scala projection
box?

Through the little window, you'd see,
oh, my God, the film, the image is

The screen would go white and we had to
wait for the projectionist to repair it.

But even worse, even more terrifying,
was when the film jammed in the gate and

then the lamp would burn through the
celluloid and then we would see it on

screen. It was catching fire. You know,
that...

Opening. Ah, that was absolutely
petrifying.

Oh, it gives off an orange cloud of
light that just flows right out of the

And your projectionist, the
projectionist for Scala, who put reels

wrong way because you're on acid one
day. Yeah, and they sometimes got shown

upside down, the reels, and back front,
and sometimes they were completely

missing.

Back in Fitzrovia, this is the queue to
see The Avengers.

Scarlet was also the venue that had
things like the meeting of the Laurel

Hardy Appreciation Society.

The Laurel and Hardy Sundays were always
completely sold out, packed out.

They were fantastic.

They were run by a guy called Dave
Wyatt, who worked at ITV, I think, or at

Thames TV.

He was a real specialist and a collector
of prints and he used to put on great,

great shows.

Why don't you do something to help me?

You might have caught Paul's
impersonation of Oliver Hardy in one of

Serafinowicz's shows as well.

I'm standing outside the Scala Cinema,
which is a... This reminds me of Mariana

Freck's job.

Little Big Picnic, though, wasn't it?
Yeah, the little picture show. The

picture show. I don't think Kim's
changed much. No, not at all. In the

year since that was shot. From a
Freeman's catalogue, where Lulu

on an advert saying, if you want to
frock around the clock, do Freeman's

catalogue. And I thought...

Shock around the clock. So there you go,
folks.

The truth behind shock around the clock.
That's where the idea came from. I

mean, when I look back, I think it was
really funny that the two people who

looked sort of like the nastiest people
in London put this festival on.

And Stefan was a miserable old man. I
had a terrible reputation as being one

the rudest people ever.

I mean, you know, that was my punk ethic
anyway, but I really was quite nasty to

people. I didn't suffer fools gladly at
all.

Hey, hey, Bill.

I mean, I did notice that Stefan used to
sort of actually step over the line

often with people. He used to get quite
threatening.

People had suggested that it may turn
out badly.

Photographed by David Hyman, a passed
-out punter.

I had the chain from the scholars' doors
over my leather jacket

for self -defence.

We've built up here a situation of the
crowd.

The Jackie Chan Kung Fu events were
also, like the Laurel and Hardy events,

completely packed out. It was a really
successful, very profitable event for

everyone.

A lot of the people who came were... In
some of the outtakes of this, we've got

Ricky's collaborator, actually, Toby
Russell.

He talks about the fact that his father,
Ken Russell, as in the director Ken

Russell, was fascinated by kung fu and
wanted to make his own kung fu movie,

he never came to pass the vote. But he
was fascinated by dance and

and he said that what these guys are
doing is so far beyond anything that I

could come up with, you know.

Yeah, a bit more psychability.

The Return of the Living Dead was
premiered here at the Scala Cinema, and

Kramps were on hand.

That's Joanne Seller talking to Lux
Interior.

She was an enormous Kramps fan. That was
like her dream country was to put on

this show with the Kramps in attendance.

The Kramps made out of brick and mortar,
isn't it?

Tell me about Bell, Jane. What was his
story?

Well, Bell was a musician in a band
called The Stingrays, and he also had

shop in Camden called Psychotronic that
sold under - and over -the -counter

VHSs and magazines and memorabilia.

And he carried on being great.

show person even after he was no longer
in the stingray he had a band called the

ills of suave percepto which is you
perceive something and what you perceive

in the in the film vincent price
surprisingly is a mad scientist and he

out that when you get that crawling
sensation in your stomach when you're

nervous it's actually an organism called
the team that also had a video label

called mondo movies and they were the
first ones to release fast the cat

and things like that in the UK.

It's kind of Ray Dennis' Declan movies.

And Psychotronic, the name comes from
the book by Michael Weldon, sort

of a kind of proto -history of cult
movies of a certain type.

influenced a mixed -up generation of
weirdos and mythos, which is pure

There's the terrifying tingler.

And you would have set up buzzers under

the chairs, and then you press this
buzzer, and all these people would go,

my God, and everyone's jumping up. Well,
that's the idea. We had these bell

buzzers and about six car batteries, and
we could only get a slight...

And I remember after the first
screening, we were like, right, we need

battery. We need to up the voltage.

And me and Mark were down in reception.
He's talking about his business partner,

Mark Eystead, who's a great friend of
the Scala and a real Soho character.

