The manager and pianist was Harry Taylor. Within a few years the company had taken over the Town Hall (later the Palladium) cinema in town, which had been showing films since 1909. The two cinemas were managed by James Montgomery.
Walker Cinemas of Huddersfield then acquired the Central, carried out a refurbishment (including the installation of Cinemascope) and re-opened it as the Rex in November 1959. Bingo intruded on a couple of evenings in 1964 and took over completely later in the year. Proprietorship changed a couple of times and a further trial of films occurred between November 1975 and August 1977, after which bingo resumed. The enterprise folded sometime in 1985.
In 1988 the Rex was taken over by Charles Morris and Peter Berry, extensively refurbished and opened on 7 October. It has since built up a reputation of a well run, comfortable but traditional cinema showing a wide range of films. It has a mailing list with addresses as far apart as Leeds and Manchester and attracts a large, regular and loyal following, with ticket prices among the lowest in the country.
Concerts on the Conn 651 organ are held on the third Sunday of each month and the organ is also played on Saturday evenings before the film and during the interval. The cinema has appeared several times on television including YTV's "Calandar" programme, TV-AM, Film 94, BBC2's "Hart Davis On History" and SkyTV's "Cinema Nation".