Milestone 1959

Film releases during the year

1959 is almost end of an era as far as the Neath Empire as a cinema is concerned.

Over 3,300 films have been screened in 33 years. But now television is taking over visual entertainment.  

Our research has not yet revealed the date the last film was screened, or its title.   Perhaps some reader can help?

Below we give details of films released in 1959 - just for the record.

The cinema became a Bingo Hall in 1960.

Notable films released in 1959

• The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock
• The 39 Steps
• 4D Man
• The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), directed by François Truffaut
• Al Capone, starring Rod Steiger
• Anatomy of a Murder, directed by Otto Preminger, starring James Stewart and Lee Remick
• The Angry Hills
• The Angry Red Planet
• Atrocities of the Orient (Re-release of 1948 film Beast of The East.)
• Attack of the Giant Leeches
• The Atomic Submarine
• Ballad of a Soldier (Ballada o soldate), directed by Grigori Chukhrai
• Battle in Outer Space
• The Beat Generation, starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren
• Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler, starring Charlton Heston - winner of 11 Academy Awards and 4 Golden Globes
• The Best of Everything, starring Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd and Joan Crawford
• Beyond This Place (also known as Web of Evidence)
• The Big Fisherman
• The Big Operator, starring Mickey Rooney, Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren
• Black Orpheus Palme d'Or winner
• The Bridge (Die Brücke), directed by Bernhard Wicki
• Career
• Carlton-Browne of the F.O., starring Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas and John Le Mesurier
• Carry On Nurse
• Carry On Teacher
• La Casa del Terror
• Come Dance with Me, starring Brigitte Bardot
• Compulsion, starring Orson Welles
• Les Cousins, directed by Claude Chabrol
• Darby O'Gill and the Little People
• A Date with Death
• Day of the Outlaw, starring Robert Ryan and Burl Ives
• The Devil's Disciple
• The Diary of Anne Frank, directed by George Stevens, starring Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Richard Beymer, Diane Baker and Ed Wynn
• Donald in Mathmagic Land (short subject)
• Don't Give Up The Ship
• Expresso Bongo, starring Laurence Harvey and Cliff Richard
• Fate of a Man (Sudba cheloveka), directed by Sergei Bondarchuk
• The FBI Story
• Fires on the Plain (Nobi), directed by Kon Ichikawa
• The Five Pennies, starring Danny Kaye
• Floating Weeds (Ukikusa), directed by Yasujiro Ozu
• The Fugitive Kind, starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward
• Il Generale della Rovere, directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Vittorio De Sica
• The Giant Behemoth
• Gidget, starring Sandra Dee
• Girls Town, starring Mamie Van Doren
• Good Morning (Ohayō), directed by Yasujiro Ozu
• La grande guerra (The Great War)
• The Hanging Tree, starring Gary Cooper
• Happy Anniversary
• Hercules and the Queen of Lydia (aka Ercole e la regina di Lidia and Hercules Unchained)
• Hiroshima Mon Amour, directed by Alain Resnais
• A Hole in the Head
• The Horse Soldiers
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price
• I'm Alright Jack, directed by the Boulting Brothers, starring Peter Sellers and Ian Carmichael
• Imitation of Life, directed by Douglas Sirk, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin with Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore
• It Started with a Kiss
• The Jazz Singer
• John Paul Jones
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
• Kapò, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, starring Susan Strasberg
• Killer Shrews
• The Last Angry Man, starring Paul Muni
• Last Train from Gun Hill
• The Legend of Tom Dooley
• Look Back in Anger, starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom
• Magic Boy (Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke)
• The Miracle
• Mise Éire
• The Mouse That Roared, starring Peter Sellers
• The Mummy
• Nazarin, directed by Luis Buñuel
• Never So Few, starring Frank Sinatra
• Night Train (Pociąg)
• No Name on the Bullet, starring Audie Murphy
• North by Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason
• North West Frontier, starring Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall
• The Nun's Story, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starring Audrey Hepburn
• Odd Obsession (Kagi), directed by Kon Ichikawa
• Odds Against Tomorrow, starring Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan
• On the Beach, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins
• Operation Petticoat
• Our Man in Havana, starring Alec Guinness
• Paper Flowers (Kaagaz Ke Phool)
• Pickpocket, directed by Robert Bresson
• Pillow Talk, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson
• Plan 9 from Outer Space'', Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Starring Tor Johnson and Vampira and Béla Lugosi
• Porgy and Bess, a musical directed by Otto Preminger, starring Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier with music by George and Ira Gershwin
• Pork Chop Hill, starring Gregory Peck
• Ride Lonesome
• Rio Bravo, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson
• Room at the Top, directed by Jack Clayton, starring Simone Signoret and Laurence Harvey
• Sampo (The Day the Earth Froze)
• Sapphire
• Serious Charge
• Shadows
• The Shaggy Dog
• Shake Hands with the Devil
• Sleeping Beauty (Walt Disney animation)
• Solomon and Sheba
• Some Like It Hot, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon
• SOS Pacific
• Suddenly, Last Summer, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Katharine Hepburn
• Terror Is a Man
• Third Man on the Mountain
• Tiger Bay, starring John Mills and Hayley Mills
• Tommy the Toreador
• Violent Summer (Estate violenta)
• Warlock
• Wild Strawberries (U.S. release)
• The World, the Flesh and the Devil, starring Harry Belafonte
• The World of Apu (Apur Sansar), directed by Satyajit Ray
• The Wreck of the Mary Deare
• Yesterday's Enemy, directed by Val Guest, starring Stanley Baker
• The Young Philadelphians, starring Paul Newman and Barbara Rush