And sadly, he just passed away.

He was grabbing their hand and going,
that's what it felt like.

Rubbish. And I was just like, result,
another fantastic Mondo movie, a

psychotronic, big hitter.

Hooray, there's the bell.

Blessed by a rainbow.

We were conveniently located next to a
very popular gay pub called The Bells.

was a dance club also.

The Bells immortalized in the film Pride
about the lesbian and gay support

minors.

I think there was even a gay bookshop.
It's not named as such. I don't think

it's The Bell, but it's absolutely 100 %
The Bell.

You can also see glimpses of it in Rebel
Dykes as well.

Yeah, it was one of my haunts along with
the Scala when I was going to Kingsway

College around the corner, which is how
I originally discovered the Scala.

That's Isaac, filmmaker of Young Soul
Rebels, looking for Langston.

I mean, everybody really involved in the
kind of pop sort of alternative scene.

And in a way, that kind of queer
group...

also would also come to the Scarlet
Cinema.

You know, there was a certain
oppositional counterculture which

in the audiences which attended the
Scarlet Cinema, and I think we saw them

really as being part of our cultural
sort of identity.

Both the Scala and the Bell facilitated
that because they were both places where

different tribes all mixed together.

It was what we now call, what the
younger kids would call queer in the

broader... Again, astonishing shirt. I
just... Where can I get this? I

should have asked him.

Also looking very Hunt Red Tea, isn't
he? Terry Gilliam here and loathing

You didn't call yourselves that in those
days, but you were. You were

alternative to the mainstream.

This was the way we let our friends from
the Berlin.

We'd go downstairs, we'd unlock the fire
escape, and they'd come up this way.

Also, other people broke in that way,
and other people used this backpack.

Vic is amazing in this film.

The timing is just exquisite. I had to
clean it out at the end of an evening.

It was always dark in here. I'd come
down with my flashlight, and I'd want to

get it cleaned and checked as quickly as
possible before running terrified back

into the auditorium in case I
encountered something I didn't want to

I had to help Serena the cleaner.

I did.

I wasn't just the programmer, but I also
used to clean up if there was a bit too

much mess, shall we say. And there's
photographs from one of the ladies' only

nights.

Photos by Laurie McKellar. That's Alex
Dawson, who was one of our ushers.

It was a great night.

So no photos of the fisting tent?

There was a fisting tent, yeah, in one
of the offices.

Oh, Mick Rizzo, yeah, he ran the cafe.

He was a lovely guy.

He was in a band with his brother.

He used to keep a diary.

He's reading from his diary, which is a
sort of poetic expression of working

at the Scala.

He had a special relationship with youth
and the cat.

I also saw quite a few things at the
Scala offscreen that were quite eye

-popping as well, because it was quite
cruisy.

the kind of boys that i liked came here
i was very into the kind of um the

tattooed rockabilly sort of boys because
i was into the kind of you know the

greasy hair it's like bad boys you know
um so and to me the scholar's aesthetic

was very much about that it was that you
know that kind of retro 50s again it's

no exaggeration to say the scholar was
london's foremost

LGBTQ cinema at that point.

And yet the LGBTQ crowd was just one of
various tribes who would descend on

the Scarlet, be they Horror Tribe or the
Indie Tribe or whatever.

What other tribes would you say? Well,
the Mixed Tribe.

So here's Rory, who was the promoter of
Mixed Club, which had come out the bell

and found a bigger space in the Scarlet
to do their all night.

discos with films, essentially, and
performers on stage, people like Lily

and Jane County and Julian Clary and all
sorts of people. Fanny the Wonder Dog

would come and do on -stage performances
as part of Rory's Club, the mix. It was

massively influential and very popular.
You had Michael Clarke down there as

well, didn't you?

Yeah, we'd see Michael Clarke dancing
and, yeah, it was just a real gathering

point.

I was trying to learn German at
university, so I'd sit and watch taxis

clothes for endlessly. I'd picked up
some choice phrases which apparently

weren't very decent.

Here he comes. Here he is, old grip
-type thing. For misbehaviour, we're

the Scala, the darkest auditorium in
London.

crazy films on the screen and, of
course, an audience of crazies

misfits. And so all kinds of things
happened in the cinema throughout the

showing, especially during the all
-night screening. So in the auditorium,

the back row, of course.

It was very, very crazy.

It was pre -internet, so it was where
people went to meet each other.

So, yeah, that...

The toilet used to actually be my office
in the old Scala.

When the new Scala took over the
building and turned it into a nightclub,

turned my office into a toilet.

Funny.

