Seeing this still of Stanley Baker and Michael Caine from Zulu reminded me of how picture going has changed since I first saw that film. I don’t get to the cinema (see, I even call it cinema now, not “the pictures”) much these days.  Everything I want to see seems to be timed to start too late or too early to fit in with family requirements.

Which brings me to how I first saw Zulu in the ABC on Leyton High Road in 1964. I don’t know how things worked in the US but at that time in England the system was this.

A film would be released and would show Up West in one of the prestigious London cinemas for several weeks after its premier. There were two distributors who usually had a cinema each in most London boroughs, either an ABC or an Odeon.  There were other names but the Gaumont, Coliseum or Roxy would come under one or the other distribution umbrella. Each week 2 films would leave the west end and go on general release, starting with London north of the river, for 1 week only. The next week those films spent a week in London south of the river and North London got 2 new films. After south London the films were shown in other parts of the country. No multi screen complexes or film season events.

The cinemas operated on a system of continuous showings of 2 films the A and the B, in between them was Pathe News and adverts, some local.

After the film have fish and chips at Alf’s Fish bar – only 2 minutes from this theatre.

These local adverts were only discontinued about 2 years ago in favour of national syndicating. Shame.

Nobody knew what time the main film would start, so you got to the cinema whenever was convenient, started watching and left once the programme started to repeat itself.

We arrived about an hour and a half into Zulu and the Battle of Rourkes Drift was in full swing. It was standing room only, up the back, and as soon as anyone left (“Come on dear, this is where we came in”) there was a jostle for the vacated seats. I can’t remember anything about the B film, then we watched Zulu from the beginning. And I wanted to watch the end again, to see the whole thing in context, although I couldn’t have explained it then in those terms. But my parents wanted to get home. And having been watching films in odd bits all their lives they couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to leave.  I eventually saw the film in its entirety on television years later; sadly it has not been repeated recently.

The one time I was indulged was with The Fighting Prince of Donegal.  My mother was in hospital so Dad and I couldn’t see it when it was on nearby. As a special treat Dad looked up cinemas the other side of the river (another world in those days) and we travelled across to Stockwell to see it, and I got to watch it from beginning to end. I really enjoyed it and wondered if people could own films to watch whenever they liked, if they were rich enough. 40 years later people can own films. Unfortunately The Fighting Prince of Donegal, despite being a Disney film with a good cast has never been released on DVD.  It was released for a brief period on video for the rental market only, which I missed. Very occasionally a copy comes up on Ebay, and bidding always goes beyond what I am willing to risk on elderly VHS.

If anybody from Disney reads this please release it on DVD, Susan Hampshire and Peter McEnery are still working and have a good fan base.

Please.