Who doesn’t love the movies?

Well now you can buy your own cinema in Birmingham.

The city was once littered with picture houses in the days before everyone had television.

But gradually they closed and were turned into bingo halls, nightclubs and function halls. Others were simply torn down.

Two remnants of the first golden age of cinema are currently up for auction in Birmingham, including this 1930s cinema in Windmill Lane, Cape Hill, Smethwick.

Built during the Art Deco era, the interior looks just as grand today as it did when eager audiences were held spellbound by Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis and Greta Garbo.

Only the tables that replaced the stalls seating betray its later years spent as a bingo/banqueting hall.

The Grade II listed building was constructed in 1929-30 for Provincial Cinematograph Theatres Ltd to the designs of William T Benslyn, according to Historic England.

It was a super-cinema of its time and had a wide double-height auditorium with a balcony to the back.

Outside a blank panel on the top floor of the building once bore its name. It opened as the Rink Cinema – not to be confused with Rank – as it replaced another cinema on the site that dated from 1912 and had been converted from an ice rink.

By the time it closed in 1964, it had become the Gaumont. After that it operated as a bingo hall and has most recently been known as The Victoria Suite.

Its stunning architectural features include Baroque stonework around the first floor windows with swan-necked pediments and peacocks spreading their tails.

Inside it still has a stage with proscenium and ante-proscenium with an embellished outer edge and coffered ceiling.

The shallow balcony on the first floor has a “broad central vomitory”, which is actually where the audience enters and comes from the Latin verb that means to spew forth.

The guide price has been given as £275,000 to £300,000.

*Up for auction by Cottons on December 3 in the Holt Suite at Aston Villa.

In a sorrier state is a cinema in Kings Heath which has become a landmark for the wrong reasons.

The Kingsway in High Street was designed in 1925 by Horace G. Bradley, who was responsible for several neoclassical cinemas in Birmingham.

It closed in 1980 and reopened as a bingo hall a few years later.

The back of the building was badly damaged by fire but its frontage remains intact, although it looks sadly neglected as the property has lain derelict for the past eight years.

Planning permission exists for its regeneration, retaining the Grade A local listed façade while demolishing the structure to the rear.

The new building would have a shop on the ground floor combined with 14, two-bedroom apartments above.

It is because of the potential for conversion , plus its popular location, that the guide price has been set at £550,000-£575,000.

*Up for auction through CPBigwood on December 10, also at Aston Villa’s Holte Suite.