I'm glad I put that

on film.

Well, I suppose the Scala was the
nearest thing to a 42nd Street

way. I mean, having sort of, like, been
in them at the height of...

The 70s.

I can probably tell you that it was sort
of similar. You know, people with their

legs over the front of the seats, seats
slamming, the gents' toilet.

We refer to the shot as Alan Jones'
torture dungeon.

And like the dark bits at the back of
the auditorium, you didn't go there just

in case you might trip over somebody
having a shag on the carpet.

That's part of the theatre of it all,
isn't it? I mean, that's what I think.

There was a nice example of a jump cut
just then. We have quite a few of those

in our film.

We talked to another filmmaker recently.
He worked for the BBC back in the day.

He's like moving pictures. He said that
if they found jump cuts in any of their

editing, they would get right
bollocking.

So they had to disguise them all with
footage and archive, which we couldn't

unless they were due all the time. So we
left them in. We didn't really have

anyone to bollock us either, did we?

We just thought it was punk.

Scarlet, fuck it, you know.

Perfect audience to watch it with.

Miss Babs Johnson?

Yes, I'm Babs Johnson.

Special delivery package, ma 'am. Sign
here, please.

Any time something awful happened,
people would share.

Oh, my God almighty!

Someone has sent me a bowel movement!

Pink flamingos, without doubt.

The bit at the end where Divine eats dog
shit.

You would hear just the math.

screams of disgust from the entire
audience, except for the people who'd

before, where it'd be screams of joy.

The Scala was where you got the
audiences that were the most hardcore,

mean that in the best way. I was only in
the audience in The Scala of one of my

films once, and I remember being
shocked.

That was for the UK preview of Passport.
Midnight movie audiences everywhere.

So this was the most insane vocal...

partying, great audience I ever saw.

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

Going to see The Warriors was one of the
best experiences I've ever had. So

there's John from Black Audio Film
Collective, later known as Smoking Dog,

we saw in the archive photograph half an
hour or so ago.

It was Jane's idea to shoot him on the
staircase. I actually find this quite a

complete and, you know, pretentious idea
that we would shoot him against one of

his own sort of installation screens,
you know, so you get the kind of film

he'd made spalling out behind him, you
know, which admittedly would have looked

slightly messy and confusing.

But as soon as Jane saw... This is
Jane's genius, though.

When she saw the staircase outside, she
said, the film's called The Scala, we

have a staircase motif running
throughout the film, if you look

see. There it is again. But it perfectly
suits the Warriors as well. It's

fantastic.

Can you dig? It was just an amazing
Brechtian moment in the cinema where you

were engaged.

I think John was the only interviewee
who used the word Brechtian in his

interview as well.

I love the fact that he...

Sort of high art, if you like, talking
to low art, or apparently low art, you

know, because one of the Scarlet's big
things was that there was no distinction

between low art and high art. You know,
this is why the programme had all the

films together. You know, there was
no... One was not bigger than the other,

know. They're all the same, all
considered the same.

Basically.

So a lot of the time when I would go out
at night, I would just stay around

people's flats. The, the?

Squats, stay on people's floors.

But a useful alternative appeared with
the Scala

all -nighters.

Yeah, going to an all -nighter was
fantastic because I lived in that period

Acton. I love this photograph of
Stipley.

If you'd done a gig in East London or
whatever and you were maybe not being

because you were in a try -out spot, a
really great thing would be to come here

on the way back and see what was on and
sit through the night.

There's another smoking dog, Black Audio
Film Collective.

There's a bit of an installation.

You can see behind him.

All free, you know. I spent a lot of
time at the all -nighters.

Oh, gosh, no shit.

Did you spend a lot of time at the all
-nighters? Yeah, he's great. This is

Fetus, also known as Jim Thirlwell.

This was filmed at the Alamo Draft House
when we filmed Ralph Brown.

It's a bit too dark to see behind him,
because he's a bit of an anatomy of

probably dead Victorian children, aren't
they, or something?

Yeah, he's talking about the Fitzrovian
Scala.

A lot of bands that would come to London
to play from out of town, we couldn't

afford to tell, it was the same tiny
little pubs, and they would literally

come in all night, just to sleep, you
know.

Obviously watch the films, but they try
and get a better cut towards the end,

so...

I remember someone saying about sitting
in the King's Cross gala, turning around

and seeing the four, the three Jesus
Mary chain and Bobby G lined up all

their dark glasses watching the film.

That's another Phil Gray photograph.

The dreamlike experience of half falling
asleep and then waking up and the

movies are still going on.

The movies and the dreams kind of merge.

