Confessions Of A Movie Junkie
Submitted by bertie on Wed, 10/13/2004 - 06:23
Tags:
- The Confession
- 1. The First Movie I Ever Saw. Did you ever wonder what was the first movie you ever saw? Most people, like me, don't know. (Sorry about the deceptive heading of this section.) My parents were avid movie-goers, as most people were in those long ago days of yore, and so I was certainly a babe-in-arms at my first cinema attendance. Yes, that's right, I'm so ancient that I'm certain my first movie was a cinema screening, not a TV screening. When did this important event occur? Not to give too much away, I'll say "Sometime in the 50s". As to which movie it might have been, I could do some research and narrow the list of possibilities down to those shown locally in 195x, then I could ask my old Ma if she remembers which one it was. But I'm probably not going to do that. There is, of course, a big difference between being present at a movie screening and actually seeing a movie. A baby surely doesn't see a movie in any sense other than the purely visual. You probably need to have a command of language before seeing a movie means anything to you. So the question becomes, What is the first movie I remember seeing? I'll come to that in a later section.
- 2. History of My Local Cinemas. The suburb in which I live and have lived for most of my life had two cinemas in its main street. The relatively classy one was called The Empire, the other was known as Phelan's. The latter was the more interesting, architecturally. Its roof was held up by massively thick wooden columns - tree-trunks in fact - and tardy patrons would find that the only available remaining seats were behind these and had to lean way over to see the screen. The seating was all ground-level 'stalls', there was no upstairs. The 'conveniences' were alarmingly near the back row of seats and were constructed out of sheets of galvanised iron. The place was obviously built when construction codes were much less demanding than they are now. Of course, it no longer exists. Neither does The Empire, of which I retain only the vaguest memory, but at least it had an upstairs. In my youth there were about five or six more cinemas in the CBD of the city, and our family often patronised them. The two grandest, real picture palaces, were The Civic and The Royal. The Civic still exists as a venue for stage productions, but movies are no longer shown there. Millions of dollars were spent restoring its interior a few years ago. What I remember most about The Royal was the steps. You went up 3 or 4 steps from the street to get to one or other of the twin box-offices, then you went up 8 or 10 more steps to the lobby, which gave access to the 'stalls'; and then, if you were going on up to the 'dress circle' seats, there were another 8 or 10 steps to ascend. Other local cinemas were The Lyrique, The Strand, The Victoria, The Tatler and The Century. Several of these are now protected from 'development', having been classified as historic buildings, but none are still cinemas. These days our local cinemas are mostly multiplexes, where you have a good choice of movies but pay through the nose for refreshments. But a couple of old suburban movie houses do still operate, I'm happy to say. And what, I hear you ask, was it like to go see a movie (we used to call it "going to the pictures") in those long-gone days of my beardless youth? Well, if it was a very popular film you stood a good chance of having to join a queue in the street outside, but normally the line for access to the box-office was quite short. One of the inner-city cinemas, The Tatler, would run a continuous program which you could walk in on or leave at any time during the day. But the other cinemas normally had strictly timed 'sessions'. Late arrival was much more frowned upon than it is now. When the session started - and this may be hard for some of you youngsters to believe - the audience all stood up and sang the National Anthem: "God save our Gracious Queen"...etc. Failure to do so would probably have gotten you thrown out, but I don't know because I never saw anyone fail to do so. Eventually the custom was dropped. I don't remember there being a big fuss about it. In those days of 90 minute movies, the program usually included, first, a newsreel, then a cartoon (Merry Melodies, Bugs Bunny, etc.), then perhaps some kind of short documentary (often a travelogue), and then the main feature, the actual movie you'd come to see. And even after the session was over there was still something wonderful to look forward to: the experience of going back out into the daylight and being dazzled by it, bumping blindly into passers-by for a while. :-D
- 3. My Drive-In Cinema Years. There were two drive-ins locally. The Skyline Drive-In was only five minutes drive from my place, and The Gateshead Drive-In was about 20 minutes away. Both were sacrificed to suburban sprawl years ago. The closest one presently operating is too far away. I was late applying for my driver's licence: I was 20 (you could/can apply at 16 years 9 months). My first car was a Morris 1100, a small 4-door sedan that was once common and is now *very* rare. It was sky-blue, like my present car. Most weeks I would attend both drive-ins, usually alone (I went to the movies to see movies). Tuesdays and Fridays were the days, or rather the evenings. I would take a six-pack of beer and a generous amount of potato crisps, hiding them under a blanket. I rarely purchased snacks on site - too expensive, and you had to get out of your car :-D I religiously bought the monthly movie magazine always offered to you as you drove in. A short while before the drive-ins closed they switched to a new sound system: you clipped a wire to your radio aerial and tuned in the sound on your radio. But before that they had, from the beginning, used the heavy little speaker that you hung on your car's window. I never lost a window, but it wasn't uncommon for some silly person to drive off and leave his shattered window behind on the gravel. Rain was the hated enenmy during these years, but gas was cheap then, so you could afford to sit with idling motor and watch through the wipers. I saw nearly all of these movies at a drive-in.
