Glasgow Film Theatre 'Share Your Memories' Workshop

Disclaimer: This interview was conducted in 1992 and concerns memories of 1930s life; as such there may be opinions expressed or words used that do not meet today's norms and expectations.

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* Transcript ID: GF-92-000AT001

* CCINTB Transcript ID: not accessioned

* Tapes: GF-92-000OT001

* CCINTB Tapes ID: not accessioned

* Length: 0:47:31

* Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT), Glasgow, 3 December 1992: 'Share Your Memories' workshop discussion, 22 November 1994:

* Transcribed by Annie Nissen/Standardised by Annette Kuhn

* AK = Annette Kuhn / CH = GFT co-host / NM = Norman MacDonald / TP = Tony Paterson /

F1 = Female One / F2 = Female Two / F3 = Female Three / F4 = Female Four / M1 = Male One / M2 = Male Two / M3 = Male Three

* Notes: The workshop, led by Annette Kuhn, was held after a matinée screening of Evergreen as part of the 'Popular Cinema in the 1930s' short season of films (Oct-Dec 1992). Some contributors heard within the discussion later became participants in the CCINTB study (see website for details). Sound Quality: Poor

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[Start of workshop recording]

[inaudible]

F1: This is an old lady. My first visit to the cinema was to see Shoulder Arms, I should think it would have been around 1919 and it was my father who took my brother and myself. I think we had a very good initiation. Oh, I think it would be, what used to be called the Regal for a long time, I think. Well, it was Hengler's [Circus] for a long time also, wasn't it? I think it would be down there if I remember [inaudible]. Oh yes.

CH: I suppose [inaudible]

F1: Of course it was very much a war film and the great thing that stuck in my memory was when the soldier, that was Charlie [Chaplin] of course, got the parcel from his home and the excitement that he showed when he opened this 00:01:00parcel and the cheese was one of the things that was in the parcel and he shared it with a mouse. Am I right? [laughs] This stuck in my memory as a little girl at that time. I'd be four or five [pause 5 seconds] it was a good film to see, it was my first.

NM: Thank you, my name is MacDonald, Norman MacDonald. It's extraordinary that my experience is almost exactly the same as the lady who has just spoken. I was taken to the cinema, I think, possibly, for the first time by my mother in Glasgow in about 1919. It wouldn't have been any more than 1920, because I 00:02:00wasn't at school then. And I was -- it was a Charlie Chaplin film, but unfortunately, I can't put a name to it as you've just done, but -- I don't even remember where it was, because I was only four or five years of age, but this I do remember, my mother told me afterwards that the manager of the cinema had come to her and said, "If you can't stop that child screaming with laughter, I'm afraid you'll have to leave." [laughs]

[pause 13 seconds]

AK: Did you get that?

CH: Yeah, I think the sound is good.

AK: What was your earliest memory? [pause 3 seconds] So we're still talking about silent cinema [inaudible] yes.

TP: I don't remember what the first film I saw, but one of the--

Audience Voice: 'Robin Hood' [possibly referring to The Adventures of Robin Hood]

[pause 6 seconds]

[inaudible; sound issues]

AK: Might it be to do with the fact that we didn't get sound in the beginning, is there something up in the projection booth--

CH: I'm not sure [inaudible].

AK: It was certainly working earlier.

CH: Yeah [inaudible].

[pause 7 seconds]

CH: Right, is that--. that's working, isn't it? I'm not getting--. Yes, I am 00:04:00getting. You have to, you have to speak quite.-- I'll just erm yeah.-- I'm sorry, if I could just ask you to try and, you know, speak right into the microphone, so we make sur.-- Test, test--

[pause 5 seconds]

TP: Well, the first film I saw that really stays in my mind was a Cecil B. DeMille silent film. I must have been somewhere about five or six when I saw it and it was called The Road to Yesterday. And it, it starred one or two people actually, whose careers survived for quite a number of years. People like erm William Boyd, who eventually became 'Hopalong Cassidy', Joseph Schildkraut and then an exotic lady called Jetta Goudal and the ingénue was a lady called Vera Reynolds, and it was all about people who had great problems in their lives and 00:05:00they got involved in a train crash and they went back to the past, and what happened in the past solved all their problems in the present. And I was mad about going back into the past films for ages after that.