I don't know how people made it through
the entire all -nighters. The thing

about doing an all -nighter film...
That's Vic Roberts sitting in the

with Blair Kutrow, her wife.

Possibly stoned, possibly tripping.

Oh, wait, yes, I do. Drug.

People would be there on speed, coming
down on speed.

Some people would be there on acid. When
you talk about Scholar, I would never

immediately say, oh, yeah, it was
druggy, but it was definitely a place

people were on drugs watching the movie.

Don't get uptight with me, man.

Yes, Ralph Brown.

I love this sequence so much. This is
Ralph talking about dealing

drugs.

Intercut with himself as a drug dealer
with Nell.

There's another jump cut.

I think you should play a game on every
time you jump cut. Take a swig of...

Drinking game. You should definitely
have a drink every time you see a jump

You'd probably be in hospital in the
coma by the end of it, frankly.

Never mind with Nell and I drinking
game. Try this one.

With a larder.

I love the fact we got the word larder
in our films.

Brechtian larder. 40 quid or whatever it
was, I can't do the math, but it was

basically four a quid.

And I would sell them over the counter
for three a quid, thus making one blue

amphetamine for each sale.

This is still valued at two quid. Two
quid, you're out of your mind.

These I would eat, because I also had to
stay awake.

even though I wasn't watching the film.
That was with June at the London School

of Economics when he was working in the
kitchen at the Scala, in the larder at

the Scala.

Within an inch of his skin. I can't do
the math if he was at the LSE.

From where the blade had kind of... And
he had hair that was, like, gelled and,

like, sharky.

And very deep blue eyes. And one day I
said to him, so Barry, where'd you get

it? Where'd you get this stuff from,
man?

Because I can just go straight to them.
So yeah, Warren Street, very close to

the Tottenham Street Gala with the big
squat culture full of new romantics and

various people. I remember one of my
most embarrassing moments here and I

I nearly lost my job over it.

This is another bit of Osbert Parker's
animation to illustrate this.

Sorry, that's Louis Benassi.

He worked at the Gala for a long time
and was also known for his work at the

close -up cinema.

That's a bit of archived footage of Ali
Kaley that Osbert managed to animate

very cleverly.

We love this sequence.

He went to Chinatown and bought those
squids and you can see behind -the

photographs in the booklet and elsewhere
on this bit.

And those are original Scala tickets
which Osbert saved from his days of

to the Scala and kept them in a box and
they came in handy.

So I wonder if my character Danny from
Withnail would have gone to the Scala if

it was around in 1969 and I have to say
I think he would.

I'm not sure if smoking huge amounts of
weed is going to keep people awake all

night.

But I think he would probably attempt to
sell you that, on that understanding.

It's a long time till dawn, man. It's
six or seven, eight, nine hours.

He's probably sick of doing downing the
dealer in person. I forced him to do

this, basically. I feel a bit ashamed.

He rose to it, obliged.

I remember an amazing New Year's... Jim
Bidgood died recently, didn't he, or

quite recently?

He did.

Caroline's dress is by The Vampire's
Wife. She looks lovely in it, and she's

best known for her role in Doc Martin, I
believe.

But she does have this pronounced kind
of indie history as well, doesn't she?

Oh, yeah, she also recently, or not so
long ago, made a great film about Delia

Derbyshire, in which she played Delia
Derbyshire.

Produced by her own producer? And
produced by Andy Stark, our producer.

did that night actually exist?

Can anybody hear me?

We found something.

We found something.

So we originally shot these interviews
with Ben Winkley on Zoom when we were

having sort of preparatory work towards
this film.

And by the time we came to shoot the
thing proper, he had gone jaws deep

in the Meg 2.

So unfortunately there's no time for it,
so we had to...

Relying on the voiceover.

But our assistant editor, Ed Mills, did
a fantastic job in matching up from...

Matching up what he said with clips from
the thing.

A shout -out to Ed, who was just the
most patient editor.

Yeah, broadcasting, the guys down the
front, the black guy in the dark beard,

yeah. The end of this film for all of
you.

And his partner screaming.

Yeah, he told us that his scream, you'll
see the Curious Orange and Lee and Erin

do that very same thing, which he's got
from the thing. They were difficult

sometimes to shift. I mean, I remember
one morning I was clearing out, I was

walking down all the roads with my trash
bag to pick up rubbish, polystyrene

cups and bits of sandwiches and all
sorts of other strange things that

might have left.

