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.