THE MAGIC BOX
Peter Marsh
Around a thousand years ago (or so it seems to me) I was a rewind
boy at a local cinema; in love with the movies, and as it happens,
one of the usherettes!
Len, the chief projectionist, ruled the box, or projection room.
Ex-army and, by definition, a stickler for "bull", Len was
undisputed ruler of his Kingdom. Woe betides any errant manager, or
anyone else, who should enter his beloved box uninvited. The wonderful
old Ross machines with their Peerless arcs had to be buffed up every
day before the show, mechanisms greased and oiled. All brass switchgear
was polished to perfection, and the floor spotless.
As the lowest form of pond-life in the hierarchy, I was given the
regular job of bringing up each newly-delivered film programme from
the foyer to the box, which in those days of a programme change twice
a week and a separate Sunday programme was no mean feat, believe me.
One Thursday morning, I arrived to find the double feature for Thurs/Fri./Sat
plus a double feature for Sunday, plus cans of newsreel and trailers
being unloaded from the distributor's van.
A feature film usually consisted of 5 cans, each containing 2000ft
of film; the cans being transported inside a fireproof steel container,
and the whole thing very heavy! Anyhow, it was my responsibility to
carry this lot on several trips up to the first floor, through a narrow
door and up a winding stone staircase to the box at the top of the
building. No problem - I'd done it many times. Oh, yeah?
This particular day just as I entered the box with the final container,
I somehow tripped and managed to drop it, luckily not on my foot!
To this day, I can recall every last crash as it bounced down the
stone steps. Worse still the container sprang open, disgorging the
cans of film inside. Wait, there's more………
As it hit the bottom step, the lid came off one of these cans. Can
you imagine the centre dropping out of a 2000ft roll of film? It was
coiled everywhere, the show was due to start in about an hour and
the chief was due in at any moment. Don't panic!
Needless to say, Len was not amused - in fact, I got a right b*****ing!
Luckily, it was one of the forthcoming Sunday films so I had plenty
of time to clean and re-spool it, but it did mean I missed my date
with that usherette. Oh the glamour of the magic box.
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