And I was clearing row by row and there
was a guy at the back and I shouted to

him, Oi!

wake up go home and he didn't respond
he's been asleep for the entire night i

think he might i found a mink pom -pom
in the scala once that was the strangest

thing that i have found i put it in the
lost property box and then serena the

cleaner um had a had a screaming fit
because she thought that she thought it

a mouse we had no mice in the scala we
had cats

So, because we had cats, we had no mice,
precisely.

We've just had a night of nightmare on
Elm Street. One, two, three, four.

I don't know any of the words. It just
went on and on and on.

So, he suddenly jolts upright while I'm
standing there with my arm, his arm in

my hand.

Stares at me and goes, you cunt.

Grabs his prosthetic limb, which it
turns out it was, and storms out of the

building, leaving me.

Slightly shocked still.

Seeing The Terminator being the last
film of an all -nighter and watching it,

hearing the Brad Fidel kind of music
going... I have this experience

anyway in cinemas. I have some
neurological condition whereby as soon

down in a dark room and watch a movie, I
fall instantly asleep.

It's not the best for a director.

You know, and then staggering out into
the street in Kings Cross.

I'll be back.

I always remember, like, staggering out
in the morning.

I have the op -ed. I can never sleep in
this cinema. I can't sleep in public.

I think somebody's going to put a bit of
old chewing gum in my mouth.

But there was nowhere else to get that
intense experience.

And then coming out into King's Cross in
the morning was always odd.

So this is a bit of amateur archive shot
on the last night of the existence of

the Scala at the cinema.

And that's Bill Pearson in his Scala
staff T -shirt. You'll see him again in

second. He was one of our front -of
-house managers.

In 1990 -some time. And another bloke,
people would kind of come up to you and

go, oh, nice day, isn't it? You know,
about six in the morning. Yeah.

Do you want to come back to my play like
some kind of stupid monster fighting

game?

Yes, Bill.

So we're coming up to one of those sort
of classic pivotal moments

in a film that usually happens at the
end of act two where something very

comes down.

The film now takes a... You know, you've
had your party. Now here comes the

hangover, basically.

It takes a bit of a left's worth.

And things were going OK during the
course of the evening until, I want to

like, three or four in the morning.

I happened to be in... Yeah, Mark's
describing his first night managing an

-nighter.

just at the beginning of 85, just after
he'd taken on the job of co -programmer

with Joan Salah.

I wanted something of the kind of John
Freeman face -to -face

vibe here, so I asked the editor if he
would glacially

close in and in and in as he's talking.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to see
a film in which, at the end of the

credits, you know how at the end of
films you usually get someone sort of

walking away from the camera, so they're
typically sort of walking down a lane

or a road, and they're back, you know,
disappearing, disappearing, until

finally a stick figure, but I wanted the
opposite. I wanted someone sort of

walking towards the camera, and it was
this sort of sequence that I kind of

halfway achieved something like that.

By the time you get to him, we're...

right on him.

This is amazing work by Josh Higgins.

Yeah, that's the Scarlet Kubrickian red
staircase.

It wasn't Kubrickian when we were at the
cinema, but it is now.

So yeah, you see the camera creeping in
slowly

on Mark's face.

He's very uncomfortable telling this
story. He laughs nervously.

It was his first night managing an all
-nighter, and a body was found on the

cinema, outside the cinema.

Actually, when I was researching my book
about Scala, on which this film was

based,

I spent a lot of time in the local
archives looking at newspapers to try

find the story of the suicide, and I
finally found it.

I found the name of the young man that
lost his life, that committed suicide

that night.

He was 21 years old.

There's a little dedication to him in
the end credits. If you get that far

through the film and freeze it on the
end credits, you'll see our tribute to

Scarlet Staff and friends who didn't
make it.

I felt so bad. I apologized. I said,
this is a terrible thing.

I don't think there was anything to do
with the event that might have caused

but I don't know. I'm really sorry. She
goes, no, no, I'm calling you to tell

you.

Your cinema had nothing to do with this.
In fact, he was manic depressive. It

was very sad.

And he had tried to commit suicide once
before, I guess, jumping off a bridge.

So it was a real tragedy. But, I mean,
the fact that she did that, it sort of

took a weight of guilt off my shoulders
because I really did wonder, like, what

led to this circumstance.

You see the tension in his neck.

A bit more of Titanic dollies.

And beautiful, beautiful photographs of
King's Cross in 1989 by

Alan Delaney.

It was always a bit sleazy anyway.

Not that one.

But, you know, literally, we're at a
point now where you're literally...

like the bent TV shop. And puddles of
blood on the pavement. And we're like

Albion Yard as well. I remember a
policeman saying to me one day, the

not going to go round you.

when there'd been an incident outside.