[pause 11 seconds]

AK: [inaudible]

[pause 4 seconds]

CH: Yeah. I'll come up here.

Female Voice: I wonder if I could-- [inaudible]

[pause 6 seconds]

F2: Erm, as far as I recall, my first visit to the cinema was to the Hillhead 00:06:00Salon and it was to see nothing more than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

F3: [inaudible]

F2: [laughs] I'm being corrected here [laughs] perhaps it was on at the Grosvenor [laughter] but I think I saw it later than you and it was at the Hillhead Salon and I think I had to rush down from school to be in before four o'clock to get in for a threepence rather than four pence. That may be quite wrong, but I think it's right. You tell your tale. [laughs]

F3: Oh, I can't remember the first erm the names of any of the films that I saw. I was taken, I think by my mother, to the Lyceum Cinema, not Theatre, in Edinburgh. And one of the scenes in the picture, which name title escapes me, was in colour and -- I was told that, lovely colours, and the scene was about 00:07:00the tulips, it was -- 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips', and all the tulips were in colour in this ordinary black-and-white film. But if I say I can remember that [laughs] I'm stretching my credibility I think just a little, because I left Edinburgh when I was five, or less than five, so, you know, I don't know which year that particular film was, but my friend -- the Grosvenor Hillhead, later the Ascot, was a regular Saturday afternoon feature. They talk about the morning clubs, but I never knew of any of these that I can remember, but erm Saturday afternoon, threepence the Grosvenor, four pence, and the Hillhead, and everything was grist to my mill, as far as the kind of films were concerned. I just loved them all.

[pause 3 seconds] [inaudible]

TP: I'll come over. 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' came from the original Gold Diggers of Broadway actually, though I thought that was an old colour film. The one, the black-and-white film, the musical that blossomed into colour was the original Broadway Melody, which went into colour for 'the Wedding of the Painted Doll'.

F3: Well. [laughs]

TP: I think I'm right.

F3: Family histories [laughs]

M1 [Familiar?]: My first -- my earliest memory of the cinema was my parents taking my brother and I to the New Savoy, along in Hope Street there and it was, 00:09:00I don't remember the name of the film, I only know we had to wait outside for a considerable time and when we did get in, it was a drama. And I was shattered. Part of the story was this child was playing near a window and opened the window, about thirty storeys up, thirty-- and then this building and for some reason or other, this window was open and the child could climb out onto this ledge. And I think the next half hour was spent with this child calling round and round and nobody ever seemed to bother with it, and I sat petrified wondering whether this child would fall or get rescued, so that I could go home in peace. [laughter] Let me say that I was seven years of age when I remember being in the first cinema, that was in the old Seamore -- Sauchie--

F3: Maryhill--

M1: Maryhill Road. And I was there for two reasons. One was that I -- they were 00:10:00showing in a newsreel, the, a version of Partick Thistle playing the Rangers in the 1921 Cup Final, which Partick Thistle won, and my father was a supporter. [laughter] The other one, my mother took her parents, that was my grandparents, also, because the main feature there was a picture about Rob Roy [referring to Rob Roy], which my grandfather cut aside from beginning to end: "That's never like Rob Roy, that's nothing like Rob Roy, come on outta here." [laughs] I remember that very, very well. I don't remember seeing the Thistle film though. [laughter]

M2: That was the year Hirohito came to Glasgow, wasn't it?

M1: Pardon?

M2: That was the year that Hirohito came to Glasgow, Partick Thistle beat Southend, 1921. [laughter]

M1: I can't remember that. [laughs] [pause 2 seconds] Sure I've not mucked it up a bit?

