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TENTATIVE BEGINNINGS
This essay explores the history of the Clifton cinema chain in the 1930s. Clifton was one of a number of small-to-medium sized circuits operating during the years of growing concentration in the film exhibition business. The particular focus here is on circuit owners Sidney Clift and Leon Salberg, and on their relationships with two of the three big cinema chains in the United Kingdom at the time: Oscar Deutsch's Odeon chain and John Maxwell's Associated British Cinemas (hereafter ABC).1 While ABC and Odeon were both taking huge financial risks by embarking upon large-scale building and acquisition schemes in order to establish their cinemas nationally, the owners of the Clifton chain delayed the construction of their cinemas until it became clear that the sites would be financially viable; however, by this time the exhibition market was too saturated to accommodate another national competitor. World War II then prevented the Clifton chain from reaching its full potential. Clift and Salberg intended to create a nationally significant chain of purpose-built, modernist Super-Cinemas, but their hesitancy cost them the realization of this ambition, eventually limiting their circuit to a dozen purpose-built cinemas and a ramshackle collection of outmoded acquisitions.
The Clifton circuit was established by Sidney Clift and Leon Salberg. Clift was born in 1885 in Birmingham in the English Midlands. A solicitor by trade, his interest in cinema began in 1914 with a £100 investment in a modest 670-seat venue, the Empire in the outer-Birmingham suburb of Stirchley, which had been purchased by his father-in-law William Astley (Clegg and Clegg 49; see also "Sir Sidney"). Clift fought in the First World War, rising to the rank of Captain; upon his return, he began acquiring old theatres and converting them into cinemas with his father-in-law. Clift and Astley never fully financed a cinema; they would invest capital in return for a dividend and a seat on the cinema's board, as can be seen at the Empire and also at the Kingsway Cinema in Kings Heath, Birmingham (Hanson and Wilkinson 58).2 Between 1924 and 1928, William Astley scaled back his business activities with Clift, choosing instead to concentrate on his role as Treasurer of the Birmingham branch of the Cinema Exhibitor's Association (CEA). Clift, in sole control...