LAST week’s Craven Curiosity was correctly identified by Terry of Threshfield as the upper, ornate floors of what is now Kooky Club, opposite Skipton Bus Station in Keighley Road, Skipton, but which was originally a cinema. Originally called the Morriseum, it opened in 1929 with the Fritz Lang film, ‘The Spy’. Recently renovated, the building is heavily influenced by Classical architecture, including some elements of Egyptian architecture, following the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter. The Egyptian style was often used for cinema architecture at the time, and also for some factory buildings. The style developed into what was to become Art Deco in the 1930s. The cinema was renamed Regal Super Cinema in 1930 and in 1936 it became an Odeon property, re-named Odeon in 1967. In 1967, it was sold on to Classic Cinemas. In 1971 it was sold again and reverted back to the Regal, it closed in 1987, the last film to be shown, Crocodile Dundee, staring Paul Hogan.

50 years ago, in November, 1969, the cinema, then the Classic, was playing ‘The Bridge at Remagen’, an American war film with George Segal and Robert Vaughan, and ‘Young Billy Young’, a Western staring Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson. Its main feature was ‘Three into Two won’t go’ with Rod Steiger playing the part of a married salesman who has an affair with a young hitch-hiker played by Judy Geeson. The ‘Classic Junior Club’ meanwhile was playing ‘Son of the Red Pirate’ and also Pluto and Mighty Mouse cartoons. There was also bingo three days during the week and also at the weekends.

Do you have a suggestion for a Craven Curiosity? Send a picture of it with a few details to news@cravenherald.co.uk, suggestions for this week’s also to news@cravenherald.co.uk