Vids Movies 
Apple TV 4K
Google Play Movies 4K
Fandango At Home 4K
5 Views
Scala!!!
This feature-length big screen documentary tells the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years.
Year: 2024
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Fifty Foot Woman, Channel X, Anti-Worlds, BFI
Director: Jane Giles, Ali Catterall
Cast: John Waters, Adam Buxton, Stewart Lee, James O'Brien, Isaac Julien, Caroline Catz
Crew: Jane Giles (Director), Ali Catterall (Director), Sarah Appleton (Director of Photography), Osbert Parker (Animation), Edward Mills (Editor), Andrew Starke (Editor)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Release: Jan 05, 2024
IMDb: 8.60/10 by 5 users
Popularity: 4
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Keyword : movie theater
Comment
Similar Movies
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.