8mm Forum: A Moving Experience

This is topic A Moving Experience in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on March 13, 2006, 08:37 PM:

A long long time ago I emigrated to this beautiful country New Zealand thanks Trever your tax money paid for me, [Smile]

The passage was on a Greek ship which had a small cinema it was quite unique and situated at the bow (the sharp bit) and I remember a large sign in it No Smoking! No Drinking !No Eating! etc etc in fact No Everything would have been more appropriate. Well this small cinema had a projectionist and he wore thick glasses, when watching a movie you often had to shout FOCUS and after a while SOUND and so it would go on. I dont think he liked that, on leaving Cape Town we encountered a storm in the Indian Ocean and for a good three days everyone was thrown around it was quite an experience. In the cinema the light and heavy feeling you got in your seat was really something as the bow went Up and Down, Up and Down, Up and Down, getting sea sick yet? well many were! Often I would find myself the only one left as everybody else had had enough, After a few weeks on this old tub we all became very juvenile and tried to sneek sweets in under the watchfull eye of our projectionist who seemed to waiting to come down on us given half the chance. The cabin I was stuck in was down in the stern (the blunt bit) and because of its proximity to the propeller everything shook and vibrated and for those three days in particular everything in the cabin landed rolling on the floor, the only reason I didn't become part of that mess was that I jammed my lifejacket into the bunk in a way to stop me rolling out in a vague attempt to get a few hours sleep. Anyone else had unusual Cinematic Experience? [Roll Eyes]

Graham

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 01, 2012, 08:54 PM:

Great thing the internet [Smile]

just been watching some you-tube videos of the old "SS Australis" that made me remember another incident when I was just leaving the cinema [Roll Eyes]

this happened on the return trip on the old girl heading across the Pacific in late 1974.

Anyway, [Roll Eyes]

I had just left at the end of the movie and just gone through the door, when I saw the glint [Eek!]

of a knife wizzing past me. Two youths were having a go at each other, and I just happened to walk into the middle of it. [Eek!]

I got a bit of a a fright of this knife close to me so I grabbed the wrist of the person doing the lunge and with my other hand I went for his throat and got a good grip. I pushed this guy really hard against the bulkhead and took the knife of him.

I dont know what was going on betweem them, but told the one on the recieving end of all this to beat it. I folded up the flick knife and told him that if I saw him again I would get the officer of arms...who like me was Scottish [Cool]

....anyway that was it, no more problems going to that wee cinema after that.

Ah..memories.

Posted by Wayne Tuell (Member # 1689) on November 01, 2012, 09:55 PM:

[Big Grin]

Couple good reads Graham, thanks for taking the time to post them. [Big Grin]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 03, 2012, 01:26 PM:

Thanks Wayne

I was lucky to get the chance to do the round trip, when you are young it was a great way to travel. We really did some weird stuff and do remember once being dragged into the girls cabin where they dressed me up with bra and all for a visa-versa night [Eek!]

. Cant imagine doing that kind of thing on land. [Wink]

Although flying is the norm now, ship travel like the "Australis" was still cheaper to get from A-B than flying back then.

The modern cruise liner would be much much more of a floating hotel than the "Australis" was, but its nice to see that today there is still a place for passenger ships.

For anyone interested in ships, there is an excellent series of dvds out called "The Liners" produced by Rob McAuley, its an Aussie production with some amazing footage.

Graham. [Smile]

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on November 03, 2012, 01:47 PM:

It always seems a more refined way to travel Graham,and as you have shown,a chance for a bit of fun on board, as the journey is
part of the adventure.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 03, 2012, 04:27 PM:

It certainly was an adventure. [Smile]

When leaving Southampton in the summer of 1973, it was an amazing sight to see all the streamers and toilet rolls flying around as the tugs slowly pulled her out from the pier, for so many its a very emotional final moments. My father came to see me off. I think it was to make sure I did not change my mind [Big Grin]

and it wasen't until years later that he told me, that he went for a coffee and when he came back the ship was gone [Roll Eyes]

and so was I.

I have often told the young kids I have worked with over the years to travel and see the world and do it when you are young. They say travel broadens the mind and it does, when visiting some places you soon realize how lucky we are in so many ways.

Graham.

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on November 03, 2012, 06:55 PM:

Graham, I only wish I had such colorful moviegoing experiences as you. Thank you so much for posting those, and please post more if any come to mind.

Now, as for myself, during my high school and junior college years, I worked as a projectionist at several local theaters.

Once, during a packed screening of Road House in a relatively small auditorium, we got complaints that a young couple sitting in the middle of the house were becoming a bit too randy in their behavior. The ushers who went in to take care of the situation swore up and down that they found the pair engaged in full-on coitus! Needless to say, they were tossed out.

Another time in the same theater, I was pitching in as an usher while my pal Steve was assigned to the projection booth. Now, Steve was always a bit too interested in flirting with the concessionaires, so he wasn't always upstairs minding the machines. Anyway, a customer came out to the lobby to complain about a "bug" on one of the screens.

