Once Upon A Time In A Cinema: Limerick family tales inspire nostalgic film
Colin Morgan in a scene from Once Upon A Time In A Cinema.
As a boy growing up in Cappamore in Co Limerick, David Gleeson was steeped in the movies. His grandfather, Willie, had opened a cinema in the town since the 1940s, while his dad Eddie, and uncle Willie Joe, expanded into Kilmallock in the 1970s.
Eddie went on to open a cinema in Nenagh and manage others in Limerick, becoming one of Ireland’s best-known personalities in the business, in a career that spanned 79 years. Having started helping out at his father’s cinema at the age of 12, Eddie Gleeson retired at the age of 90, a year before his death in 2022.
Now a successful filmmaker, his son David Gleeson has made a dramatic tale set over one night at the movies and featuring many of the real-life props that were part of his own history and his father’s life. The tickets, notes and posters that his father kept feature strongly in the film, set in an Irish cinema in the 1980s.
“He was a very dapper person always — never, ever seen without a suit and a tie,” says Gleeson of his dad. “He was a real old-school manager. Anyone that grew up in Nenagh or went to the movies in Kilmallock, they knew my father. He was legendary, and he never took a holiday, so he was there 52 weeks a year, five nights a week.”
In the director’s new film, visual memories of his dad’s life add to the drama’s sense of authenticity. “When the film opens, you'll see a lot of little handwritten signs that say Friday next and coming next week. They're all my father and that's his handwriting, all the little notes pinned to posters in the background.
"All those movie posters. All the stuff you see in the projection box, like film splicers, the rewind bench — that stuff is really hard to come by. I had it all. There's a scene in the office and the actual desk on which he lays down these plans, that's my father's desk.
“There's a cushion that you see, and I was watching it the other night alongside my sister, who hadn't seen it, and she turned to me and whispered: ‘I crocheted that cushion’, which I didn't even know. It’s just so intensely personal.”
Gleeson’s film — starring Colin Morgan, Calam Lynch and Niamh Cusack — is set over the course of one dramatic night at the movies in 1980s Ireland, as a cinema owner (Morgan) wrestles with the legacy of the past and the challenges facing his future as he manages a chaotic Friday night at the pictures. He does so while mulling over the potential sale of the cinema to a developer.
Gleeson struggled to find a cinema that existed in the 1980s and echoed back to a much earlier heyday — until a member of Film in Limerick reached out asking if they had considered the city’s Royal Cinema, just miles from where he grew up.
“I never really considered that it would be tough to find, because we all grew up in a time when cinemas with a balcony were what you were used to, and in this age of multiplexes, it never really occurred to me that they no longer existed. We wanted a cinema that looked like it would have had its heyday in the 1940s or '50s, and we looked all over Ireland.”
The Royal proved to be the right location, although it hadn’t screened a film since in 1985. It later functioned as a music venue and The Cranberries played some of their early gigs there. The building’s storied history goes back to the 1800s — Oscar Wilde was among the artists who first appeared on stage there.
“It was right in my own backyard. So my father, having been in the industry, he had passed away two years previously, so I kind of believe that he had a hand in it. It checked so many boxes. It was perfect. The city of my birth and where I made ”
Last week, The Royal hosted its first full cinema screening since 1985 when the premiere of took place in Limerick. In recent years, the city — including Mayor of Limerick John Moran — has been involved in its refurbishment.
What did it mean to the crew and cast to have the premiere in the cinema where it was filmed? “I never for a second imagined it would be a possibility,” says Gleeson.
“When you watch the movie, it looks like a fully functional cinema, but when we shot it, the whole cinema was never actually all together at the same time. When we were shooting all the scenes in the corridor, the balcony was still being built. We were shooting in the balcony, the downstairs was being rebuilt. So it never really existed as a unified whole, and there was no projection box — that's all cinema magic.
"For it to actually become reality was just yet another blessing with this movie. This movie is the kind of movie that just keeps on giving from many different perspectives, and that venue itself has got a real magic to it. People in Limerick and in the Midwest region are so attached emotionally to that place.”
Growing up in Cappamore, the young Gleeson would frequently work in his dad’s cinema and it was here that his love for movies was first fostered. He was exposed to a huge number and variety of films, from blockbusters to world cinema.
Working in the cinema shaped his interest in how films are made. “When you see the same movie 26 times, you really do analyse it.”
An anniversary screening of re-released in the 1980s theatrically, made him wonder if he could pursue a filmmaking career. “When I saw it was just the romanticism of it all, the camera moves, the beautiful Technicolor, the Max Steiner sweep, the epic storytelling. It just blew me away.”
Working in tandem with his wife, the film producer Nathalie Lichtenthaeler, Gleeson would go on to direct the young Allen Leech, Michael Legge and Amy Shiels in He directed thriller and drama and worked as a screenwriter on projects including 2019’s He is currently developing a comedy to be set in Ireland.
has been a film crammed with memorable moments, not least the final day of filming when 200 extras were in the cinema for a pivotal scene. Several trainees on the film included people with complex learning needs under the Screenability programme, and Gleeson and his cast and crew hosted a presentation in celebration of their work.
“They all got a standing ovation from our 200 extras in the Royal Cinema. It was just so beautiful and it added such a tremendous spirit to the industry, and it made you appreciate how grateful you are to be a part of it.”
- is in cinemas from May 1