- 4. Movies on Television. My, how times have changed. Well, no, wait a minute, I take that back - ads were always f***ing annoying on tv, and especially during the movies. But way back when, before DVDs, even before VCRs (hell, I can hardly remember it), in those innocent ancient days, the ads were bearable for the sake of the novelty of seeing movies IN...YOUR...OWN...HOME!!! What movies? Well, old b&w American and British movies at first. They were all b&w even if they were colour, because colour tv didn't hit my neck of the woods until the mid-70s. Sunday evening from 8:30 was when the week's BIG movie was shown. As stations realised they could attract a good sized audience with just about any movie, movies crept into a variety of time-slots during the week. Eventuallly some stations offered a matinee every week-day, and two, three, or even four films at weekends. The commercial stations could afford the biggest attractions, but the national public network (the ABC, affectionately known as Auntie) screened occasional films, mostly British, without interruption. In the early 80s a whole new second public network (SBS) opened for business, offering mostly non-English language programming. This was a reflection of the increasing multiculturalism of the nation. SBS screened many very obscure films from obscure countries, but also a selection of good quality, even classic, European films. For about the last decade (this is true, I swear) the ABC has been screening, mostly in the middle of the night, a bargain priced lot of old Britsh films, some very good, over and over and over again. They must have screened each of these several hundred films at least a dozen times. Lately they have got hold of some old RKO movies to leaven the mix. There have been some good ones (e.g. A Likely Story ) amongst these too. Nowadvddays I cannot bear to watch a movie on commercial tv. It's been at least a year since I did so. I don't miss them. In fact DVDs......but thats a story for a later section :-D
- 5. The Videocassette Debacle. They were primitve technology. Bulky, easily damaged, quick to deteriorate, easily entangled in their players, which were unreliable, too often needing expensive repairs (eventually it was cheaper to buy a new player). But, because they meant not merely movies in your own home, but of your own choice and at a time of your own convenience, they sold big time. I can't believe that some people are still buying tapes. Sure, they're cheaper (on the face of it), and you can record stuff from tv on them cheaply, but that's all they've got going for them these days. When my last VCR (about my fourth) broke, I put what would have been the repair money towards the cost of a DVD player. My brother still has a couple of functioning VCRs, so he still has a heap of tapes. I would have dumped my own tapes, but he wanted them. Most of the movies we had on tape(only a few dozen, we both usually rented rather than bought) we now have on DVD, but he still holds doggedly onto the tapes - don't know why.
- 6. DVDs are Where It's (Currently) At. Do I really need to go into details? Better picture, much better sound, menus, no rewinding, extras, and the players are much, much more reliable (having lots fewer moving parts). And the price of the disks, high at first, is rapidly falling. But you can't help wondering how long a life this technology will have. As long as VCRs? Hopefully, longer. I won't be buying all those movies again.
- 7. My Milestone Movies. Here I will list the movies that made impressions on my memory - for whatever reason (not always because they were great movies). I will not be listing the first movie I ever saw, I ever saw on tv, I ever saw at the drive-in, I ever saw on VCR, because I don't remember what any of those were. I do know that the first movie I saw on DVD was John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) - I had the disk for several months before I even had a player for it.
