COWGATE TO MEADOWSIDE

This black & white photo of the Cowgate corner area was taken in early/mid 70's. The same junction crops up in colour in a piece of film from 1980, below. As well as the Cowgate, there are views along Panmure Street and Meadowside. Still in their place in 1980 were The Odeon, the original Wellgate Centre facade and the pub, Foreigners. The footage only lasts 25 seconds so you'll probably need to view it a couple of times if you want to go sightseeing!

STAR WARS QUEUE - 1978

Bet most of you remember this...queuing to see Star Wars. This photo was taken in February 1978 on the day it burst onto screen at the Odeon for the first time. It was on a Sunday that it made it's debut in Dundee, and the queue having began at 9:00am, ended up along the length of Cowgate and all the way down to the bottom of St Andrew's Street, as in the photo. Not only that but the doors didn't open until 4:00pm and because of the size of the crowd the Odeon had to bring in an extra cashier to help out.
I remember going to see it a few days later, and although I enjoyed it I'll never forget my mates comment as we were leaving the building with everyone raving about it. Looking rather bemused, he quipped "It was a bit far fetched!".
If you think you may be in with a shout of spotting yourself in the picture - click on the image to view the large version.
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.

THE ODEON - COWGATE





This spot in Cowgate is where the Gaumont used to be, prior to it becoming the Odeon in the mid 70's.

Not much of a change to the interior of the cinema I recall but there was a bit of superficial tweaking to the outside with the addition of tiles to the entrance area.

The above photos were taken in September 1978 and the film was "Revenge of the Pink Panther", a movie I remember seeing at the time.

It looks as if the policeman is giving directions to Inspector Clouseau!

The Odeon closed down in 1981 then the building re-opened in 1983 as a bingo hall.

Photos by DC Thomson.

THE ODEON - STRATHMARTINE ROAD

The Odeon was a picture house I used to go to occasionally rather than regularly. Main reason being it was at the other end of town to where I lived and it needed 2 buses to reach it. It was probably the plushiest of Dundee's cinemas though, from what I can remember of the 1960s/70s period.
A part of the build up to the main movie features were of course the Pearl & Dean adverts on screen, and here below are a couple of original P&D ads from the late 60s/early 70s era to transport you back in time!

SLADE IN FLAME FILM - 1975

As if to confirm that glam-rock fizzled out in '74, Slade brought out this film in 1975 called "Slade In Flame", and was another I went to see.
What I liked about it was that it exposed the dark, gritty, unpleasant side of showbiz that the folk involved would prefer the public not to know about.

When the band start off, they encounter bitchy rivals, bullying, crooked bosses, violent management goons and suchlike.
Then when they become famous, it's much the same but on a bigger budget, with corrupt record industry executives, media manipulation, blackmail and so on. This then created lots of friction, arguments and peer pressure, until it inevitably all fell apart.
It was as un-glam as it gets!
Slade portrayed a group called Flame and it was set in the late 60's, although it was Slade who did the soundtrack.
It was something a bit unexpected anyway, especially after all the fun of Slade's pop records up to 1974.

Needless to say, I grabbed the DVD too when it was released.

So it was time for music to move on, with punk waiting in the wings!

Or as the accompanying Monty Python film put it - "and now for something completely different".