Your first time at the cinema

[Rick C]

In 1940 Denis Norden became assistant manager at the Trocadero and tells a lovely story in his book about one of the cinema's patrons who went by the nickname "Tossof Kate" who was barred for obvious reasons but who used to sneak in now and again to charge clients for her "services" according to where they sat.

Did the clients frequent the luxury "Pullman" seating I wonder? (I'll get me coat........)

[Rick C]

Thanks for posting these photographs of the Elephant and Castle area, but can you tell me when the 2nd photograph was taken. It looks as it it was taken in the mid 1960's as you say the Odeon cinema at the top of the New Kent Road. I can't remember how many times I've been in that Odeon over the years. Great view of the old route master buses as well. The traffic was very light in those days, nothing like it is today.

Here's another photo from the RIBA Elephant and Castle file. Claims from the index to have been taken at the same time, so therefore "Thuderbirds Are Go" =1967?



Few more of the Odeon@Elephant on RIBA if anyone wishes me to do some more creative index-pairing.

(ps. Depending on people's downloading functions out there, one can magnify or decrease in size the RIBA studies by clicking on the photos continuously)

[jaycad]

i couldn't do a filmed interview (self conscious about a speech impediment) i'm not exactly sure what occasion was my first visit to the cinema but i remember going to see 'star wars' in the liverpool odeon in '77,'the rescuers' in the liverpool ABC around the same time and 'superman' at the liverpool odeon, i remember it being a major,exciting event in a seemingly huge venue completely packed out,i remember being confused as to being able to see the picture through the curtains at the start of the event even though the same curtains felt like thick cloth when i touched them at the end of the showing! i remember the interval and ice cream lady and thoroughly loving the whole event (i wonder if children today can say the same of the 'luxury' sterile 'living room' cinemas of today?)
i also remember being taken to see 'watership down' at a cinema somewhere in aigburth,liverpool and being mentally scarred for life by the ghost rabbits and bloodbath!

[darrenburnfan]

BELOW: My fourth birthday, Thursday, April 26th, 1951...an incredible sixty years ago...and Samson (Victor Mature) brings down the Temple of Dagon in Cecil B. De Mille's Samson and Delilah at the Essoldo, Stockport. I was taken to see it as a birthday treat as my first visit to the cinema. BOTTOM: Me; my baby sister; my mother (seated) and my Godmother pictured in the back yard of my then home, 1, Eva Road, Cheadle Heath, Stockport, on the day we all went to see the film.

[jimw1]

BOTTOM: Me; my baby sister; my mother (seated) and my Godmother pictured in the back yard of my then home, 1, Eva Road, Cheadle Heath, Stockport, on the day we all went to see the film.

Great Photograph DBF

[darrenburnfan]

Thanks, Jim. I thought it would add a sense of period to the time when I went to see the film. The frames above it are off an old video of the film. So far (and amazingly), Paramount show no signs of releasing this early Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster on a DVD. The only DVD of it available is a rather low quality Korean Region 2 import.

[jimw1]

Thanks, Jim. I thought it would add a sense of period to the time when I went to see the film.

It Certainly puts the Time in perspective'

[PS68060]

The cinema in Earlestown closed in the early 1970s so I never got to see any pictures there, even though I begged to go with my older brother and my cousins on a Saturday morning, they got to see things like The Battle of Britain.

Since there was no local cinema it was a few years before I got to a picture palace with a big family group to see some sub-Death Race film and the second bill I think was The Giant Spider Invasion which looked incredibly bad even then.

Sadly the Warrington Odean has gone too. I did get to see Star Wars there.

As a slight aside, some years later we were in the ABC Warrington to watch a film that was released, without a great deal of fanfare, called Raiders of the Lost Ark (you may know it). It's retro 1940s feel was quite fitting as we left via the fire exit with about 3 minutes to catch the next train and had to make mad dash to the station. Having heard my parents generation tell of the scenes outside the cinema after the saturday matinees it did make us laugh.

[flynn]

i think the first Film i remember watching at my local Flea Pit while nibbling a Strawberry Mivi.was
the 300 Spartans Starring Richard Egan.
then i progressed to watching Films in a Dirty Mac.

[theuofc]

BELOW: My fourth birthday, Thursday, April 26th, 1951... BOTTOM: Me; my baby sister; my mother (seated) and my Godmother pictured in the back yard of my then home, 1, Eva Road, Cheadle Heath, Stockport, on the day we all went to see the film.

What a wonderful photo, DBF. Thank you for sharing that.

Barbara

[darrenburnfan]

Glad you like it, Barbara. The photo was taken by a family friend who's camera wasn't very good...hence the bluriness around the edges and it let light in at the bottom. If my father had taken it with his far better camera, the result would have been better. Impossible now though, sixty years later, to go back and take the photo again properly.

[jonpsych]

My first real film was when we were on holiday in Northumberland in 1971. My brother and I got taken to a village hall where a travelling cinema was showing When Eight Bells Toll. I still remember not understanding the joke when the Anthony Hopkins loosens Nathalie Delon's top so that she can distract the guard and they make the joke about hoping the guard isn't gay; I did ask my dad to explain the joke but he seemed to get a coughing fit at that point and then changed the subject.

[darrenburnfan]

No, it wasn't Nathalie Delon in that scene in the castle, it was Wendy Allnutt and the dialogue went something like:

WENDY: "What if he doesn't fancy me?"

ANTHONY: "That's all we need, a guard who's queer!"

I don't think that the word "gay" to describe homosexuals, was as yet in use back in 1971.

[CaptainWaggett]

No, it wasn't Nathalie Delon in that scene in the castle, it was Wendy Allnutt and the dialogue went something like:

WENDY: "What if he doesn't fancy me?"

ANTHONY: "That's all we need, a guard who's queer!"

I don't think that the word "gay" to describe homosexuals, was as yet in use back in 1971.

It certainly was though perhaps not among Joe and Joanna Public. . Kenneth Williams was using it in the late 1940s (and there are usages in Round the Horne though they don't get much of a laugh).

[darrenburnfan]

I'll take your word for that, Captain. Although I don't remember the term coming into general use myself until the late 1970s / early 1980s.

[jonpsych]

No, it wasn't Nathalie Delon in that scene in the castle, it was Wendy Allnutt and the dialogue went something like:

WENDY: "What if he doesn't fancy me?"

ANTHONY: "That's all we need, a guard who's queer!"

I don't think that the word "gay" to describe homosexuals, was as yet in use back in 1971.

I am just not that keen on the word "queer" but I appreciate that that was the word used in the film. I have a copy of the film in my collection somewhere, I think I am going to drag it out this week and give it another viewing. The film is better (in my opinion) than North Sea Hijack but the latter does have David from The Archers in a rare screen appearance before he was exiled to Ambridge. Damn it, think I might just watch them both

[Steve Crook]

The film is better (in my opinion) than North Sea Hijack but the latter does have David from The Archers in a rare screen appearance before he was exiled to Ambridge. Damn it, think I might just watch them both

You mean Timothy Charles Robert Noel Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland, 8th Count Bentinck und Waldeck Limpurg

He is also an inventor with several patents to his name, a computer programmer, web site designer, guitarist, banjoist, songwriter, author, travel journalist and house renovator.

Steve

[jonpsych]

You mean Timothy Charles Robert Noel Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland, 8th Count Bentinck und Waldeck Limpurg

He is also an inventor with several patents to his name, a computer programmer, web site designer, guitarist, banjoist, songwriter, author, travel journalist and house renovator.

Steve

I thought he ran a farm, just shows how mistaken you can be