There was a lot of drug dealing going
on, prostitution, and it was pretty

pleasing. Some great sound design here
by Nicky Ruck and Martin Pavey.

About there being a human turd on the
footstep of... Yeah, the human turd, it

was a sort of John Waters -esque moment,
but it really sort of came to symbolise

the kind of crack and homeless issues
around King's Cross.

during the time the council was clearing
out the area.

This is the Poltex archive footage.

We had a homeless kid called Craig who
slept in the doorway and wrote to us one

day from prison.

He'd gotten himself arrested to get some
respite.

I'd love to know where Craig is now.

I hope he made it.

The moment we were living in. So it was
in that... John's talking about

Hansworth songs.

It's a great film. For me, a sort of
refuge.

It was an extremely chaotic time with
AIDS, Thatcher,

Clause 28, the miners, all of that. And
I was kind of involved in that a bit. So

that picture of the miners is by Brenda
Prince.

To the miners.

Again, from the Bishop's Gay Archive.

On the 10th of April 1984, HM Customs
and Excise raided the Gaze the Word

bookshop. If you look very closely, you
can see me reflected at the end of that

glass door, wearing my yellow jacket.

Your high -vis. My high -vis jacket,
yeah.

Yeah, we took our cinematographer, Sarah
Appleton, on a tour of London. She was

really unimpressed by the whole thing.
She was much more at home doing the

interviews in this gala.

We had a former policeman who became our
tour guide that day. Chris Foster,

yeah. Who we exhausted, I think it's
fair to say. We ended up about seven

later on the roof of this gala with him
also.

..with him very, very tired, having
dragged him round this part of London

and then didn't use any of it at the end
of the day. There's Paul Bergson on the

process. That's by Brenda Prince as
well. Paul Bergson as well?

Yeah. We're all allies against the Tory
government.

When you were here, you were sort of
safe on some level.

You really felt like you were protecting
your freedom.

Watching amazing films here or coming to
fundraisers, you felt like you were

actively taking part in something that
was really, it really mattered.

The Scala resided in our imagination as
a community.

Beban's first film was Carrie Greenham
Home.

She made it when she was just out of
film school and that's a picture of

Greenham Common.

All these restrictions that were being
placed on us constantly by the

were just getting more and more.

you know, intrusive, homophobic and
blatantly just... They were just really

fucked up. And it did feel lawless and
it felt free.

It felt like the right place to be in a
climate that was really oppressive.

Yeah, it was kind of worrying because
you could feel things were closing in on

the place a bit.

You can see that there's literally a
mark on the side of the Scala in 1993,

I think that was shot.

Council was, like, marking out areas of
redevelopment and the Scala was

one of them. I think perhaps that's what
Rory is referring to.

It's slightly poetic.

Paranoid.

The wall was closing in on this girl.

I'd also like to know who that young man
with the ponytail is. I think I know

who it is. I think he's a friend of mine
from back in the day, but I can't be

sure. He looks exactly like him.

I'll find out one day.

So name that voice, everybody.

Mother LSE student.

And alongside it, there was a surprise
film that was due to be broadcast as

well.

So the certificate comes on the screen,
and it's a clockwork orient.

He's a great radio broadcaster, and when
we were shooting the interviews...

I remember standing outside the Scala
and seeing a bus with his face on the

of it go past.

Yeah, so James was talking about this
amazing coincidence of him accidentally

seeing Clockwork Orange when he'd gone
to see If. ...enthusiasm for Clockwork

Orange itself or Kubrick in general. And
someone definitely shouted, about

bloody time or something like that. So
there was a sense of this being quite a

culturally important moment or at least
a...

at least a moment, and a proper applause
and, you know, sort of proper cheering.

But, yeah, it was definitely the fellow
that shouted about bloody time or words

to that effect that made me sort of do
almost a double take and realise that I

don't think we're supposed to be
watching this film.

I love it's cheeky going here. We
stayed.

It wasn't really a big deal, but in the
days and weeks... and month and year

after that screening, it became a really
big deal.

A former manager of London's Scarlet
Cinema was convicted of breach of

today after showing the banned film A
Clockwork Orange.

There I am.

God, you must remember this day so well.
Oh, it's a horrible, horrible thing.

I hated this bit of the editing.

And your defence was what? You just
wanted to show the movie.

Did you plead ignorance?

But you do get John Walters cross
-examining you, which was it all worth

that? Yeah. But they felt bad for you
because you weren't trying to make money

for yourself or anything. You were just
trying to show a movie that your

audience was dying to see.