CH: No, no.

M2: Could I just say, I never went to any of these swanky film houses, mine was called Freddie's, they're all Freddie's. It was a wooden place in Lesmahagow [possibly referring to the Ritz]. It was a little picture house all the same. Erm the one good thing about it was that everything always broke down. And I don't know when I first went, but I think I already told you and to say it was my grandfather that took me. All because of the second house on the Saturday night, he went, not because he wanted to see the film, but because the boy would want to see it. The real reason was you kept your half ticket and there was a steak pie draw, and my grandfather was always wanting to win the steak pie, [laughter] and that was the reason I went as a child. He never won. [laughter]

M1: Did you ever, you know that this comes up from time to time, that admission to the cinemas was by a jelly jar [also known as a 'jeely jar'. Did anyone experience that?

F3: Never did it, but it happened in Partick.

M1: Did it? Well, I think--

F3: I think there was-- [inaudible]

M1: I thought there was one in Possilpark erm I think I was there one time. A 00:12:00cousin stayed in that area and he was going to the cinema and I think I remember my aunt scrounging around the house looking for another jar, so I could go with him.

F3: I think that it certainly happened down in Partick.

TP: It happened in Partick alright, yes.

Female Voice: Oh yes.

M2: But the [inaudible] that go into the pictures for the jam jar. It used to be you went to the grocers and you handed in jam jars [inaudible].

Female Voice: Yes.

M3: Yes, my earliest recollection, apart from the ones that were raised, we talked about the hysterical laughter at Charlie Chaplin, was going to the Western cinema, it was near Partick Cross. And the rumours were always going around then, you could get in for jam jars, but I can never remember actually participating in that particular commercial venture. [laughs] But it was only a 00:13:00matter of pennies of course to go, so that if you took your jam jar to the grocer and got your penny you went along to the cinema, so it was almost the same as taking it in at the cinema cash desk. But that was a little cinema which has been away for a long time now I think. But of course the main staple was cowboy films and erm it was accompanied, in the early 1920s anyway, by a, erm, a lady pianist who kept time to the beating of the hooves and the whooping of the Indians and the-- and the shooting of the cowboys. It was tremendous. I mean it was completely erm natural, I mean erm whatever the film was, you were part of it and the enthusiasm was erm unbounded. I mean the kids were jumping around and taking part and giving advice to the actors [laughs] and so on. It only cost a 00:14:00penny or two.

AK: You must remember the coming of the talkies?

M3: Yes, I went to the first talkie in Glasgow, it was 'The Jazz --', Al Jolson [referring to The Jazz Singer]. The Coliseum in erm --

Female Voice: Eglinton

M3: Eglinton Street, yes. And that was a great sensation, of course. Because nobody had heard talkie film, that was 1929 I think, thereabout.

F4: They were still showing silent films in the likes of the Blythswood.

M1: Oh yeah.

F3: I can remember when I would be-- now we're talking about 1935/36 in the Blythswood, and possibly even the Seamore, in Maryhill Road, I remember seeing silent films there, erm don't ask me what they were called. I seem to recall one with [inaudible] or something, someone wearing long clothes [laughs] erm, now 00:15:00that must have been '30.-- I bet it must have been '37 even erm that I saw that. I can't think I'd be allowed out on my own, scampering up and down Maryhill Road, going into any cinema I fancied erm much before that time, '35/'37. But there was definitely silent films. Now, I was always so engrossed in the screen, I couldn't have told you what was behind me [laughs] or round about me. I definitely only saw what was there, so I couldn't say if it was popular or not. The last bastion of the silence possibly. [laughs]

[pause 4 seconds]

