Dune: Part Two advertised at the brightly painted Everyman Screen on the Green

A CINEMA in Angel has gone back to the old days of movie-going by painting its entire frontage like the poster of a new hit blockbuster.

Everyman Screen on the Green has decorated its venue to match the fictional desert planet Arrakis featured on the adverts for the Dune: Part Two feature.

A cinephile said this week the painting is a “throwback” to the custom-made advertisements that adorned cinemas in the 1950s, when going to the pictures every week was the norm regardless of what was on.

Guide Nigel Smith, who does a walking tour on the history of cinema from Angel to Essex Road, told the Tribune: “I think what’s interesting is back in the 1940s and 1950s when going to the cinema was a big deal, especially in the West End you would have these huge, very elaborate signs and paintings on the cinema advertising a film.

“I don’t think Screen on the Green is doing that consciously but I think it’s quite cool, it feels like a throwback in a way.”

He added: “In the 1950s Screen on the Green was called the Rex and it was one of the worst cinemas in Islington. It was a cheap fleapit. So it would never have had these grand adverts, which is an interesting irony.

“The founder of Screen on the Green, Romaine Hart, made it respectable and started programming it in a different way in the 1970s.”

During Barbenheimer fever last year Screen on the Green, which was founded in 1913 and is now owned by boutique chain Everyman, was painted pink.

Tour guide Nigel Smith

Mr Smith said: “What’s incredible about Islington is just how many cinemas there have been over the course of 100 years.

“There’s quite a few buildings along Upper Street people won’t know used to be cinemas.

“For example, the Starbucks by Angel station with the huge tower, that was a cinema. Caffé Nero in Upper Street with a domed roof, that was a cinema. The Shell petrol station used to be an Odeon.

“The Business Design Centre was called the Royal Agricultural Hall and in the Victorian era that was the first place people in Islington could go and see film.”

With the sometimes eye-watering cost of going out to see a movie, it’s understand­able that hitting the pictures is no longer a weekly habit as it was in the 1950s. But Mr Smith said now people go to the cinema if a film is worth it, and only if the experience is better than watching from their sofa.

He added: “I saw Dune last week at the Imax because I wanted to see it on the biggest screen possible.”

He added: “What’s interesting about Everyman is it’s got very comfortable seats, you can order a cocktail and you’re not just going to see a movie on a big screen you’re going for a nice experience.

“Islington has two other cinemas, an Odeon Luxe & Dine that is high end, you can get a full dinner delivered to your seat. Those big chains are now copying what the more boutique cinemas like Everyman are doing.

“The Vue cinema in Angel shopping centre has just reopened with reclining seats in every single screen.”

Mr Smith’s next Islington’s Big Screens walking tour is on March 15, at 11am. See www.nigelsmithwalks.com