But I'm playing prosecutor now. Could
you have rented it legally?

No. You couldn't have gotten the film to
show at the Scholar legally through

proper choices.

So you had to go to Pirates.

So you almost went to jail for movies. I
did go to jail for movies. I got busted

making Mondo Trash and they took us to
prison. Well, not prison, jail.

And then we had a trial and everything
and we got off. But we were charged with

conspiracy to commit indecent... I like
it when he talks about indecent exposure

and he covers up his ankle.

That's a good thing to have on your
resume, I think.

If you were to pause this, you could see
our animator, Rosamund Parker. Oh, you

can see Julian Petley. You can see all
sorts of names. Susie and the Banshees.

Severin.

Mute Records, Compendium.

So what are we looking at here? All
these people, all these companies

the day of the programme.

And this is the last day of the Scala,
the closing night party. That's Linda

Carruthers -Watt. She used to work in
BFI Exhibition.

Helen DeWitt with her back to the camera
talking to me.

You can see Janet Gerard. You can see
Paul Taylor

from the BFI.

And that future is with us, and we are
benefiting from it now.

We did contact quite a few of these
people who aren't in the film, just to

highlight that.

And they were all very busy making much
more important films.

So, yeah, we call this section...
There's Karen Alexander. We call this

The Ghost.

And that's Mary... From Stereolab. From
Stereolab, yeah. She was an usher at

this gala.

Mary Hansen.

Who sadly passed away in a bicycle
accident.

This is real behind -the -scenes
footage. This is right up going towards

out to the roof of this gala.

Seamlessly blended into archive footage.

That's Lizzie Franke, Kim Newman,
Stephen Barber, my ex -boyfriend.

There's Alex Fenner on the roof.

Dick Fiddy. Dick Fiddy, Kim.

Louis Benassi and Maya Payne. I don't
know who he is.

That's Stuart Burley, my husband.

Alex Dawson.

Tony Cooper.

Great graphic designer who worked with
Neville Brody.

Sadly, took his own life, been off for
the Scarlet Close.

There's about five suicides in this
film, I'd say, whether we...

flag them up or not.

Including one in the film role in the
credit, a family friend of mine called

Paul.

I'll talk about when it comes.

That's the roof of the Scala now.

It's a cathedral -like space in the
centre of London. And this is the

member of Cabaret Voltaire, Chris
Watson, who went on to be a sound

for David Attenborough on the Life on
Earth series.

We enticed him down from Newcastle to
play contact mics all around the

And he recorded the secret sounds of the
Scala, which are embedded into the

soundtrack of the film that you've been
watching and listening to. It's kind of

suboptimal level by sound design, Nicky
Ruck and Martin Pavey.

I love this sequence. It's my favourite
sequence in the entire film, this whole

kind of five minutes after King Kong
dies.

There's a real kind of sort of stone
tape hauntology kind of vibe going on

It's essentially the history in essence
of the Scala embedded in the walls.

For these purposes, I think this was
really the only place we could have put

this in the film, really.

I love looking at the equipment that
he's recording himself on. He also

Jar Wobble, Caroline Capps, the same
day.

And the apex of that is within this
dark, mysterious place called the

void.

It reminded me of Eraserhead, some of
Alan's letter.

Fantastic sound work.

There's the rumble of the train.

The same noise that begins the film,
that very telltale rumble. This is a

moment of somebody looking directly into
camera.

in our film, mostly at the time. Yeah,
you're not supposed to do that, breaking

the fourth wall and everything, but it
was great.

Very dear friends that I spent many
great times at the Scala with, you know,

sadly didn't make it. So, yeah, there
are ghosts here for me.

I came here to see a film, The Man with
the Golden Arm, and right from the

opening credit...

I was completely hooked and I was very
much attached to the story because of my

own wayward life by that stage.

And I'd already sort of had a grounding,
if you like, in terms of... Barry's

autobiography came out a couple of years
ago and it's a really fascinating, a

very candid read that we both read at
the time of doing the editing.

He talks about his history of drug use
in parallel with his

own career.

It was

like a kind of fertilising ground

for the youth of London who were
artistic in some way and who wanted...

to make a living in the arts, you know,
and who were just feeding off all this

stuff that was in there and off each
other.

You know, and I can't think of any other
cinema that did that.

I loved going to rep cinemas, and out of
all of them, the Scala was top.

It was something protean, Catholic,
multicultural in

the broadest sense, not just in the
ethnic sense, about the Scala.

Losing the Scala was... Seriously, a
blow.

It's been part of my history for so many
years now. You know, when I came here

as a young man 40 years ago, it became
us, and we became it.

