Rex Cinema

Story

The Rex, Elland is one of the oldest purpose built, structurally unaltered cinemas in the country. It was built in 1912 and opened as the Picture House on 12 December that year. It was operated by Central Pictures (Elland) Ltd which was formed of local businessmen.
The manager and pianist was Harry Taylor. Within a few years the company had taken over the Town Hall (later the Palladium) cinema in town, which had been showing films since 1909. The two cinemas were managed by James Montgomery.
The Central closed in January 1959 due to competition from television and the frequent bus service to cinemas in nearby Halifax and Huddersfield. The Palladium followed suit in June the same year.
Walker Cinemas of Huddersfield then acquired the Central, carried out a refurbishment (including the installation of Cinemascope) and re-opened it as the Rex in November 1959. Bingo intruded on a couple of evenings in 1964 and took over completely later in the year. Proprietorship changed a couple of times and a further trial of films occurred between November 1975 and August 1977, after which bingo resumed. The enterprise folded sometime in 1985.
In 1988 the Rex was taken over by Charles Morris and Peter Berry, extensively refurbished and opened on 7 October. It has since built up a reputation of a well run, comfortable but traditional cinema showing a wide range of films. It has a mailing list with addresses as far apart as Leeds and Manchester and attracts a large, regular and loyal following, with ticket prices among the lowest in the country.