Wetherspoons has given its Prince of Wales pub in Cardiff a £1.86million makeover – but the boozer hides a sordid past.
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From 1965 to 1984, the pub was a 2,000-capacity cinema showing erotic movies.
The cinema screened films with titles like “Mondo Sex” and hosted the “Prince of Wales Casino Club” in its basement.
Local Brian Lee told WalesOnline: “There was a parrot on the stairs and people used to blow cigarette smoke in its face.
“It would get a bit nasty. Apparently they said it was as good as some of the casinos you would see in London.
“A friend of mine had three weeks wages which were £79 then – and he lost it all in one night.”
On its final night before closing in 1984, the cinema screened “Alexandra, Queen of Sex” and “Boys and Girls Together” as a double bill.
In 1966 Shepherd’s Bush murderer Harry Roberts was seen hiding in the cinema after killing three cops in west London.
A 12-year-old boy rushed to tell a doorman after seeing Roberts lurking above the stage – sparking a manhunt across south Wales.
The killer was snared months later at a farm 96 miles away from the raunchy cinema.
Back in the 1600s, a church stood on what would later be the site of the raunchy cinema.
Britain’s raunchy cinema scene
FOR much of the twentieth century, British cinemas were banned from showing raunchy films.
But in the summer of the 1960, pin-up snapper Harrison Marks spotted a clever loophole.
Marks twigged that censors would approve a film showing nudity – if its setting was “recognisable as a nudist camp or nature reserve”.
He cheekily told the British Board of Film Censors: “I’m going to be waving the banner for British nudists.”
Marks’ film “Naked as Nature Intended” showed bikini-clad girls frolicking around Stonehenge and the Cornish seaside town of Porthcurno.
In the final 20 seconds, glamour model Pamela Greene revealed all – marking the launch of the British “nudie” film.
Soon “nudies” were being screened at dingy Soho strip clubs and peep shows.
But as the Swinging Sixties changed Britain, the films with their prim “nudist” plots started to seem a little old-fashioned.
Brits were soon watching sex scenes on their TV sets, marking the end of the “nudie” era.
But the church was swamped by the Great Flood of 1607 and later abandoned – with the site eventually put to more profane use.
Today punters enjoy their pints on what was once the erotic cinema’s stage, overlooked by the VIP box with its red and gold curtain.
Wetherspoons has decorated the pub with old posters and programmes – a coy nod to its seedy past.
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