M1: Was there-- Can anyone remember the names of the orchestra leaders? I think 00:16:00at the La Scala, they had a good orchestra leader. Anyway, he was. -- The leader of the orchestra in La Scala was transferred up to the Seamore in Maryhill, which was a favourite of mine for two reasons. I enjoyed the front seat because of the good stage and you were quite a good distance away from the actual screen, but they had a method like this lady said, the Seamore was one of the last to convert to talkies, they kept silents on for a while and they had variety acts erm from time to time on. And some of them were very good, particularly their own usherettes, who would get up and do a turn and sing. [audience laughter] I know [cough] there was this popular song at the time 00:17:00'Constantinople'. [cough] Can't sing it, but it was a very catchy tune and this pair of little usherettes sung this, spelled it all out and then sung it, [cough] and then, and then a paid artist would come along. Sorry for taking up the time.

CH: Yes. [pause 4 seconds] I wouldn't get a job on 'Kilroy'. [referring to TV chat show] [laughter]

TP: Just about my first talkie, or really it was a part-talkie, because in those-- in the early days, you'd have so much in silence and then they'd suddenly burst into sound every now and then, and it was at La Scala in Sauchiehall Street. It was a film called The Barker, it was a circus film. Later it was remade with Clara Bow under the title of Hoopla. But this, this version 00:18:00had a--he had been a very famous actor in the silent films called Milton Sills, he was in it and Betty Compson, Dorothy Mackaill and Douglas Fairbanks Jr was the juvenile lead. The -- my favourite cinema of course was the Salon in Hillhead and I remember the first talkie shown there, it was a screen version of the famous Aldwych farce Rookery Nook with Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn, and that was the first talkie at the Salon.

[pause 4 seconds]

AK: I watched that one at the [inaudible]

TP: Did you? [laughs]

AK: What year was that?

TP: Oh that must have been about 19-- now let's see '32, '33 maybe.

AK: Did anybody.-- When you started going to the cinema [inaudible] how did you decide which films to see, did you just go and see [inaudible].

TP: I saw everything. [laughs]

M1: For me--

TP: I remember, pretty--everything, I very seldom saw.-- I maybe saw some films 00:19:00that I even then realised weren't very good, but they were always so-- they were always enjoyable. One always liked to see--. I mean, you could go and see any film in those days, and you looked at the screen, you saw who was the star, who was in the supporting cast, you knew at once which studio had made it. There was the Paramount gang, the Warners gang, the MGM, they were all there. And it was one of my fascinating hobbies to-- erm in my very young days, I had a box for each studio, and I put the, the photographs of the cutouts from the various film magazines into those boxes and swapped them around from place to place, as they, as they changed studios. There was one very shabby little box and that was for 00:20:00the Poverty Row studios like Tiffany and Monogram and so on, and indeed those poor souls that had no contracts at all.

[pause 3 seconds]

M2: When we talk about young people and drugs now, I always think of that picture house in Lesmahagow, full of smoke, which happened with a cinnamon stick. Now, you bought this cinnamon stick, you could buy it at the chemist, but he wasn't too keen to sell it because he knew why you wanted it. But there was a wee sweetie shop and you could buy these sticks of erm cinnamon stick, and you lit them and you smoked them. And once you got so far down, you chewed what was left and ate it. Now about oh ten or twelve years ago, I was in Aberdeen and I passed a kiosk and they were selling cinnamon sticks. Now I stopped smoking many years ago, but I bought this for [inaudible] and tasted it and threw the sticks 00:21:00away. [laughs] I thought I couldn't possibly eat that when I was a child. But the place used to be completely full of smoke from the cinnamon sticks. I don't know if that happened in Glasgow, but it happened with us. It was great with the cinnamon stick. [pause 3 seconds] I don't know if you got nicked for that.

[pause 5 seconds]

AK: Did you have any favourite stars?

M1: I don't think we even called them stars.

M2: I think the word stars--. I don't know, but I think stars is a word that has come along in the 1950s. I don't think we called them stars. The same way we didn't talk about cinema, it was the pictures.

