March 1966 - Double bubble

One of the delights of 60s cinemagoing was the double feature, a thing of the dim and distant past in these days when even the least remarkable streamer runs for more than two hours. The double feature took full advantage of the continuous performances I mentioned earlier and, done properly, ran like clockwork.

Let’s assume that your average film runs for 90 minutes. This means you can have five screenings a day, including three evening screenings. Although it was often hard to tell which, one of the films had higher status than the other; this was the ‘A’ picture and usually featured in the prime left-hand position in the posters and advertising. The other film was the ‘B’ picture. The day’s screenings could be organized A/B/A/B/A which means audiences could come and go as they pleased up until about 8.30 and still be sure of seeing ‘the big picture’.

All of this depended on one person, the projectionist – usually referred to as ‘the operator’ in the UK. This man was busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger. He had to start up the machine, ignite the carbon rod which provided the light source, thread the heavy reel through the projector, and get the reel ready to go from the appropriate point. Once that reel is screening, he has to get the next one ready – the machines worked in parallel – preparing for the crucial change of reels. At the end and beginning of each reel were a series of cues which show up as white dots on the screen. Once the last white cue dot on reel syncs with the first dot on reel two the machine can start smoothly and the change of reels should be seamless for the audience. There’s no time to feel pleased with himself because the process has to be repeated for the next reel and the next one and so on until the end of the film, all the while changing the rod as and when necessary.

By custom and practice the operators were the best paid of the cinema staff and, coincidentally, the most highly unionized. Still, it was a dark and noisy and sweaty job, less Cinema Paradiso and more boiler room on the Titanic.

Programming these double bills for the ABC would have been done centrally, or at least, regionally, but whoever did it they provided me with some of the best entertainment of my childhood. I still vividly remember some of these line-ups. Memorably there was Jason and the Argonauts paired with Siege of the Saxons, The Three Worlds of Gulliver with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad was a perennial family favourite as was Tom Thumb and The Wizard of Oz. For me the pick of the bunch was the 1962 combination of The Pirates of Blood River and Mysterious Island which was among the first films I saw at The Princes. I watched them both again quite recently and they held up well.

It occurs to me that these double bills were my first encounter with movie genre, the pairing of like with like. No wonder I went on to teach it for 20 years. I mention double bills because there is an absolute belter kicking off the month of March (Mar 7) with The Face of Fu Manchu (U) and City Under the Sea (U), featuring fantasy icons Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

There was no danger of us missing these. Dad was too exhausted to do much but sleep after being up at five for the first of his two mail deliveries, but his reading tastes did run to adventures by the likes of Rafael Sabatini, H.Rider Haggard and G.A.Henty. He had read a lot of Sax Rohmer’s stories featuring evil mastermind Fu Manchu and his nemesis Nayland Smith, and he was also fond of Poe on whose work City Under the Sea was based.

Hammer made five Fu Manchu movies and we saw them all. Face was the first of the series and I confess to confusion that it started with his execution – I thought we’d got the times wrong and come in at the end. Still, it all worked out, and I enjoyed it though not so much as the Vincent Price film, even now I have an inexplicable fondness for this Gothic melodrama about ageless smugglers living in a secret undersea kingdom. Basically they are zombie pirates – what’s not to like.

The following week (March 14) saw Sands of the Kalahari (A), an African adventure about air crash survivors trapped on a rocky plateau and besieged by a troop of baboons. Even that short synopsis presents a compelling argument for missing it, especially since support came from a 30-minute quota quickie, The Material Witness (U).

The next week (March 21) brought The Nanny (X) which was off limits for certificate reasons. I’ve seen it since and it’s not bad. Bette Davis is the titular governess whose 10-year-old client is either a murderer or the killer’s next victim. Walls of Hell (A), a Filipino war movie starring Jock (Tarzan) Mahoney provided support.

The month ended with another double bill from March 28. Jerry Lewis starred in The Family Jewels (U) while Dana Andrews headlined Town Tamer (U). I haven’t seen either of them but I’m not losing sleep over it. 

February 1966 - Moggies, Mandela, and Me

 As I have said, much of this blog concerns itself with memory, specifically unlocking those frozen moments of time to see what they yield. Examples from January such as Mary Poppins, Operation Crossbow, and The Sons of Katie Elder have called to mind vivid Kuhn-rated A list memories, still vivid after 60 years. So, with a sober warning against over-confidence let’s crack on.

