Poster for the new documentary Scala!!!
As a teenager lured to the badlands of London by the promise of 20 hours of uninterrupted horror film viewing, I vividly remember my first visit to La Scala. The event was called 24-Hour Shock, an orgy of low-budget violence and chaos during which I sustained myself on a diet of chips, soda and sweets. Believing I had covered all the major food groups, I still wasn't feeling entirely better by 5am. As I said goodbye to Evil Dead 2, a movie I'd already seen a dozen times, I allowed myself 40 winks on the floor in front of the screen.
I was reminded of this messy end to a very long shift while watching the deeply evocative new documentary “The Rock!!!” directed by Jane Giles and Ali Catterall. Among the talking heads, testifying to the cinema's unusual place in the capital's cultural horizon, there appeared a photograph of a visitor fast asleep on the merciless concrete floor of the hall. The young man is shown with his legs in front of the frame, his face obscured by disheveled clothing. «It's me?» I asked. No, as it happens. It turns out that people sprawled out, sparko, were not an uncommon sight.
First based in Tottenham Street, in 1981 The Rock moved to its more familiar home in Pentonville Road, King's Cross, where its status as a members-only repertory cinema allowed it to screen films that had been «banned» by the then watchful British Council film censors. It was here that one could see “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Driller Killer”, not to mention erotic esotericism like “Thundercracker”! For 12 years, until its closure in 1993, audiences were also treated to a dizzying selection of martial arts films, action films, gay films, cult films and anything else that would embarrass the mainstream.
Despite this fringe mentality, over time cinema carved out a niche for itself in expressive style. Over 15 years, on two stages, “The Rock” showed 4,000 films to an estimated audience of one million people. Regular patrons included future directors and artists such as Christopher Nolan, Joanna Hogg, Ben Wheatley, Danny Boyle, Viv Albertine, Joe Cornish, Peter Strickland, Mary Hannon and many others.
“I went to La Scala for the first time in 1981, when I was 17,” Jane Giles, the film’s co-director, tells me. (Seven years later she became the cinema's second-to-last film programmer.) «I saw a late-night program that included 'The Living Dead at Manchester Mortuary.' It was exactly that moment in my life, and I think that same moment in the lives of other young people who went there, where you're open to that kind of cultural experience. It was incredibly educational. At the time I was living in Crawley, West Sussex, and leading what seemed to me a stultifying family life. But at Scala it seemed like everything was on offer.”
Elsewhere, John Waters describes the place with typical elan. In a quote that appears on screen in the opening sequence of Scala!!!, the director of films such as Pink Flamingos and Hairspray reports that “there was magic in Scala. It was like joining a club—a very secret club, like a biker gang or something. It was like it was a country club for criminals, crazy people and people on drugs… and it's a good way to watch movies.»
My own experience was closer to Jane Giles's. In addition to welcoming truly marginalized groups, Scala offered a homey hug to a teenager whose only contribution to the counterculture was a pair of Vans high-tops and a Dead Kennedys T-shirt. Its status as the antithesis of multiplex culture was enough to convince me that this was the most radical place I had ever seen. I had no idea that the tea bar was secondarily selling amphetamine tablets — «blues» sold at three a pound — to patrons who would otherwise struggle to survive one of their weekly Saturday nights. I also didn't know that free entry was offered to drinkers from the gay pub next door, except for one.
The colorful lobby of the Rock, 1986. Photo: Rob Brown
Of course, I don't seem to remember the ever-present atmosphere of friendliness. Possibly the most beautiful moment in all of Rock!!! includes a brief archival appearance by retiree Maureen Reeve, who not only regularly attended screenings of horror and action films with her son Melvin, but also brought Christmas gifts to Houston and Roy, the theater's resident cats. Although born before the First World War, Mrs Reeve died in 2022 at the age of 108 and outlived the Rock by almost three decades. Jane Giles and Ali Catterall were among three mourners at her funeral.
