Quinn's Picture House Blairgowrie - A History

On 12th June 1913 a note appeared in Bioscope Magazine mentioning a proposed new Picture hall in Reform Street, Blairgowrie. Before this date the town like many others had only ready-built halls where films could be shown. Moores cinema was one such hall. This was in the Mission Hall in Reform Street. Moores are noted in the trade press as having eight shows weekly. Tuesdays they gave shows in Rattray Parish Hall. The last advert for one of their shows was on 11th May 1923.

The Electric Picture House, or Quinns as it was known locally (named after the owners Henry Quinn and family) was opened by all accounts on 11th September 1913. The cinema itself was comprised of two old cottages knocked into one. Although most of the films shown were silent, each reel was given a measure of ingenious sound effects by Danny Quinn who used such items as coconut shells, corrugated tin and even stones (for rain) to good effect. Atmospheric musical accompaniment was provided on piano by Rita Morrison and later Peter Moran.

In May 1925 Quinn's closed their little cinema to make way for the bigger and better one in Reform Street. The art deco building was reported to be very much ahead of its time with every comfort and convenience for picture-goers and a balcony seating one hundred and twenty-eight.

Quinn's opening matinee performance was 'The Great White Silence' with a special orchestra directed by Alex C. Guild playing to a capacity audience.

By 1928 Quinn's was running one show nightly and three each Saturday at prices from 4d up to 1/3d, the programme being changed each Monday and Thursday, unless the film was extra special and demanded a longer run.

Soon 'talkies' were to be all the rage in the cinemagoer's vocabulary. By the end of 1930 it seems that Messrs. M and H Quinn had fitted up their cinema with a Western Electric sound system for the latest films of those days. The town then had a population of 4,500 and after the Moore's packed up their shows in rented buildings, Quinn's was left as the only cinema in Blairgowrie until the Regal was built in 1937, no doubt prompting Quinn's to extend their cinema to include now some 700 seats in the same year. (The Regal had 678 seats).

Mr Henry Quinn Junior took over The Picture House after the death of his father, and despite being closed on the declaration of war in 1939, it soon re-opened within a week to ten days.

In 1950 The Picture House is listed as having 520 seats, with films running continuously from 6pm each evening, and Saturdays from 5.45pm, with a seperate matinee at 2pm, at prices fron 1/- up to 2/3d. The sound system in 1950 is listed as one by British Acoustic but when this changed is not clear.

In 1955 Quinn's had a panoramic screen fitted to screen the new wider screen Cinemascope format films including The Robe and White Christmas in Vistavision. By the 1960s however cinemagoing was declining and the Regal was the first cinema to succumb to this being taken over by Kingsway Entertainments and run as a cine-Bingo hall with the Bingo side gradually taking precedence until 1993 when it was closed and demolished to make room for flats.

Quinn's though managed to continue into the 1970s, now being run by Mrs Loretta Quinn after the death of her husband c1969, and even after her death in 1982 others ran the cinema until its closure in 1983. The last film to be shown there was Annie.

The building has gradually decayed since then despite aborted plans in the 1980s to transform it into a nightclub. It is due to be demolished in 2011 although the architects behind the proposed flats to be built in its place insist that they are keen to retain the Art Deco influence by incorporating a number of the features from the original building frontage into the new elevation.

Information and pictures courtesy of Margaret Laing from her book A Social History of Blairgowrie and Rattray published in 2005 and A Cinema Miscellany No.31 by Brian Horsey.

Quinn's first Electric Picture House - the cottages on the right of the photo

Old Henry and Young Henry Quinn outside the Picture House 1937

Danny and Henry Quinn in 1925 - closer inspection of the billboard reveals an advertisment for the 1925 George Melford film The Top of the World.

Quinn's Picture House Advert from 1955