THE HAMPSTEAD EVERYMAN celebrated its twenty- fifth birthday on Boxing
Day. It opened in 1933 with what must have sounded the crazy idea of running itself 'on Film Society lines, reviving and presenting the best films, long or short; available from international sources,' but without member- ship or subscription or one-night shows. It has been run like an ordinary cinema, but with an extraordinary policy that time has justified, and with an atmosphere all its own. There must be many who, like myself, first came to an interest in the cinema not so much through the carefully organised film society, that, to exist at all, has to demand attendance on particular evenings, as through visits—at first casual and almost uncon- sidered—to the Everyman. For as well as the tried enthusiast, or the highbrow cineaste, it attracts the odd filmgoer who may pop in to see something he likes the sound of, and find himself returning to see a great deal more. It is a part of London, a permanent gallery, as it were, of the film.
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