In other words, The Rock opened its arms to anyone who wanted to enter. While attending a late-night quartet of films by Italian horror director Lucio Fulci, I remember sitting behind a lone elderly audience member who, in a thick Indian accent, gasped the words «Oh, crap!» to something unpleasant happening on the screen. I don't know whether the gentleman was unlucky or lonely, but it is quite possible that he was both — because many were. As well as inspiring the next generation of creatives, Scala provided others with a much-needed night of warmth and human company for just a few pounds.
Former King's Cross Primate becomes Scala Cinema, 1981. Photo: David Babski
Like so much else in the city, things inevitably changed. While in the 20th century the Rock's beautiful façade shone like a chandelier in a brothel, today the once dark and dangerous streets of King's Cross are adorned with glittering train stations, glass and steel corporate palaces, gyms and boutiques, bars and restaurants. . Even the once fetid Regent's Canal, adorned with the lights of luxury apartment buildings, sparkles like a lake of diamonds. On Wednesday night, at the site of the old cinema, I saw a homeless man asking the smokers gathered outside the Scala launch party!!! whether they can save any changes or not. As if anyone in London carries cash anymore.
So it's no surprise that a film about a cash-only movie theater sometimes feels like a document from a distant era. In the footage, filmed 33 years ago, Jane Giles can be seen on screen patiently relaying the week's program to landline callers. How strange. Even searching for movies was a process that today could be reduced to a few keystrokes. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, locating celluloid prints required the help of a chain of cinemas in cities as far-flung as Los Angeles and New York, not to mention the help of the ever-helpful Peter Todd in the British Office's records department. Film Institute.
Scala is now a nightclub
But despite the cultural relevance of the 21st century, the closure of the Rock has left a vacuum that has yet to be filled. While the Prince Charles Hotel in Leicester Square does an excellent job of keeping the capital's cult cinema tradition alive, the more esoteric elements in the King's Cross catalog are hard to come by these days. Thirty-five years after watching the low-budget feature film Toxic Shock and Sam Raimi's short film Sandpipers in the Lost Park in 24 Hour Shock, today I can find no trace of either film, either online or on demand. So much for the idea that everything that was once offered in the outside world can be had without any fuss in your own home.
The end, when it came, was swift. In addition to being sued for copyright infringement after the unauthorized screening of A Clockwork Orange (unfortunately, Stanley Kubrick himself insisted on bringing the case), Scala also found itself ensnared by complications related to an expiring lease, as well as financial difficulties faced by neighboring company Palace Pictures. Twelve years earlier, the move to Pentonville Road was facilitated by a £10,000 payment after Channel 4 moved into the original cinema premises. This time the kitten was empty.
Trying to keep the doors open, many cultural figures in the capital rallied to help the establishment, which itself held more than its fair share of charity evenings for various noble causes. But perhaps Scala was destined, not just forced, to close down by this point. The main players were exhausted and, in any case, ready to move on to other stages of their lives. The two cats, who for years have frightened many a dozing onlooker with their nightly wanderings around the multi-tiered hall, were content to move in with Jane Giles at her Caledonian Road flat. The loans are rolling in. Turns black.
Roy, one of the two cats of the Rock. Photo: Maire Payne
However, without him, I don't know where I would be. Even though my time at La Scala was fleeting, the vibrancy of its scene helped to forever introduce me to the strange wonders of London. And although 275 Pentonville Road is home to a music venue I'm not particularly keen on these days, it still makes me happy that I can walk to its front doors in less than half an hour. And now, with a film that finally gives a proper sense of the years during which this place was an epicurean picture house that felt like home to people of all kinds, I was transported back in time with an immediacy that is both powerful and powerful . and full of love.
“At Scala we had a 'live fast, die young' philosophy,” Jane Giles tells me. “We were like James Dean in the movies. We died when we were young.”
ROCK!!! in cinemas now and available on BFI Player and BFI Blu-ray from 22 January. Scala's greatest hits season Scala: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Cinema will be running at the BFI Southbank throughout January with selected films on the BFI Player
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