- The Wages of Fear (1953) - This is the first movie I *now* remember seeing. I saw it at the cinema when I was a young lad, and it made a huge impression on me. Let me hasten to add that I didn't see it in 1953, I'm not *that* old. I believe I saw it upstairs at The Empire cinema (see History of My Local Cinemas, above). I didn't ever see the movie again until a few months ago when I bought it on DVD. I wasn't disappointed.
- The Mouse that Roared (1959) Thanks, stooky, for reminding me of this one. I have seen it only once, at the cinema, but there's a scene in it that remains in my memory. The scene, only vaguely remembered, involves a time-bomb that is the size and shape of a football. I think it was both funny and exciting to the small boy I was when I saw it. I'll try to find the DVD.
- The Longest Day (1962) - I remember seeing this at the cinema (The Century) with my parents, brother and two younger sisters (not sure if my older sister was there). But this is the first movie I remember seeing with the family. I now have it on DVD. It's okay, not great.
- Under the YumYumTree (1963) - This mediocre sex comedy sticks in my memory because I got into trouble for going to see it without my parents' permission. "Where have you been?" "Went to the pictures with so and so." "What did you see?" I cannot tell a lie "Under the YumYum Tree" "I knew it! The only 'not suitable for children' film showing at present and they have to see that...grumble, grumble...never again...grumble!" bertie scarred for life.
- [Okay, this is pretty much finished unless there is a wave of popular demand for more :-]
Cloned From:
The first movie I recall seeing in the theatre was On Any Sunday (1971), and I saw it twice in a row. Not because I liked it, but because my friend Claudia and I were bored. I saw it in Skaneateles, NY.
Well, I guess you're lucky - maybe. I'd love to know what was playing the first time I was in a cinema/theatre, but my Ma is really old now and even if she named a movie I'd still have my doubts. But here's the really worrying part: my own memory isn't what it was (or it's not what I remember it being), so when I finally bite the bullet and name the first flick I *remember* seeing, even that will be subject to revision (or re-call) - sigh!
'Skaneateles' - now that's a heckuva name - thanks for dropping it. Mind if i use it for a password? :-D
I remember it well, because I attended fewer than a handful of movies in the theatre before I turned 18.
You can use it if you can pronounce it :).
scan-eat-a-leez ???
scan-ee-at-a-leez ???
Skinny-atlas
Dang!
Aha, I see you've killed 2 birds with one stone, inserting the promised Drive-In Movie memoirs inside this one. Very astute. Very well done, I'm anxiously awaiting the next (hopefully more than 7) parts. If it helps your memory, my mom saw her first movie in 1939 and I bet you'll never guess what that was, if you're thinking Gone With The Wind you hit the nail on the head; at the age of 7 even. Imagine that, she's a lucky little lady.
But enough about that...are you going to elaborate any of the sections you've already written?
T'ho
:?)
There are probably a few more details to be added to sections 1 and 2. But if you're hoping for lurid tales of movie mischief, something to put the sin into my cinema-going memoirs, well, I'm sorry...you'll have to wait until Section 7: My Milestone Movies :-D
Oooooooooooooo! Yes...I'm awaiting lurid details (not sure what they could be but considering the source...:?)) with anticipation verging on a slight neurosis. Already slammed this un into my new, super spanky, ultra modern favorites section.
T'ho
:?)
I first saw GWTW on TV, then VHS, and loved it. I saw it again later on the big screen when it was revived at a local art house theatre, with the intermission intact. I was bored stiff. It didn't survive more than a dozen viewings :).
I've called GWTW the greatest chick-flick ever made, but I suppose that evaluation needs to take into account the undoubted fact that chick-flick values, to coin a phrase, were significantly different in 1939 (not to mention the mid-1800s) than chick-flick values today. But it's still hard to believe you were bored by it on the big screen, even though you had seen it already on the small. When you say it didn't survive more than a dozen 'viewings' I take it you mean 'screenings'.
I think it bored me because I had seen it a million times on the small screen :).