After Moll Flanders bridged the gap, the first full week in February (Feb 7) brings an unusual double bill in the shape of The Big Job (U) and 24 Hours to Kill (U). I know that I haven’t seen these because Dad hated Carry On movies and this is a Carry On film in all but name. For the record, Sid James leads a gang of robbers who, on their release, discover a police station has been built on the site where they buried their loot and hilarity presumably ensues. The supporting feature 24 Hours to Kill stars former ‘Tarzan’  Lex Barker as a pilot whose crew get mixed up with smugglers in Beirut.

For our next offering it is necessary briefly to zip forward to the present day and something called ‘the Mandela effect’ in which large numbers of people, all evidence to the contrary, remember an event differently from how it occurred. Google it when you are done here, it’s fascinating. I came across an early version of the Mandela effect during my doctoral research into early Glasgow film audiences.

Among the most interesting items in the National Screen Archive in Glasgow is a collection of transcripts of people in their later years recalling their memories of going to Saturday morning ‘Bright and Beautiful’ screenings in Govan.

The memories are quite specific – the noise, the clamour, the harassed staff, and the general sense of license and freedom of expression. The only thing they got wrong was the name of the film. They raved about Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline, a cliffhanger serial – the problem is that Pauline was made about ten years after those BB screenings but they insist they saw it in 1907. There is a conflation of event and content and this time it was the event that won.

Back to 1966 and the Princes’ next presentation was That Darn Cat (U), a Disney film for the mid-term break. The supporting feature was Geronimo’s Revenge (U), a feature-length film made by smooshing together two of Disney’s live-action Texas John Slaughter TV shows.

Up until about a month ago, had anyone asked me, I would have said confidently That Darn Cat was a sci-fi/espionage movie in which a cat from space did all sorts of cool psychic and telekinetic things. Nope. That was apparently The Cat from Outer Space – the clue is in the title – which came out about ten years later. My own mini-Mandela moment. To this day I remember nothing about That Darn Cat except that my sister came with us and she enjoyed it. For what it’s worth it appears to have been a kidnap comedy with an FBI hero who is allergic to cats.

After their brief epic turn in Cleopatra the previous month, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were back in The Sanddpiper (A). Vincente Minnelli’s adult romance between a free-spirited artist and a jaded priest wouldn’t be on our cinematic bill of fare, even with the addition of a Margaret Rutherford comedy, Murder Ahoy (U) so that was probably a week in front of the telly.

The final week of the month brought The Sons of Katie Elder to the Princes which we had seen a few weeks previously at The George. In the custom of the times, this is where we came in, so I’ll get my coat and see you next month.

January 1966 - A Jolly Holiday with Mary

Cinema exhibition in 1966 was very different from 2026. Smoking, for example, was permitted in cinemas and, judging from the amount of money spent on cigarette ads, actively encouraged. Eating was not, apart from the odd sweetie wrapper from Birrell’s which seemed to have a branch only yards from each cinema. If memory serves Birrell’s had a shop just round the corner from the Princes.

Programmes were continuous from about two in the afternoon until ten-thirtyish at night. You came in when it suited you – ideally during the ‘wee picture’ – sat through the support and the main feature – the ‘big picture’ – and left at the point you’d come in. My generation were experts at fractured narrative before Quentin was a twinkle in Mr. Tarantino’s eye.

Films opened on a Monday, except for the London West End elite venues, which launched on weekends. Monday openings stem from the cine-variety days when a new bill was unveiled at the start of the week. By the mid-Sixties most films were booked for a week although there was still the occasional Monday – Wednesday/Thursday – Saturday change. Even so, there was still a difference between a cinema manager knowing he was due to book a film for a week, and which particular week he would book it. This is because of the way films were distributed.

Now, we are used to a relative handful of films being sent digitally, in their complete form, to tens of thousands of cinemas every week. In the sixties, every film had its own physical print comprising ten to 12 reels, plus another seven or eight for the supporting programme. These had to be sent, often on a daily basis, involving supply depots, fleets of trucks, and physical labour at both ends of the chain.

It was a top down pyramid. Films were released in the elite West End cinemas, then major London theatres, followed by other London and regional first run theatres, followed by second run halls prior to general release at the proverbial cinema near you.

It was impossible to say how long this would take. In London and the regional first run halls such as the Odeon, the Gaumont, and the Regal/ABC in Glasgow films were often booked ‘for a season’ i.e. until demand had been reached. Also there were barring clauses in the contract preventing the film being booked anywhere else locally.

Indefinite booking, barring and blocking, and general supply chain shortages caused frustration for cinema owners and cinema goers. As an example The Sound of Music (1965) played for three years at the Gaumont and Paint Your Wagon (1969) was at the ABC2 for more than a year. In addition, an industry study revealed that films screening in the north of England could be up to two years older than those in the south east.

