Since it opened in the mid-2000s, Jamaica Street's Classic Grand has hosted a long list of top acts, including Stereophonics, Adele, Feeder and Grandmaster Flash.
But for people of a certain age, mere mention of the city centre venue can still elicit a nudge and a wink.
Long before the days of internet porn sites, VHS cassettes and even top shelf magazines were a thing, the Classic Grand was a cinema and well-known for screening X-rated erotica.
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It was one of a string of 'dirty' cinemas in Glasgow, including the Tatler, the Classic in Renfield Street, and Divally's.
Of course, the Grand Central, as the Classic Grand was originally called, didn’t start out that way. Opening in 1915 in a converted Victorian warehouse, the venue had a more refined feel to it.
Screening a mixture of comedy, drama, and newsreels, an orchestra supplied the background music in the Grand Central’s smartly-decorated 750-seater auditorium, and the cinema was also one of the first in the city to start showing ‘talkies’.
But that would all change in the 1950s, as the cinema began to screen movies of a more adult nature.
Struggling to compete with the new art deco cinemas that were now ubiquitous in Glasgow, the Grand Central shifted its focus away from major new releases and started showing arthouse cinema, erotica, and horror.
Now carrying a decidedly seedy reputation, the Grand Central was frequented by the kind of clientele who wa no stranger to a pair of sunglasses and a trenchcoat.
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After lying derelict for a few years, the venue reopened in the early 1970s with a reduced capacity as the Classic Grand.
At first, the Classic Grand showed family-friendly films, but soon reverted to the blue movies, according to David Simpson of the Cinema Treasures website.
David writes: “Initially family-oriented double features were shown. But these were met with a poor response and the cinema reverted to its previous ‘artistic’ policy.”
Back to being a ‘fleapit’, the Classic Grand continued screening dirty movies until its closure in the 1990s, and later briefly operated as a nightclub.
A fire ravaged the building in 2001, and it was subsequently renovated to become the Classic Grand music venue we know and love today.
This article was originally published in May 2022.
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