Steve and I shot each other an amused look. Probably just a bit of dust in the gate.

I heard Steve shouting from the booth and ran up after him. By the time I arrived, the shouts had dissolved into near-helpless laughter. Sure enough, a cockroach had somehow crawled into the light path and died! And there it was, 20 feet tall, blocking out 80% of Life with Mikey or whatever cheap picture we had playing at the time.

On a third occasion at a different theater, some ushers came into the booth to find me. The manager was away for some reason, and I was the only available authority figure, I guess. Come to find out, there were numerous complaints about a customer wearing a large Bowie knife in a holster. He was refusing all requests to remove it, and the ushers had no idea what to do.

I went downstairs and easily found the man standing in the lobby, waiting for his show. I approached him and asked him to please take off the knife. He politely refused, citing South Carolina law: He was well within his rights to wear a knife on his person, so long as it was not concealed.

This is where I put my powers of diplomacy to the ultimate test. I told him I shared his conviction that he was well within his rights, and that by law he could wear that knife most anywhere he pleased. But I pointed out there were many gentle souls about who got scared at the sight of any knife, even in the hands of a good man. Would he please mind, as a personal favor to me, taking off the knife and putting it out in his truck? (Somehow I just knew without being told that this man must own a large pickup truck.)

Sure enough, he smiled, nodded, took off the knife, and carried it out to the parking lot. He came back in to watch his movie, and as far as I know, there were no further problems.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 04, 2012, 02:05 AM:

Thanks David, [Smile]

that was great reading. [Smile]

Graham.

Posted by Joe McAllister (Member # 825) on November 04, 2012, 11:02 AM:

In my younger days I would often dress up in clothes that I hoped made me look older so that I could get into Horror films which usually carried an X certificate meaning you had to be 16 plus to enter. One place that I frequented was the Essoldo Stepney that would often show old Horror films in double bills on a Sunday.
On one particular visit, to see "Pit and the Pendulum" plus "Attack of the Crab Monsters" I was sitting in the circle when I was joined in my row by a Policeman wearing his long coat and pointy hat. My heart started to race thinking he was trawling for underage viewers like me and I would be in trouble. However a moment later he was joined by an usherette and they moved to an empty row and "got busy" very soon to disappear onto the floor. I was torn between watching the movie and going for a peek, but cinema won.

Posted by Ricky Daniels (Member # 95) on November 11, 2012, 04:34 AM:

Hi Graham,

I saw many films on board a ship when I was a kid on a schools 'educational' Mediterranean cruise back in 1972. One I recall well was a Childrens Film Foundation film set aboard a ship named the SS Uganda. We kids had a laugh watching it sat in the little theatre come cinema on board our ship called, guess what? SS Uganda! Yes the film was shot aboard our ship, what a riot we had in the cinema, all my classmates had sea sickness as we cruised up the Adriatic in rough conditions. I don't suffer with motion sickness so took great pleasure in faking sea sickness several times during the screening to the point where my classmates would leap in the air whenever I faked spewing up! Such fun! [Big Grin]

A good few years after that, the ship was commandeered and refitted to service as a hospital ship during the Falklands War and was later decommissioned.

The CFF film was All At Sea (1970), I think there's a clip on YouTube.

I made good use of my Brownie Standard 8mm clockwork camera (still have the footage) and took the opportunity to visit the projectionist too and he was running 2 older grey box type Bell and Howell 16mm projectors with change-overs, I was hooked and the rest is history!

Best,
Rick

[ November 12, 2012, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Ricky Daniels ]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 11, 2012, 07:28 PM:

Those are good stories everyone [Smile]

Ricky, do they still do school cruises or is it now a thing of the past?. I had a read on Google today of the "SS Uganda", it was very interesting, and reading about it made me try to remember an article I read long ago about one such school trip which included a visit to Germany just before the war. The thoughts of the kids that went, I must see if I can find it.

Regards Graham.

Posted by Ricky Daniels (Member # 95) on November 12, 2012, 05:45 AM:

Hi Graham,

I believe 'educational cruises' are a thing of the past but I'm happy for anyone to prove me wrong. As I recall the S.S.Uganda had a sister ship also doing the cruises but it's name escapes me.

Good times [Wink]

Best,
Ricky

I just came across a website that names the S.S.Ugandas sister ship, it's the S.S. Nevasa, what a wonderful thing the inernet is... sometimes!

http://www.ssuganda.co.uk/educ/index.html

[ November 13, 2012, 02:30 AM: Message edited by: Ricky Daniels ]

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on November 16, 2012, 09:56 PM:

Educational cruises are still with us!We went around the world on a boat in 2009.Whilst sailing Auckland to Panama,I attended regular lecture/demos on "the history of the cinema" and "the history of the musical".A very pleasurable way to learn [Wink]

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