IN what may be Glasgow’s closest run-in with Mafia infiltration, today’s picture depicts the Cambridge Cinema, in early August 1960, when it was hosting Edward L Cahn’s Inside the Mafia.
Starring Cameron Mitchell and Robert Strauss, the film told the story of Mafia gunmen being dispatched to take out their rival gang’s leader. If that wasn’t to taste, the following Monday there was Yul Brynner in Stanley Donen’s Once More with Feeling! The following Thursday brought Michael Craig and Peter Cushing to the screen in Cone of Silence, whilst Walker’s shop two doors down had paint drying all week – for those of more decorative tastes.
The Cambridge Cinema on New City Road had been opened by Grove Picture House Ltd. in November 1922, and occupied the site of an old United Presbyterian Church. Originally designed to seat 895, a rebuild in 1927 had bumped up the numbers to over a thousand, before a renovation brought this back down in 1954.
The ominous presence of a looming Loan Office stamp above the cinema, on the wall of its neighbour, was never going to be a good sign, however, and the cinema closed for business and was demolished in 1964.
Today the only remnant from the days of the Cambridge is the Old Savings Bank, which sat opposite the cinema. It’s a lovely building but nowadays people deposit children there for nursery, rather than their income.
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