The Islington landmark that brought “the heyday of arthouse cinema” to the UK
If you live in Islington or know the area, then chances are you’ve come across the single-screen venue The Screen on the Green in Upper Street, a firm fixture of the London moviegoing scene for decades, especially when it comes to arthouse cinema.
The cinema has championed up-and-coming releases alongside the latest blockbusters, but if things had gone a little differently, we may never have heard of it, which opened in 1913 as part of the 1909 Cinematograph Act under the name The Empress Picture Theatre, changing its name to The Rex in 1951, and found an audience among the area’s Greek and Turkish population.
This wasn’t enough to keep it afloat, however, as the world of cinema had moved on since the turn of the century, and this place hadn’t caught up. It closed in 1970, and it wasn’t clear if it would reopen, which is when Romaine Hart came in.
The daughter of a cinema executive, Hart purchased The Rex with some inheritance money and set about shaping it in her vision. “I wanted the cinema to show the films that I would like to see myself,” she once said in a BBC interview, “I wanted the cinema to have some kind of character”.
The first movie to play in the renamed Screen on the Green was Downhill Racer, the first independent movie Robert Redford ever made, with Richard Attenborough and Laurence Olivier in the audience that night. This set the trend for what was to come as the Screen on the Green became one of the places to be if you wanted something different.
Hart combined screening independent films with distributing them when she formed Mainline Films in the late 1970s, and the company brought multiple classics to the UK, including My Beautiful Laundrette, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and This is Spinal Tap. Oscar-winning documentary producer John Battsek worked for Mainline early in his career, recalling, “It was an amazing place to work. It was in the heyday of arthouse cinema, and she owned and ran some of the great arthouse cinemas in London. She [Hart] had this incredibly sophisticated and international palate.”
It wasn’t just the musical sphere that Hart had influence over, for the Screen on the Green doubled up as a music venue. Through programmer Roger Austin’s friendship with Malcolm McLaren, the cinema played host to an early gig from the Sex Pistols, who were supported by The Clash and the Buzzcocks.
In much the same way as it showcased underground movies, The Screen gave a leg up to bands on the rise and changed the UK music scene forever, also becoming the venue where Gary Kemp decided to form Spandau Ballet, which is nice.
Hart stepped away from the movie business in 2008, selling her portfolio of cinemas to Everyman for £7million, and by the time she passed away in 2021 at 88, she had left an immeasurable mark on British pop culture, her legacy living on through The Screen on the Green, which remains a popular spot to this day.
