Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In February 1995 Annie Wright of Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, wrote to Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain in response to calls in local media for participants in the project. In her letter she names a number of cinemas in and around Hulme, where she grew up, noting that she met her boyfriend, later her husband, in one of them. Borne in Hulme in 1919, Mrs Wright was one of six children whose father, a carter, abandoned the family when her youngest sibling was still in its infancy; her mother then supported the family by taking on odd jobs, including pub work, locally. On leaving school at fourteen, Mrs Wright entered the world of work as a weaver. She was interviewed at her home on 27 April and 26 May 1995.

Asked about her family background at the start of the first interview, Mrs Wright recounts the story of her father’s leaving his wife and six children to live with another woman. He was never heard from again, she says, musing on whether her background might have been upper class (in her second interview she declares “I was born for something better” than the humiliation of wearing clogs). This interview took place around the time of the 50th Anniversary of VE day, prompting Mrs Wright to recollect the details of her husband’s death in action after only a year of marriage. She recalls the last time they were together, and how she kept going afterwards by joining the ATS. Encouraged by the interviewer to talk about her cinemagoing, she offers a detailed account of first meeting her future husband in a local cinema, of the couple’s two-year courtship (which involved going to the pictures almost every night), and of the tribulations surrounding their engagement and wedding. Towards the end of the interview, Mrs Wright is shown, and responds enthusiastically to, a book of photographs of cinemas in and around Manchester and the North-west of England.

Mrs Wright’s second interview focuses more closely on memories of films and film stars, prompted by looking through some 1930s publications about popular cinema: in the course of the interview more than seventy films are referred to and close to two hundred stars mentioned, sometimes along with snippets of Hollywood gossip. Mrs Wright’s preference was for “manly” male stars--“I’ve always liked men”—especially for those who, like Clark Gable, sported moustaches. She recollects seeing in the flesh a number of film celebrities in Manchester, including Vivien Leigh and Margaret Lockwood. She offers a vivid recollection of being terrified by a particular scene in a horror film; remembers chatting with friends and workmates about films and stars; and regrets the decline of cinemas and the loss of the sense of romance that surrounded going to the pictures--which was her main entertainment: “To me that was all there was really.” The conversation turns to childhood play and adolescent leisure pursuits, from street games to cycling excursions into the countryside. Asked about how she used to feel about her favourite film stars, she refers to “hero worship”, admitting to entertaining fantasies of dancing with George Raft.

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