GOING TO THE CINEMA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 20

GOING TO THE CINEMA

_.. West End Version

oe, for "The Listener" by

DOROTHY

ANDERSON

T is all so simple in New Zealand. The boy friend rings up and suggests the pictures. You are agreeable, you look in the paper to see what is showing and decide which one you wish to see, You tell him, he is happy to fall in with your idea, and says he will get tickets that afternoon-and will 7.30 be too early for him to call for you? Together Yeu arrive at the theatre

-it may be /the Majestic or the Plaza or the Regent, but whichever it is, it is handy, .right in the centre of the

town with a tram-stop close by. it 1s just 7.55 and a crowd of people, you among them, ate streaming in, holding out tickets and being shown to their seats. Your seats ate in the back circle, good.comfortable seats with a clear view and you know that the boy friend has been, a little extravagant and paid ‘2/10 each for them, You settle down to enjoy your evening, first the newsreel and ~shorts, then an interval to look around and chat and then the main picturealtogether pleasant and relaxing. After-

wards, perhaps, you will have/coffee and hot buttered toast, while you wait for the tram. T is Saturday in greater London and the boy friend has suggested seeing a film in the West End, Passport to .Pimlico is your choice and he agreés but with no enthusiasm. There is a programme beginning at seven o’clock,

he telis you, so Uiat if you are there soon after six there is a chance you may get in. But you can see that he doesn’t

really think so. Anyway he 1s Calling £07 you about five o’clock. (This is the boy friend who lives just~ around the corner.) You reach Marble Arch just after six and stand dismayed. Long queues of people extend on both sides from the cinema doors. Two resplendent gentlemen in gold braid and uniform are controlling the crowd. Little notices’ stand at the head of the queues labelling them «3/2", "4/6", "6/-". You and the boy friend peer in at the slotted notice board just inside the doors which gives

the seat prices with a report on their fullness. "3/- queuing, 4/6 queuing, 6/- queuing, 9/seats" you tead, "We could go in the 9/-," the boy friend offers, but you, being a reasonable and honest girl, know that it is too much to expect any boy to pay 18/- for cinema seats. "No," you say firmly, "I don’t mind not seeing it. Let’s go down to Piccadilly and see what is on there," OU catch a bus to Piccadilly Circus and stand and look at all

the screaming notices that announce’ the magnificent, ‘sensational, stupendous, record-breaking guccesses that are on there. You notice, too,’ that a very large proportion of greater London’s population seems to have had the same idea as you. Outside each cinema the queues extend, rows and rows of patient people hoping —

to be allowed to pay their money that they may gaze inside. You drift from Piccadilly through to Leicester Square. You and the boy friend are silent now and he has rather a tense expression. You have lost interest and hope, Past the queues outside the Warner and the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Empire you wander towards the imposing facade of the Odeon. Here there is no queue and here also is "a gripping story of Western America." You are not impressed, but the boy friend’s expression lightéms. Fhe board inside reads, happily: "3/- standing, 4/6 seats, 6/seats, 9/- seats." "How about this?" he says, "Would you like to see this?" "Yes, I would," you reply, "I always like seeing"-you, gaze blankly at a poster"Susan Smith" you end triumphantly. So he buys tickets-4/6 you noteand you enter and set out on a long trek down to the front of the house. A torch flashes in front of you and lights up two empty seats in the middle of a row. You squeeze in over knees and feet, murmuring an apology. You sit back, relax and adjust your eyes to the nearness of the screen. The main picture in all its glorious technicolour seems well under way and it is some time before you can quite catch up with hero and plot. But it is pleasant watching, pleasant to feel that you have at last gained entry even if the film is not one that you otherwise would have bothered to see. It is good, too, to see that the boy friend has settled down happily and quite lost his air of strain. He has done his duty and taken you to the pictures. Now he is enjoying himself. HE "epic of American history" ends. The lights flicker up and there is a movement all around as people leave and others take their places. You have time to look around and admire the simplicity yet grandeur of the theatre. Over at the right, people are standing, propped agafhst the wall; the "3 /- standing" hoping for a seat. The lights go down and you watch now a newsreel and some shorts, a cartoon and a trailer of the next outstanding attraction that

will be presented at the Odeon. But you do not watch these things in peace. All down the row you are in, people are on the move, shuffling along over your feet and out, You slump down for a moment and then up again, with feet tucked well in out of the way, as new people fill the empty seats. Out and in, out and in, it seems that the whole populace of your row has changed at least three times. The main film starts again and you settle down to see what it was you missed. But there is no interest left; you saw the most of it, you know how it ends and somehow the beginning has lost its savour. The stage coach overturns, the heroine gallops off on a horse and this is where you came in. Together you scramble out of the row, over the feet, up the long aisle and out. It is 9.30, still dfylight, and you are amazed and a little stupefied and very hungry. Four o’clock, when you last had a cup of tea, seems a long way off. The boy friend suggests food gnd a drink and you turn thankfully into a little pub he knows and wash down dry corned beef sandwiches with a glass of brown ale. You can tell that the boy friend feels he has had a full and exciting day. You feel worn out and a little frustrated and there is still the journey home. At Piccadilly Circus underground you are carried along with the crowds, down the escalator, down the passages, down the stairs and on to a train, stil] standing. Two stops before your own there is an empty seat and you lean back exhausted. The boy friend looms over you, hanging On @& strap. "Next week," you think, "if he, asks me, I’ll suggest the local cinema. Even if we see a film we don’t want to, at least) it will only cost 1/9 or 2/9 for best seats and, with luck, we won't have to, queue." —