All of this created gaps in the system which had to be filled by re-releasing popular films or by enterprising bookers putting together eye-catching double bills like Tom Thumb (1958) and The Wizard of Oz (1939), a popular booking in Glasgow.

It was with a re-release of Mary Poppins (U) that the Princes began its cinematic year on Monday, January 3, 1965. I didn’t see it that week because I had seen it the previous year but it remains one of the great cinematic memories of my life. The mix of live-action and animation made my jaw drop, and thanks to Jane Darwell as The Bird Lady I cried at the cinema for the first time, but not the last.

Operation Crossbow (A), the following week was my first visit to the cinema that year. What a film this was for a 9-year-old raised on Hotspur and Victor comics with heroes like Battler Britton and Braddock of the RAF. Nobody told me they had fired rockets and missiles against us. I was gripped and remain so to the point that I will cheerfully watch it whenever it pops up on the schedule.

I remember so much about this film. George Peppard was new to me but made a ruthless leading man, Sophia Loren I remembered from El Cid (1963), and the poignant heroism of Tom Courtenay stayed with me for a long time.

And there were sweets and comics too! Dad was a postman and did a lot of overtime at Xmas so he was feeling flush which meant a visit to Alec Thomson’s bookshop and a rummage through the DC pile. A genuine ‘A’ class memory by Kuhn’s standard.

After family fare at Xmas, cinemas liked to make a strong start to the New Year which explains why they followed Operation Crossbow with a one-week run of Cleopatra (U), which was a bit old for me. I can’t imagine they did well with it, since at 243 minutes long, they would only get two shows a day.

The Princes’ theoretical strong start continued on January 24 with a Man from UNCLE film The Helicopter Spies (U), twinned with Son of a Gunfighter (U) starring Russ Tamblyn. Dad didn’t have many red lines but the TV spy show was one of them so, the listings tell me, that was the week I went to the ABC George at Charing Cross for the first time to see The Sons of Katie Elder (U).

I thought it was great, still do. Already a big John Wayne fan, the addition of Dean Martin, Earl Holliman, and Michael Anderson Jr. did no harm. I remember a cracking punch-up which may be the only fight started by grammar when Holliman takes exception to Anderson boasting that he ‘clumb’ (sic) Pike’s Peak.

Back in Springburn the month ended with The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (X) which was officially too old for me so my Saturday was probably spent with Doctor Who.

A Tale of Two Princes

 

Let’s start with a bit of context. Although we are only talking about one Princes cinema, there were actually two, on the same site at 20 Gourlay Street in Springburn.

In its heyday Springburn was a thriving, bustling suburb sustained by heavy engineering, notably the Hyde Park Locomotive works and the Caledonian works, known universally as ‘The Caley’. These works were so big that my maternal grandmother used to tell me she would often be wakened by the sound of workers’ boots on the cobbles at the shift change.

Springburn had all of the commercial, retail, leisure and community amenities of the city centre on its own doorstep. That included three cinemas – the Kinema, the Astor – formerly the Springburn Picture House and known locally as the Wellfield – and the Princes. Although others may be mentioned in passing, this work will mostly concentrate on the Princes.

The original Prince’s (above) was opened in September 1914 as a cine-variety theatre by John Maxwell, the man who went on to build the ABC circuit. As the name suggests, cine-variety was a fusion of live variety acts and moving pictures on the same bill, the acts would perform and a selection of films was shown at the finale, and often at the end of the first half. It was hugely popular and cine-variety was responsible for the rapid and sustained growth of moving pictures in Glasgow in the 1910s.

The first Prince’s was closed and demolished in 1936 to be replaced by another cinema, also known as the Princes (below). The new cinema had dropped the apostrophe from its name, was much larger than the original at 2050 seats, and was opened on November 8, 1937 as part of the ABC circuit. The opening film was After the Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

One final sidebar. Although the cinema was a fixture in Springburn for more than fifty years I don’t think that, growing up, I ever heard its name pronounced as it was spelled. Locally it was pronounced as if it had an additional ‘s’, i.e. ‘the Princess’.

I don’t know why, it just was. In common  with others my age I was more concerned with the price of sweets at Birrell's than semantics.

 

So, what's this all about then?

 

A good question and I’m glad you asked.

I hope to come up with an answer during this project but for the moment let’s say it’s about time. And movies. And memory. And space. And class. And one particular cinema of which more shortly. As well as one particular audience member, me.