AK: So you wouldn't [inaudible]

M2: Mhm, no. I think as children we just went. It was a matinée and you, you 00:22:00just went.

CH: You were disappearing over here [inaudible].

F4: Now, I can remember in Troon erm before the war, there were two cinemas facing each other, like the La Scala faced the Picture House in Sauchiehall Street, and in one cinema they were showing Heidi and in the other Marie Walewska, and even at the tender age of nine or ten, I chose the Garbo film rather than erm the Shirley Temple one.

AK: [inaudible]

F4: I think, oh, I wouldn't know about that. [laughs] No, I think it just appealed to me, but I was always a sucker for the musicals. Every musical, that was all it had to be and I was there erm ready for them all. And then I went 00:23:00home of course and sang and danced. That erm this particular film that we've been seeing, I was saying to my friend as we came along, the 'Over My Shoulder' was my party piece [referring to Jessie Matthews number in Evergeen], from the days when everybody was expected to do something, that was my particular--

Female voice: Would you like to do it now?

F4: [laughs] You wouldn't like it

AK: [inaudible]

F4: I danced as well [laughs] [inaudible] everything at the drop of a hat.

[inaudible; pause 10 seconds]

NM: Jessie Matthews, the star of the film that we've just seen in Evergreen, came to Glasgow in 1936 and erm she was a guest of the-- well whatever the stage or cinema organisation of the city, and I, I was lucky enough with my girlfriend to be given two tickets by a friend to attend a Grand Ball which was held just down the road from here in the Locarno Ballroom. Do you remember the Locarno? And erm it was a tremendous turnout, and she performed and sang some of her songs which are in Evergreen and everybody danced and was merry, and it was a great night in Glasgow then. But I don't know whether we--. I don't think before 00:25:00the 1930s that they called them stars, but certainly in the 1930s there were stars. In the 1920s, the screen was practically dominated by the great Chaplin films, but nobody sort of said Chaplin was a star. I mean he was so big that erm [laughs] that people just accepted him as a part of the landscape as it were, the landscape of films, without him there was no such thing as a film industry. And then there were all the people that took part in the cowboy epics, whatever the names may have been in those days, but erm they were certainly extremely popular, especially with the youngsters.

CH: Yeah.

[pause 8 seconds]

TP: Now I was conscious of the word 'star' from my very earliest erm filmgoing almost, and it was actually quite an official business. MGM's motto was that they had more stars than there were in heaven and erm it was a--. If the actor 00:26:00or actress was placed above the title, they were officially stars, and this was a very exciting thing. I remember when Myrna Loy went to MGM first of all. For some time, she was billed under the title, but then there came the big moment erm just in the wake of her success in The Thin Man when her name went above the title. Spencer Tracy, there was a great excitement when his name went above the title. He became a star at MGM after a long time as a feature player at Fox. And similarly at Fox again, was a big moment when Warner Baxter was placed above the title, so it was a very real and I think very hotly contested credit by the actors and actresses.

[pause 12 seconds]

NM: Thank you. I think the outstanding personality of a star that I remember from the earliest age was Mary Pickford. She certainly qualified as a star, because erm she was erm acclaimed by everyone as being the greatest actress, screen actress that ever had been. So that goes back to the twenties.

[pause 4 seconds]

AK: I'm interested in the, the details that you remember, where you got your information from [inaudible].

M1: I just soaked it up.

TP: If you were really very interested in anything, you soak it up and it just 00:28:00erm I mean it was the sort of thing I was hungry for information and I lapped everything up I could find. Not, I mean not about the sort of personal lives of the stars, but about their, their actual careers and you know, I find it fascinating now to check up on the various encyclopaedias that are available and, you know, find the stars that were on their way up in the thirties, those that were there, those that were on their way down. It was just all grist to my mill and I've never quite lost this erm interest.

