At the movies

When I was a girl Mum took me to the movies all the time.  Those were the days when practically everyone in the audience smoked. One looked through a pall of smoke to see the screen.  There was a newsreel cinema in Rundle Street that played the same newsreels all day.  Everyone has a British accent even the Australian presenters.  I remember at the beginning of each reel there was a laughing kookaburra.  I suppose it was on the hotter days that we stayed through several sessions of the news.

At the movie cinemas there were always two films to watch plus you could sit through them as many times as you wanted.  Between the two movies they often played a cartoon or the Three Stooges.  I hated the Stooges because I thought that they were really hurting each other.  I always blocked my ears and closed my eyes so that I did not have to watch the carnage. I don't remember Mum telling me it was all pretend. The favourite movies at the time were cowboys and indians; all so politically incorrect now.  All the good cowboys wore white hats and the baddies black ones and the Indians killed the settler's families.  I especially like Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers.  The theatres were always full and usherettes with low beam torches escorted everyone to their seats.

Instead of having to leave the theatre at interval cinema staff came in with large trays containing icecreams, chocolate and drinks in paper cups.  If you went to the Regent during the interval a large Hammond Organ rose from the under the stage and Knight Barnett played the popular songs of the day. Words came up on the screen so that everyone could follow the bouncing ball and sing along.  I guess that was the pre-curser of karaoke.

I remember that I once persuaded Mum to sit through two sittings of Les Miserables.  It was not the musical but a dark forbidding picture. I was fascinated but Mum hated it.  It fascinates me that I was able to get her to do something that I wanted as she was the authoritarian of the world.

On one Boxing Day at the movies I lost my Dutch doll given to me just the day before.  We went back but no-one had handed it in.  I am still very sad about that and still feel the loss sixty years on.  When we got back to Mount Barker nursing where Mum worked the lady who made me the doll was really angry.  I thought she was angry with me but I believe she was furious that Mum let me take the doll on an outing.

Going to the pictures was a weekly highlight for most people.  It meant a box of scorched almonds, a drink and an icecream for the ladies.  You actually got dressed in your best to go the cinema.  Much much later my soon to be husband used to take me to the movies in his XK120 Jag.  It used to spit little flecks of oil on to my stockings but I really didn't care because I loved that car.  He always bought me a box of Roses chocolates plus the drink and icecream.  I remember going to the premier of Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Guess Who is Coming to Dinner.  He worked at Channel 7 at the time and managed to get free tickets.

The ambiance is gone from movie theatres these days.  Sometimes the audience is lacking, you only get one movie, there are no usherettes, no vendors selling sweets or hot pies and pasties plus you only get to watch the movie once.  The pervading smell is of pop-corn slathered in some kind of buttery substance.  Popcorn and icecream and a drink bust the budget and bringing your own drink and chocolate is frowned upon.  I usually sneak them in in my handbag because I do not intend to bankrupt myself buying from the theatre.

The only positive thing I can think of about modern cinema is that you cannot smoke in the theatre.  I love that.  Really I think that I would rather sit in the comfort of my own home and watch dvds on the television than go out in the cold and sit in a practically empty theatre where the sound is enough to deafen me.

Finally, 'when I was a girl' I loved the excitement of going to the pictures.  I loved the fact the it was cheap enough for Mum to be able to pay for tickets and I love that she would always buy me chocolate.  Let's face it I just loved the movies, the atmosphere; the whole experience.