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Nov 27, 2024 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick Photography by Severin Films

For a quarter century that spanned the punk era all the way through Britpop, the Scala Cinema operated in the King’s Cross district of London. From their very beginning in 1978 all the way through the bitter end in 1993, the Scala counter-programmed a nonstop schedule of rare and controversial films, often skirting censorship laws by operating as a members-only “club” rather than a traditional theater to project an ever-diverse schedule that encompassed everything from early queer cinema to kung fu to video nasties. That they managed to survive the entirety of the Thatcher era—only to finally be shut down for screening a pirated copy of A Clockwork Orange of all things—is not only a wonder, but a testament to the community it fostered among Londoners who may not have felt at home anywhere else but in front of its flickering screen.

Jane Giles’ and Ali Catterall’s documentary, Scala!!!, provides a history of the venue through interviews with people who worked there or frequented its auditorium. It paints a wild snapshot of the place, where visitors could buy uppers from the coffee bar, pass out during a 3am screening of Pasolini’s Salo, hook up with future artistic collaborators (or with strangers in the upstairs bathroom) or just sleep off a heavy night of drinking during the tail end of one of the cinema’s regular all-night marathons. It was the sort of place you might regularly find your seat occupied by one of its resident cats, but also the occasional dead body. Interview subjects do their best to convey the vibes of a place where you probably had to be there to fully appreciate it, but they also provide a great sense of what the Scala meant to themselves, their friends, and those like them. Like the best alternative spaces for the arts, the Scala was quick to support the communities that took refuge in their theater—from throwing benefits for local LGBTQ+ causes, to screening the earliest works from local filmmakers.

While it would be impossible for any feature-length documentary to present a comprehensive overview of the influential cinema, Severin’s three-disc Blu-ray release does a fantastic job providing all the additional context one could hope for. Beyond the expected commentaries, the first disc allows viewers to peruse many of the materials that went into the documentary, from extended interviews and unedited animations to a reel examining one eye-catching events calendar from each year of the Scala’s existence. Discs two and three include the uncut versions of earlier, archival looks at the Scala which are excerpted in the documentary, documentaries about a 1990 all-night horror fest and Scala’s calendar designs, and an unbelievably wide variety of vintage shorts that act as a sort of mini cross-section of the things you could have seen playing there back in the day. All in all, the set boasts more than 13 hours (!) of additional material, and that’s not including its heavy-duty slipcase, reproduction Scala membership card or fold-out index made to look like one of the Scala’s schedules.

While the Scala!!! documentary itself will likely leave viewers wanting more information about the long-departed cinema, this Blu-ray set delivers that in spades. Taken as a full home video package, it’s far more compelling than the stand-alone film. Anyone interested in taking a peek into this historic film scene should have a blast poring over its almost overwhelming amount of bonus features.

(www.severinfilms.com/products/scala-3-disc-blu-ray-w-slipcase)