[pause 15 seconds]

NM: The name Joan Crawford, for example, leaps to mind and my memory is not so good, but people of that category. And Greta Garbo, of course, and erm I'm sure that if you could mention names, I could say yes to them all. There were so many of them, there were literally dozens of people who were at the top rank of the.-- They were great actors and actresses, male and female and erm, yes, they all deserved the acclaim they got, because they were truly great actors.

[inaudible]

M2: Mhm, I think.-- Like this lady here, I was a sucker for musicals, but that was in the forties right enough. But the ones I remember were people like Tom Mix, Buck Jones, these were, you know, favourites of the matinée time. And Tarzan, I mean Tarzan was Johnny Weissmuller, there's no doubt. He once was interviewed on the radio some time ago and they said to him, you know all these stunts you did with the crocodiles, he said, there was no stunts, you just had 00:30:00to swim fast or the crocodile.-- But and what-do-you-call-her used to go in with them. Who was Jane? Maureen O'Sullivan, was it? And I mean to me, these were the only two that were ever Tarzan and erm Jane. The rest were nobody. I mean thinking of-- talking about favourites, I had one, and I don't know think she was a young woman. I can always remember going to the cinema one day with my mother when I was quite a young boy and Marie Dressler was in it, and she died and I went home crying my eyes out, because I thought I'd never see Marie Dressler again. I don't know why, I'd only ever seen her once in my life. [laughs]

[inaudible]

TP: She had a great following. I don't know why [laughs] but she had a great following.

[pause 3 seconds]

CH: Yeah.

TP: Are you sure?

CH: Yeah.

TP: Erm my favourite musical star was and of course, still is, was Alice Faye, who seemed to me the greatest of the lot, apart from Jessie Matthews, who was my 00:31:00other favourite as far as British films were concerned. But erm when I look back, I mean Garbo was the great name that dwarfed everybody else. I mean the big three at MGM were Garbo, Norma Shearer and erm and Joan Crawford. And of course later on we had people like the other greats, came on later. But to my mind the greatest of all time film actresses were Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn, and so on.

Female Voice: I saw [inaudible]

TP: Oh great, yes [coughs] [inaudible] I saw Alice Faye in erm just an aside really, at the Cole Porter gala in London a year or two ago, she came over in person and sang with Van Johnson.

CH: We actually have a [inaudible] at the cinema.

TP: Yeah, yes, I read about that.

NM: I think perhaps it should be mentioned that there was a good deal of lively discussion in so-called intellectual quarters in the twenties and thirties about the introduction of sound and the introduction of colour. Erm a lot of people took the view that erm the greatness of Chaplin was superior when he was erm silent than what he was when he began to speak. And erm so simply extended to a belief that perhaps erm cinema had not gained by being subjected to sound and erm the same view was also taken with regard to colour. People felt that the 00:33:00superimposition of colour was perhaps very interesting, but erm the cinema lost something when it went over to colour, because it paid less attention to light and shade and erm the qualities of tone and things like that. And this is what struck me perhaps most when looking at this today, delighting in the black and whiteness of it, the sharpness, the clarity, the magnificent photography and oh, you know, whereas when it's all colourised, I think the eye is distracted to such an extent that you lose something. But perhaps you gain a lot more than you lose, I don't know. There's no question, you can't turn the clock back now and abolish colour, but I have a feeling that both in ordinary televisual terms and screen terms, that something very valuable has been lost with the suppression 00:34:00[sic] of colour. All the great Continental films that we saw in the thirties of course, some of which came from Russia, from Eisenstein and Pudovkin, and from France from René Clair, people like that in France, they were of course black and white. And they set a standard which really never has been surpassed and erm I think more erm people in the film world nowadays should think again about all this colour and sound that they are throwing about, because sound can be such an exaggerated phenomenon in the theatre now. I mean it's practically scaring you out of your seat the amount of noise that is generated, that perhaps it would 00:35:00not be a bad idea if it was soft-pedalled or--

