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Topic: A Moving Experience
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David M. Ballew
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 113
From: Burbank, CA USA
Registered: Nov 2009
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posted 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.
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Ricky Daniels
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 587
From: London & Kent UK
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 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]](biggrin.gif) 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 ]
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![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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]](rolleyes.gif)
Graham
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
....anyway that was it, no more problems going to that wee cinema after that.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Although flying is the norm now, ship travel like the "Australis" was still cheaper to get from A-B than flying back then. 
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