Odeon Cinemas de Allen Eyles

In the First of two volumes tracing the history of Britain's most famous group of cinemas, the Odeon circuit, Allen Eyles looks at its creation in the early 1930s by Oscar Deutsch and colleagues, the evolution of the now celebrated house style in the hands of its key architects, the takeover or other cinemas, the start of the Odeon circuit release, and the impact of World War Two.

This book pays tribute to some of the finest buildings erected in Britain in the 1930s and to Oscar Deutsch, whose extraordinary success despite bad health was terminated by an early death in 1941.

Lavishly illustrated with both interior and exterior photographs of virtually every purpose-built Odeon, this pioneering historical study draws extensively on unpublished material, including the reminiscences of some of Deutsch's closest associates, as well as on company records.

It includes a detailled list of all the cinemas that were part of the Odeon circuit in Deutsch's lifetime.

A second volume will cover the years from 1942, when J. Arthur Rank took over control, to the sale of the circuit in 2000.