It was part of everybody being able
to... I mean, this film is about love to

some degree, and I'm really confused
with Melancholia around this time.

I find it very moving.

I think when we were filming this, this
was the bit when you burst into tears,

wasn't it? I did, I did, yeah. When I
came to the Scala.

And the content of the films or the
staff that were working there helped

Well, I'm with Vic, you know, she's a,
you know, living, breathing goddess to

me, you know, she's not a building.

To be, to struggle with my own gender
and my own gender identity.

Because it was never questioned.

Whatever I was, or whatever clothes I
turned up in, or whatever mood I was in,

it was okay. So it became a holding
place.

And I think for a lot of queers and a
lot of weirdos generally, this cinema

somewhere to go where we were with our
own people.

This is our hero shot by Alan Delaney,
the photographer, whose work you saw

earlier. That was Alex Fenner sitting in
the box office.

And there's a broken light box.

I absolutely love this shot of the Scala
cinema from 1989.

That's from The Green Door. That's Scala
Day, isn't it?

Wonderful.

Eyeball peeping. Another mirroring shot
there.

Behind The Green Door.

You can hear the piano tinkling and you
want to get in, and in The Scala you

could get in. You could get behind The
Green Door and you could spend an

night. This is how you get an audience
to applaud before the film's over.

is that you set up a kind of series of
fake endings.

Yeah, lots of false endings.

I wanted to sort of credit Skalarama for
keeping the flame alive. There's

the Skalarama programme, also designed
by Tricia at 2D.

And this was the blue plaque ceremony
leading up to the blue plaque ceremony

that we had in 2022.

to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the

famous gig by there

we go Iggy Pop and Lou Reed and

Mick Rock's photograph of both gigs
perform the album covers for

Transformer on the left and Raw Power on
the right

that we grew up with as teenagers and
not knowing that they were shot in the

Scala.

Then and now.

There's Resurrection Joe.

He's dressed us like that for fun.

He's a grandfather.

Yeah, you get school children regularly
running away in terror from that.

Oh, there we go.

So we have this very, very long, we have
like a six or seven minute long credit

sequence at the end, which we insist
that audiences sit through.

And they do, to be fair, they do. Yeah.
Give them credit.

Partly the reason why the credits are so
long is that lots of people worked on

the film, obviously.

There's our producers, Tara, Jim and
Alan from Channel X.

We interviewed 50 people for the film.
That's most of them.

More interviewees, sort of.

I love that shot.

Camera people, Sarah, and overseas
people that we work with.

So our producer, Andy, edited the film
as well.

Koyana's got these shots, my favourite
shot of this season.

These are beautiful, aren't they?

Yeah, it was such a lovely day.

Yeah. Imagine if it had rained.

Helpers.

Sound people.

The colourist. Yeah, he really changed
the look of the film.

Those are the people that run this gala
now and the other locations that we shot

in.

Our funders.

stock societies, Channel X, legal
people, and people that advised on the

fair dealing.

Here we go. That took a lot of writing.

A lot of spreadsheeting, specifically.

Yeah, so we wanted to... Scala showed 4
,000 films in its history, and we wanted

to put in many more clips than we had
time to do in the body of the film

So this guy here to the right of 3PO is
my family friend Paul Oliver, who is in

everything. Once you see his face,
you'll see him in everything. He's in

American World, he's in London, he's in,
oh God, he's in everything.

So this is a way of honouring him there
as well.

Yeah, look. people helped us.

That's just some of them.

And that's the In Memoriam, you can see
the names of our lost friends, including

Mrs Reeve.

well these are all the names of the uh
not all of the names the kickstarters

many of them these are the people that
paid i think over 25 or 50 quid or

whatever it was um the ones in pink are
the people that are in the top 10 of

their categories that they came in on my
family is in this list who only

discovered two years ago my biological
family and then my father insisted um i

only met them when i was 51.

so it's quite surreal to see their names
in this list And obviously the credits

are A to Z by first name in order to
break up those family groups. There's

Wee's Big Adventure.

And here are the additional materials
credits of where we took the film clips

from.

And the reason Witchfinder and Wicker
Man are at the end there is because

officially those are the last two films
that the Scala showed.

And there's Miss McGillivray one last
time exploring the lockdown Scala that

took the occasion to do a bit of
building work. There's a toilet on the

there. Yeah, there's a toilet on the
stage.

My goodness, why is there a toilet on
stage?

I suppose there's a reason.

Shall we go down and have a look?

And that's our copyright card, the Scala
membership card.

They always had cancelled on them.