Celluloid memories

Celluloid Memories



The first thing I remember loving that truly loved me back was the movies. Why do I love them? I think it’s because for a few hours at least, you are transported to another place, into the lives of other people. When this happens none of the troubles in your life seem to matter. I grew up with a movie theater in my home. No, I am not a spoiled rich kid, this was long before videos, DVDs and home theater systems even existed. My father was a projectionist. His first job was at the Dorchester Adams Theater, which is where he met my mother. She was working at the candy counter and he was manning the projection booth. It is one of those stories that I have heard a million times, so many times, in fact, that I can almost see my skinny young dad walking my mother home.

While I was growing up, my father worked in an audio-visual lab at the New England Telephone Company, but he still owned a sixteen-millimeter projector, which he would set up periodically on the dining room table. I remember the thrill of the screen coming down; we would flip the living room sofa around to face it. I can still hear the gentle click of the celluloid passing by the projector lamp. The reels had to be changed three times during one showing.

There were very few places where you could get movies in those days, one was a place called Films incorporated in downtown Boston, where the cost of renting one would set you back about sixty bucks. I remember flipping through the catalog to search for our preferred titles; our family favorites were the schmaltzy musicals starring Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy. I have probably seen “Rose Marie” about a hundred times. I’ll never get sick of that famous scene where the star-crossed lovers sing, “When I’m calling you” across the lake to each other.

My father owned a set of Altec Lansing speakers that were just under the size of a Mack truck. He would plug the projector into the stereo giving us a booming theater experience. He bought the speakers while my mother was in the hospital suffering from kidney stones. He knew if he’d done it any other time the answer would have been no. When they arrived at the house, my mother took one look at them and said “Oh God, what do you expect me to do with those?” “I don’t know, throw some lamps on them.” was his reply. They sat in the living room for thirty or so years on either side of the couch. They made fine end tables. My father had a lot of cool stereo equipment, as you may have guessed, my mother spent a lot of time in the hospital.

Friday night was the night the Movie Club came. My parents’ friends would all show up and pitch in five dollars to cover the cost of the rental. After the flick they would all retire to the kitchen for coffee and pastry. On occasion, my brothers, sisters and I were able to invite our friends to come over and watch a movie. This made us very popular. On birthdays we were allowed to pick whichever movie we wanted. On my sister Chrissy’s birthday, she selected the drama “On the Waterfront” starring Marlon Brando. My brother Eddie chose an insipid Jerry Lewis number called “In the army”. After he subjected us to this picture at least five times over the weekend, I was ready to shoot myself. I should have expected this from a boy who considered Saturday morning wrestling matches and The Three Stooges high art. Still, we were treated to many wonderful classics and it’s fun to reminisce about the first time you saw “Mutiny on the Bounty” or “Singing in the Rain”.

My father once rented “2001: A Space Odyssey”, which was filmed in Cinemascope. He decided that the screen wasn’t big enough for such an epic, so he took a trip to the local hardware store and purchased several yards of the material they make window shades out of. The resulting screen was huge and covered the living room wall from end to end. It was cool as long as you didn’t mind the gray duct tape that held it in place. I thought this was rather a waste of time, since this movie, in my opinion, is one of the most boring pieces of cinema ever made. It is only beaten by “The Horse Whisperer”, which contains a scene where Robert Redford spends a whopping ten minutes squatting in a field with no dialog. My husband and I saw this movie at the Mendon Drive-In. I fell asleep for about fifteen minutes and when I woke up I asked what I had missed. “Nothing” Don replied. Enough said.

With the invention of video the home movie theater stopped. Eventually my father donated the projector to a private school, they probably never even used it because it was so outdated. I still love the movies, and have about three hundred videos in my collection. I can’t exactly say which one is my favorite because there are so many that I love. Even though it’s more convenient to watch them at home, I still enjoy going to the theater. There’s nothing like that huge screen, the lights going down, and the smell of hot buttered popcorn filling your nostrils. These days with two kids and inflation it still costs around sixty bucks. It doesn’t bother me. Hey, pass the popcorn will you.