Sophie Sims

For the price of admission, the fantastic, tragic, shocking, and glamorous narratives of 1930s cinema were brought to the routine lives of millions of Britons. The decoration of the interwar cinema exuded an other-worldliness, taking those who entered away from the harsher realities of interwar Britain and into a place that offered a comfortable and luxurious modern experience.

‘All this creates a unique atmosphere which is known and described as the Mollo and Egan Touch.’ Mollo & Egan Ltd., 'Plastic Paint'

A flurry of firms dedicated to decorating the new cinemas built in the period emerged. My dissertation focuses on one, Mollo & Egan Ltd., who were prolific decorators throughout the 1930s. They have been largely forgotten about in interwar art, design, and cinema histories, despite the successful reputation they established at the time. It considers the way that the firm represented itself as spearheading a new ‘modern’ approach to cinema decoration, one marked by its innovative and experimental practices. It situates them amongst the other developments in modern design in Britain at the time — from the Art in Industry report, to the work of émigré Modernists and the continental Modernist style, to contemporary decorative trends. I use examples of specific cinemas including The Astoria, Folkestone, which the firm themselves described ‘easily […] one of the most modern cinemas in the country’. It questions how the people using the cinema engaged with and experienced this decorative modernity by drawing on local newspaper reports and other archival material.

It understands the firm – who referred to themselves as architectural decorators, as opposed to artistic decorators – as both a product of and response to contemporary thinking around British design. I draw on the likes of cinema trade literature, photographs, and adverts to garner an understanding what Mollo and Egan Ltd. were an extension of, a reflection of, and a deviation from.

It was difficult to know ‘where the architect left off and the interior designers started’. Michael Egan, in conversation with Allen Eyles, Picture House 1998.

'In 1931 when the firm started, modern style was hardly known on the wide market of cinema construction and without exaggeration we can say that we have done a great deal towards introducing a modern conception of the cinema interior.'

'… in developing our method of decoration we soon found that we had to design practically everything ourselves. All fittings obtainable were hopelessly out of date [...] [it has all] had to be especially designed on the entirely new line; this, it is added, is what they ‘can offer to [their] clients for professional services.'