Cinema Museum - London, UK

31st January 2014, £10 (by appointment only)

“When you love life, you go to the movies!” French advertising slogan.

Did you know that, after Hollywood, Mumbai and Cannes, Kennington in South London is the world’s foremost cinematic locale? No? Good because I made it up. It may sound strange for the nation's Cinema Museum to be set there, but if we keep in mind that my hometown Bradford declared itself “City of Film”, the location of the nation’s love-letter to the big screen doesn’t seem so extraordinary. South London (my current home) has a bit of an image problem when it comes to the silver screen. Sure, we had A Clockwork Orange and Attack the Block, both fine films, but neither are going to do wonders for tourism. Does South London have any of the Hollywood dazzle of it’s Northern, Eastern and Western inmates? Well, yes it does. Charles Spencer Chaplin. We win. 

When going to the pictures was sexy

The Cinema Museum isn’t part of the landscape in the way that other museums are. In fact, you have to know what you’re looking for to find it or you could end up in some brownfield or other. It should be said right off the bat, you have to book in advance to get a guided tour, which is the only way it can be experienced. Don’t just turn up in the rain expecting the works because you’ll have just as miserable a Saturday as I did. When you do turn up on your allocated day, get there on time, not before or after, because there isn’t a reception and you may spend some time out in the cold. 

I wish we still had an 'H' cert for 'horrific'

The museum's stationed in an old workhouse whose most celebrated alumna was Chaplin himself, forced into work after his mother's destitution. “But don’t worry”, said our guide, a mild-mannered chap with an earring and an encyclopaedic knowledge of stuffy picture houses, “the story has a happy ending”. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Mr. Chaplin went on to do some trifling work in the movie industry. 

Our guide was the co-founder of the collection and his tour started with an account of the financial workings of the place - no public funding, no paid staff. I admired the balls-out candour and it went some way to mitigating the ten pounds entry. He said his piece in a small cinema room festooned with bric-a-brac from various eras, a motif it shared with the rest of the museum. The Cinema Museum acts like the cinema charity shop, where the collections of late cinephiles are boxed and stored and anything worthwhile’s put on show. “It’s hard to say 'no' when we’re donated things,” said the guide, “because these items have meant something to someone and that means something to us.” 

…sorry, I think I have something in my eye. 

And these folk get given some garbage! I spied a box containing only a VHS copy of Flight of the Navigator. What do you say to that? 

“Thanks?”

Have they remade this yet? 
Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider/Vince Vaughn 
would make a cracking Brando.

There’s no thread to your experience at the Cinema Museum. They offer no chronological line or thematic journey to their public. You go through the door and look at some old shit, and for a museum of this size, on this budget, that shit sparkles with Hollywood magic (or the Aberdeen Odeon’s interpretation of Hollywood magic).

Ticket stubbers from the past
dressed a lot like fascists...

...but then, so did the pop stars.

It specialises in the cinematic experience of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and their bailiwick is surprisingly broad. There are the old projectors that impress in their historical importance and strangeness to a modern eye, but what really caught the attention of this bleeding-heart romantic were the curios such as a King Kong teapot and a Laurel and Hardy mirror. This place isn’t just a reliquary for cinema, their research library is Alexandrian in scope with countless students and even authors in residence, leafing through the mighty catalogues. 

The trio's complete

How good is that?

Upstairs, there’s a whole corridor dedicated to the little tramp himself, with posters, postcards, trinkets and all. I was so excited I nearly ate my own shoe. 

The crossbeam looks like
a moustache.

Through said corridor is the main hall, formerly the workhouse chapel, and a wonderful thing it is too. Each eave has a strengthening circle that, ironically, looks so much like a camera reel it should be renamed St. Cinema’s Cathedral, Kennington. There’s a charming bar, loads of seating, a cinema screen and a huge model of a planned public sculpture in South London of… you guessed it... Buster Keaton! 

No, you were right: Chaplin.

Then we sat, had a cup of tea, and talked about films and cinemas. It was the most Radio 4 I’ve ever been. It’s such a personal experience they even have their own fucking cat! A museum cat... in my lifetime! 

I feel like Brad Pitt.
In a way.

It’s expensive, there’s no doubt, and if cinema isn’t a passion, this might not be for you. For me, it was an excuse for a gaggle of cinephiles to stand around baltic corridors and talk about the design of a movie poster for a film I’d never even heard of. It’s a chance to celebrate, not so much “movies”, but “the movies”.

Some museums make you feel like a kid, some treat you like a kid, some unlock a  long forgotten memory, some make a host of new ones, and some, like the Cinema Museum, make you yearn for something that died long before your time. 

“When you love movies, you go to the Cinema Museum!” Joe Deeney.

p.s. I made a film. Next to the museum. I called it, Fox.