M2: I think recently I've seen a Buster Keaton film on television and I said to the wife afterwards, you know, why do we need colour and sound, because that was hilarious. I mean if you like something funny. And I thought today watching this, it's always one of my great criticisms of today's films, that the camera never stays still. You know, if there's a dancer on, you see their face, and you see the [inaudible] and you see the side, but you don't see, I mean today the camera is static in that film and you see them dancing. But nowadays they have this feeling, what is it, your concentration span is only thirty seconds. So, after thirty seconds the camera must give you a different angle. But that one today, you really see if they're dancing or singing or whatever it is, I mean I'm not talking about the quality of the dancing or singing, but the fact to me, 00:36:00that you can sit and watch, same as if you went to the theatre, you sit and watch it. But this camera flashing all over the place and I hate this going to the cinema, it's put me off, the sound. You get in the cinema now, and you're absolutely deafened. Even just somebody talking.

[pause 3 seconds]

AK: [inaudible] when you went to see someone [inaudible] Do you remember anything about the [inaudible]

[inaudible; pause]

F2: I think it was just like the Barbie dolls almost, everything was dwarfs, and everything was Snow White, and everything was Bambis, and you had them on your blazer, you know, you had a Dopey or a Happy or whatever [referring to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi]. That was the big thing, and erm I went with another child the same age, so possibly we'd been before, but not very often erm to the cinema. But I wonder if you younger folk realise or can visualise the number of cinemas that there actually were, in the likes of say 00:37:00Dumbarton Road, say between Dumbarton Road and Crow Road and the bits off, there could be about half a dozen cinemas. Packed, packed! And in the likes of, Govan was another place I knew at that time, and there was small cinemas down off main roads too, but there was one special one there, which was about the same age as the Ascot, the Lyceum, and a Mister Bryson was the headman there for many, many days and he really did line up his usherettes and the chaps at the door and so on and inspect them. And the place was--they could have carried out operations 00:38:00on the stairs, the place was so clean. They must have gone through more washing-up stuff than any other cinema in Glasgow and he was there in his dinner suit, as were others, but he was there in his dinner suit even up until the bingo started and it was a bingo hall and a cinema latterly. But he still stood at that door and he knew everyone, there was no troublemakers came in there, you had no disruption. And the cinema manager was a man of great standing. The one at the Grosvenor erm was it the commissionaire at the Grosvenor--

F3: No, no.

F2: No, it was Mister Hart at the Grosvenor--

F3: Yes [inaudible].

F2: And the other ones all in their uniforms. Everyone went to the cinema. You were wondering who went to the cinema. I think everybody went to the cinema, everyone. And you could be there for a long time, [laughs] three or four hours. [laughs] No, it was great.

F3: Yes, I used to go in at two o'clock when the programme started, and I had to 00:39:00leave at quarter to six in order to be home before my parents. [laughs] And, so, I don't know, that was erm my afternoon.

Female voice: Did you listen to [inaudible]

[pause; inaudible 12 seconds]

TP: The best, of course, the best film magazine, was 'Film Weekly', which expired with the outbreak of the Second World War, but it was a really classy weekly. Then there was the 'Picturegoer' and 'Film Pictorial' and, what I think 00:40:00was probably the oldest of the lot, the 'Picture Show'. And really one read them all to get all the latest news, but 'The Film Weekly' was the quality one. I saw some selling off in the Virginia Arcade the other day for the price of three pounds fifty a copy.

Female voice: [inaudible]

TP: No, they cost threepence in the --

M2: There was also the comic 'Film Fun'. [laughs]

TP: Oh yes.

Female voice: Yes.

[pause 2 seconds]

CH: I think you mentioned 'Picturegoer' as well?

M2: No, I just remembered 'Picturegoer', that was the one I.-- 'Cause I remember, I think it was only every two weeks it came out finally and that was probably during the war. That erm no, as I say, I also had.-- I'm very sorry, I don't have it now, as I say, I've cigarette cards of all film actors and 00:41:00actresses. They did radio actors and actresses as well, but they'd be worth a fortune if I had it now.

