Marilyn is pictured alongside Elvis, King Kong, and other movie icons in the cover art for Scala Cinema, a tribute to the London venue which enjoyed a cult following in its heyday from 1978-1993. First published in deluxe format in 2018, the book is now available in a regular hardback edition from publisher FAB Press, as well as all good bookstores and online outlets.
“Postpunk and predigital, the Scala cinema was the most infamous and influential of all cinemas, a pirate ship on the stormy seas of Britain’s Thatcher government, 1978-1993. Specialising in cult movies, arthouse classics, horror, sexploitation, Kung Fu, Psychotronic, and LGBTQ+, the Scala showed a different double-bill every day with legendary Saturday All-Nighters, music gigs and club nights. Over a million people passed through its doors, including future filmmakers, musicians, writers, artists, actors, and activists, who would credit the Scala as part of their cultural inspiration.
This unique book gathers all 178 of the Scala’s iconic monthly programmes along with rare photographs, ephemera, and an in-depth, often outrageous time-travelling commentary to take the reader behind the scenes of the cinema described by John Waters as ‘a country club for criminals and lunatics and people that were high… which is a good way to see movies'”.
“The Scala in Kings Cross was an important cinema to me even if that sounds a bit clichéd saying it, given its legendary status through Jane Giles’s book and subsequent film. But my Scala experiences didn’t include all-nighters, John Waters films, and drunkenness and hedonism. I experienced it as one of London’s rep cinemas, so I would be there for the likes of Scorsese double-bills, Marilyn Monroe double-bills, and I first saw Apocalypse Now there. Seeing those films in the Scala listings such as Pink Flamingos and Thundercrack! terrified me, and I stayed well away! There is a lot of rose-tinted nostalgia about the Scala, but there’s no denying it was an amazing cinema …”
– Philip Ilson, Memory Palaces
On August 1, 1981, a ‘Marilyn Marathon … for those who can’t make an all-night show’, anticipated the 19th anniversary of her untimely death with five Monroe classics ‘plus clips and surprises’: starting at 1 pm with Don’t Bother to Knock, taking us through to 6:15 pm with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Niagara; and following an hour’s interval, rounding off with The Seven Year Itch and Bus Stop, before the night crowd arrived for a Marx Brothers marathon. (That August programme also featured Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, starring Marilyn’s acting teacher Michael Chekhov.)
Both the original 1981 programme and Graham Humphreys‘ cover art were inspired by images from the ‘ballerina sitting‘ with Milton Greene, shot in New York during September 1954 while Marilyn was filming The Seven Year Itch, and plotting her escape from Hollywood with the photographer.
And finally, a feature-length documentary, Scala!!! (2023), is now available to watch on Blu-Ray and via streaming services.
The Marilyn Report 