Ultimate Picture Palace February 1911 as the Oxford Picture Palace. In 1917 the manager was conscripted to serve in the First World War. The cinema was closed and stood unused for many years before being turned into as a furniture warehouse. In 1976 Bill Heine and Pablo Butcher reopened the cinema as the Penultimate Picture Palace. They added a sculpture of Al Jolson's hands by John Buckley to the façade. The first film to be shown was "Winstanley". Under the new management the cinema gained a reputation for showing an eclectic and provocative range of films that set it apart from the mainstream
Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds film critic Mark Kermode has hosted several question and answer sessions. Kermode is a "champion" of the Picture House, describing it in his book "The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex", as "a beauty; a proper old-fashioned picture palace" with a clientele that are "enthusiastic, attentive and apparently more interested in films than in their mobile phones". The Hyde Park Picture House has been used as a backdrop in many films and TV programmes, including the feature-length TV drama "A Is for Acid", the Vanessa Redgrave film "Wetherby" and the two-part BBC One TV film "The Great Train Robbery". It