+4
long life, where to start!
I think I lived through the high point of Saturday Morning Pictures. A barely controlled mass of children assembling at 9am on a Saturday to spend the morning at the local cinema which was a big place so there was probably a couple of hundred kids. The only staff being the projectionist, the lady on the door, the lady selling the ice creams and the manager who mostly hid in his office. This noisy rabble of kids became in turns, spellbound, excited, sad and even scared. I had to take my terrified friend home halfway through King Kong (and this was the 1933 version) much to my annoyance.
It was there my love of films was bulit upon. Film was shown there on a Saturday morning in all it's old glory. I guess they used film which was cheap as it was all old even then.The schedule was always the same - several cartoons mostly from the 40s and 50s, then a serial - they'd be from the same era too like Superman - or a silent comedy, Keystone Cops, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, all the greats. Then there'd be a big film at the end. We had King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, adventure films like Tarzan or one of the British Childrens Film Foundation films. Sometimes they'd schedule something that was really old like The Perils of Pauline. I remember seeing several comedy films starring an old Music Hall act Old Mother Riley and her daughter Kitty. When my dad told me that Old Mother Riley was really a man in drag and that Kitty was actually his wife, I couldn't get my head round it!
I guess those sessions wouldn't be allowed these days. Hardly any supervision. Minor pushing and shoving fights broke out, we booed and cheered really loud during the adventure films, we sang 'why are we waiting' if the poor projectionist had to deal with a broken reel, and at the end we all charged out. At limes it must've seemed riotous. I do remember once tho someone went too far and threw a dart at the screen and the manager stopped the film and gave us all a lecture and threatened to stop the Saturday mornings - noooooo! I remember everyone was really well behaved for a few hours after that!
TV put an end to Saturday Morning Pictures, TV for children back then was only an hour weekdays after school, but soon Saturday morning TV for kids was well established. Those glorious 1960s Saturdaymornings absorbing films with my friends before spending the rest of the weekend out on your bike will always live on fondly in my memory.