Movies are inextricably linked to time. It’s only the fact that our brains retain an image on our eyeballs for a brief period – about 1/24^th of a second – that fools us into believing we are seeing smooth movement rather than a juddery series of still images. The great movie star James Stewart described movies as being like little moments frozen in time. This project is about what happens when those frozen moments thaw.

The American film academic Robert Allen has some interesting thoughts about movies, memory, and space. He suggests that our memory is often enhanced by the design and architecture of the space in which we view them. To be clear he is not talking about the modern multiplex, a long soulless box with a white rectangle at one end. He is talking about your opulent picture palace with lush lighting, vast spaces, and a screen that made the audience completely subservient to the giant image before them. It engaged the entire sensorium as a place where memories were created and stored, and every repeat visit added to those which had gone before.

It should similarly be made clear that we are also not talking about the magnificent venues of Glasgow city centre; places like The Picture House in Sauchiehall Street – later the Gaumont – with its foyer containing a koi carp fountain and a palm court orchestra (above), or the art deco masterpiece which was the Paramount – later the Odeon - in Renfield Street (top). 

It is worth bearing in mind that cinema spread faster and across a wider demographic in Glasgow than almost any other city in the United Kingdom. In 1913, for example, the city could boast 87,000 cinema seats between its private and municipal venues. Most of these were in the working class schemes and suburbs of the expanding city.

 Although they were frequently surrounded by tenements, these cinemas were the architectural jewels in the civic crown. Albert Victor Gardner, the architect who designed many of them, was a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright and his work contained many nods to the American genius which were often luxuriously at odds with their relatively meagre surroundings. Gardner designed around 50 cinemas which can be found in suburbs such as Springburn, Hillhead, Finnieston, and Govanhill, as well as small towns such as Rothesay, Dunoon and Campbeltown.

Every suburb or district had its own cinema. I grew up in the Sixties in the 4-in-a-block houses in Red Road in Balornock, where there were half a dozen cinemas no further than a short bus ride away. In Townhead there was The Carlton and The Casino, at Charing Cross there was The George, not far away was The Vogue in Possilpark, The Kinema in Springburn Road, not to mention the recently closed Wellfield in Springburn. Above them all was my own palace of cinematic memories, The Princes in Gourlay Street, just off Springburn Road.

The attraction between the local audience and its cinema was almost parochial. Few went to see a particular film, most went to the same cinema at the same time, often two or three times a week depending on programme changes. The elite city centre venues were the homes of the first-run pristine releases, the local cinema was a little more down market and since they were in working-class areas they became proudly working class.

Professor Annette Kuhn has worked extensively in the field of cinema memory, including research in Glasgow, and her landmark work, An Everyday Magic, suggests that social cohesion, of the sort evidenced in those memories, is a prime example of the appeal of the cinematic space. She says that cinema going was regarded as part of the routine of everyday life and was a strong driver of social identity. For the majority, going to the pictures is remembered as being less about   films and stars than about daily and weekly routines, and neighbourhood comings and goings.

 Kuhn has developed a hierarchy of memory to classify these recollections. ‘Type A’ memories are those which feature quite distinct recollections of scenes or sequences from films; ‘Type B’ memories situate those scenes in the context of the subject’s life in the sense that, for example, it may have been the first film they saw; while ‘Type C’ memories are those where it is the activity rather than the content which is remembered. This is common, for example, in the recollections of older people of those children’s matinees at the famous BB screenings in the Wellington Palace in the Gorbals, housed in the National Screen Archive in the Kelvin Hall. They tend to remember the excitement of the experience without necessarily being able to recall what they saw, which would categorise them as ‘Type C’ memories. The event is memorable, but the specifics fade with time.

Recently I came across a similar sensation in my own life and that’s what prompted this case study. Basically I misremembered the first film I saw. This was the foundation myth of my entire career and most of my life and I had got it wrong – the full story will appear in due course, but it was a shock and it prompted me to look further.

Did my father and I really go to the Princes every week, sometimes twice? It felt that way. I turned 10 in 1966 and as I prepare to enter my eighth decade it seemed a good time to look back on what I remember and classify those memories according to Kuhn.

By the time I was 10 I had a rudimentary understanding of how cinema exhibition worked. I could find the listings pages in the Evening Times, I knew which hoardings advertised coming attractions, and basically, I was starting to educate myself as a cinemagoer, able to express some agency in what I wanted to see.

For the next year, using those Evening Times listing pages I’ll post a monthly blog at the end of each month looking back at the releases from that month in 1966. We should find a very different industry from the one we have today.

I’d like to invite you to join me as we discover the answer to a question frequently asked by 10-year-old me: “What’s on at the pictures?”