[pause 4 seconds]

AK: Before we draw this to a close, I'd like to get [inaudible 20 seconds].

M2: I think, for instance, tonight, the film we've just seen, when.-- it's a typical musical with a funny storyline, but at least it had a story, but when they were set up in this house. I mean, I think, at the time that was shown, everyone in the cinema would probably have said "Aahhh," because nobody really imagined houses like that. I mean people were living in entirely different conditions.

Voice: [inaudible]

M2: You know, and suddenly there's a great stage would appear. The stage is that 00:42:00size, but when they got to dance, it's the size of a field and there's an orchestra. But I think people.-- I mean, I remember when people used to gasp when they saw this sort of thing, because they had never imagined it.

Voice: It was [inaudible] to them.

M2: Oh yes. And during the war when they used to fry ham and egg, remember?

CH: [laughs] May I pass this along to you again.

F2: Yes. Funnily enough, I suppose when I was nine and ten, watching these films, I thought the clothes were lovely. But when I see these films repeated, as they have been on television, I think they're even more beautiful than I remember. I mean you see Miriam Hopkins fairly recently in some film and you'd really look at her clothes because you're not that interested in the story, but 00:43:00there was one recently with Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis I think, and their clothes from the thirties are still beautiful. Beautifully cut, their evening dresses cut on the crossline, so that they hang beautifully. And they would still pass today, I mean to me they are undated. [pause 2 seconds] I think I liked.-- I had parents who went out a lot, so to see my mum and father dress up to go out erm to some dinner or dance for the evening was quite normal erm so evening dress was fairly common shall we say. But, to see these erm marvellous beauties [laughs] while I was a little plump [laughs] [laughter] to see these 00:44:00svelte beauties in their gorgeous dresses, yes, you couldn't help but notice. But one type of film we haven't mentioned and I should say I loved it too, as well, as well as the musicals, was the classics that they took and turned into films. I loved them erm as well. I can't remember them all erm to mention by name now. But you got your Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Crristo. Whatever it was erm I loved them too

[pause 4 seconds]

Female voice: [inaudible] [laughter]

TP: Now talking about the classics, probably, I mean one had Irving Thalberg at MGM was very fond of filming great novels and the versions I think made then, have never been surpassed of erm novels like David Copperfield erm I mean that 00:45:00was the definitive David Copperfield. I don't think there's ever been a better Tale of Two Cities than the Ronald Colman one, just as later on, I mean, there's never been a better Wuthering Heights than the [Merle] Oberon/[Laurence Olivier one, as has been proved by the various attempts to erm remake it.

NM: [inaudible] [pause 5 seconds] Talking about classic films, I noted down, from my own diaries, the titles of many of the films that I saw in the thirties, '35 and '36, and I note the following classics: Treasure Island, The Count of Monte Cristo, 'Queen Catherine' [probably referring to Queen Christina], Soul of a Nation, The Old Curiosity Shop, Unfinished Symphony, David Copperfield, 00:46:00Scarlet Pimpernel, Les Misérables, [pause 3 seconds] The Crusades, The Brothers Karamazov, erm Cardinal Richelieu, [pause 3 seconds] Midsummer Night's Dream, [pause 3 seconds] Captain Blood, The Last Days of Pompeii, Crime and Punishment, [pause 3 seconds] Mary of Scotland, [pause 3 seconds] Louis Pasteur [referring 00:47:00to The Story of Louis Pasteur]. They certainly chose some great scenes in amongst all the other trash that was going about. [laughter]

Female voice: Do you all remember at the Cosmo [inaudible].

Male Voice: Oh yes.

Female voice: [laughs] [inaudible]

AK: Thank you all very, very much, that was wonderful.

[End of workshop recording]