Lady Lugosi’s First Cinema Outing

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Morticia Maguire-Broad (Twitter: @LadyLugosi) takes a nostalgic look back at when the seeds of her cinephilia were sewn.

The first film I ever went to see was The Jungle Book with the divine George Sanders as Shere Khan. I was very tiny indeed and so small I had difficulty keeping the seat from folding back up on me so I spent most of the film on my Mum’s knee and we ate sugar jellies. It was magical 🙂 It must have been then that my love of George Sanders was born, it’s a love that has continued to this day……

It was also at the Savoy, aka Fleapit in Sale Cheshire now sadly no more. It was quite a few years ago when it was closed, bulldozed and flats built in its place. The Odeon lasted a lot longer, but sadly went the way of lots of lovely old picture palaces and after time as a nightclub it is now a gym. I saw all of the Disney classics there albeit through a fog of cigarette smoke as this was well before the days of the smoking ban.

A lady with a tray came round and sold you ice cream and strong sickly but delicious Kia-Ora which you had to pierce the top off with a straw – this often led to a little spillage of the precious contents and sticky orange fingers. If I was very lucky indeed (i.e. Mum had enough money that week), I also got a bag of Butterkist, its crunchy, sugary, toffee gorgeousness getting stuck in your teeth or at the back of your throat whilst Snow White defeated evil…..except she wasn’t really all that evil was she? The Wicked Queen was gorgeous and why the Prince wanted to bother with boring  Snow White was beyond me.

The Odeon saw me see my first ‘underage’ film Private Benjamin which my folks were very angry I’d seen, an attitude I didn’t get as it had nothing that risqué or outlandish in and seeing as me and Dad watched all manner of really unsuitable 18 certificated horror films on VHS at the same time, I really didn’t understand what they were fussing about.

Anyways, back in those days it was still the days of the supporting feature and it often seemed to be a plane going round the Grand Canyon before the glorious colour bath of Disney appeared and then I’d be lost in the antics of the Aristocrats, or wondering where and when the missing dinosaur was going to turn up and loving both the nannies and the glorious Peter Ustinov.

I still go to the cinema a lot – at least two or three times a month – as I love the immersion that cinema offers, especially if you sit near the front (sadly also necessary as I still haven’t sorted out getting new glasses yet and if I’m not near the front I end up squinting) but also because I love getting completely wrapped up in a film in a cinema as there you can concentrate on it fully as opposed to getting distracted by domestic stuff.

I mostly only go to see special showings of old films or arthouse miscellany, both of which attract patrons who know how to behave properly in a cinema – i.e. not talking or texting throughout the film. Though an elderly gentleman did fall asleep and snore a bit during All About Eve when it was on at the Media Museum recently, plus aside from Mary and Max, or Kill Me Please, most modern films (in my mind those made after 1990) leave me cold – they don’t have the glamour or the gorgeousness, wit or wisdom of my favourite films of yesteryear. Give me black and white,or an RKO tower beeping, a credit for gowns and ideally James Mason, George Sanders, Bette Davis, Bela Lugosi,  William Holden  or a beautiful British ensemble cast in the 40s or 50s, then I am in for a marvellous time and I am a happy entranced woman.

For me there is something far more colourful about a black and white film – the shade and shadows so much more expressive than its colour counterparts, unless of course it’s in that lovely, slightly muted colour like that used in Blithe Spirit or the full on glorious technicolour visual assault of The Wizard of Oz.

I’m lucky that I live in Leeds, still well served by independent cinemas like The Hyde Park Picture House, Cottage Road, Minicine and of course the lovely modern cinemas at the National Media Museum in Bradford, and whilst there is still something special and exciting about seeing a film in any of those places, I still also love watching an old black and white gem on the tv on a rainy Saturday afternoon. However you watch film and whatever kind of films you like – I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I do.

You can find Morticia on Twitter: @LadyLugosi

Let us know in the comments what the first film you went to see at the cinema was.