Movie Night

By Ben Robicheau ~ brobicheau@cogeco.ca

Nowadays, if anyone mentions movie night, they are most likely talking about an evening slouched on the living-room couch in front of the TV with a bag of microwave popcorn and a rented DVD. Not long ago, a night at the movies meant something a little grander. It was more of a community social event, a chance to dress up a bit and go out to the local cinema where you would meet up with family, friends and neighbours to spend a couple of hours together lost in a big-screen adventure.

Almost every town had a movie theatre, and for many people, taking in the latest film was a regular event. Even small communities like the ones on the Islands had theatres; the one in Westport was built sometime in the forties by Bernard Gower and Holland Titus, but by the time I became aware of it in the fifties, it had been sold to Gerald Strickland. The official name of the theatre was The Star although I don’t think many people were aware of this fact since I have only ever heard it referred to as “Gerald’s Hall”.

Since it was right next to the school; more or less where the fire hall is now; the theatre was a familiar building to us kids. Because the 155 seat wooden structure was built on posts with a slant from front to back to accommodate the sloping floor, the front part of the building was about four feet off the ground. This provided a handy shelter for the younger students to go under to get out of the weather while waiting for the school doors to open; and for the older students it was a place safely off school property to discreetly take their recess smoke break.

Although I was well acquainted with the outside of the building, I didn’t see the inside until I was nearly ten years old. Since Saturday night was the only night the theatre was open, and my father had to work in the store every Saturday night, we had never been able to go to a movie. I don’t recall if it was my idea or my father’s, but I do remember the excitement I felt when he presented me with thirty-five cents one Saturday night and told me I was old enough to go to the movie by myself. In addition to the money, he also gave me a flashlight to help avoid the mud puddles on my way home after the movie.

I felt quite grown up as I joined the dozen or so other movie patrons on the high steps in front of the theatre doors. We must have been a bit early because while we were standing there expecting the doors to open any moment, Mr. Strickland came walking down the Back Road with the evening’s film under his arm. After making his way through the scant crowd to unlock the door, he kept us waiting for another fifteen minutes or so while he set up the film and made the necessary technical preparations. Finally the doors were flung open and our small group of theatre-goers filed in to see Gerald sitting in a little booth with a roll of tickets in his hand and a display of potato chips and chocolate bars laid out beside him. Admission turned out to be twenty-five cents, which left me with a dilemma; did I spend my extra dime on two bags of Scottie’s chips at a nickel each or one chocolate bar at eight cents? I decided on the chips.

I cautiously made my way into the auditorium juggling two bags of chips, my theatre ticket; which I thought I had to keep ready in case someone - I don’t know who - asked to see it; the flashlight and my coat. I had just got settled in my seat when it happened, that thrilling moment when the houselights dim and the projector light hits the silver screen. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a whole lot about the movie other than it was a western of some sort. Just as the image of galloping horses hit the screen, I dropped the flashlight on the floor and it came on! I quickly grabbed it from where it had rolled under the seat in front of me and tried to turn it off, but it wouldn’t turn off! After a couple of minutes of fiddling with the switch while trying to ignore mounting complaints about the distracting light from those around me, I gave up on turning it off and attempted to hide it by shoving it in my pants pocket. This turned out to be very uncomfortable, plus I felt a little conspicuous sitting there with the front of my pants glowing, so I just wrapped it up in my coat and placed it on the seat beside me.

Just as I was starting to get interested in the movie, the flashlight fell off the seat and rolled down the floor for a second time, splashing light all over the auditorium and onto the screen! I quickly retrieved it and wrapped it up again. Over the next half-hour or so I spent more time fussing with the flashlight and worrying about disrupting the movie than actually watching what was on the screen, in the end I resolved the problem by taking the flashlight apart and putting the pieces in my pockets. Again, this was kind of uncomfortable, but at least this time my pants weren’t lit up! When the movie finally ended night had fallen, and since I couldn’t figure out how to put the flashlight back together, I ended up walking home in the pitch dark, clinking and rattling along with my pockets full of batteries and flashlight bits and pieces and trying to avoid stepping in unseen mud puddles.

This turned out to be my one and only visit to the Westport movie theatre, TV had recently arrived on the Island and within the next few months, attendance at the theatre dropped off to the point where it was no longer feasible to stay open.

Over in Freeport, with a bigger population to draw from, Lloyd Blackford managed to keep The Nu-Era Theatre going for a few more years. When I was thirteen or so I went to a Jerry Lewis movie there with my friend Jimmy. The Nu-Era was bigger and fancier than the Westport theatre; it could seat 200 and even had a balcony. In fact, since several people had warned me not to sit right below the balcony because of the tendency of people to “accidentally” spill drinks and drop various items over the edge onto the customers below, we decided it was probably safer to watch the show from the second level seats.

Again, this was the only opportunity I would have to attend a movie in this theatre, sometime in the early sixties it closed, although the attached dance hall would continue on for several more years. Unlike the now long-gone Westport theatre building, Lloyd’s Hall still survives; in the seventies it was bought by The Royal Canadian Legion and lives on today as the Carpiquet Branch.

A few years after the Freeport theatre closed, someone at Islands Consolidated School came up with the idea of starting a Cinema Club; they would put on one movie a month for the public and hopefully make some money for the Student Council. The first presentation was to be the Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt. On the big night there was a pretty good turn-out, most of the plastic chairs in the school auditorium were filled and the canteen was doing a brisk business, everything was looking good, maybe people were interested in going out to the movies again...then the film started and it all went downhill from there.

I don’t know if the problem was with the poor condition of the film, the inexperience of the projectionist or the school’s rickety old Bell & Howell projector; probably a combination of all three; but just a few minutes into the movie, the film jammed up and the lights had to be brought back up while it was fixed. This continued to happen on a regular basis throughout the rest of the film, the projector jamming every few minutes and the lights going on and off like a slow-motion strobe light. Among film buffs, Bullitt is considered to contain one of the most exciting and suspenseful car chase scenes in movie history. Unfortunately for the audience that night, having it interrupted every few minutes made it very hard to appreciate the drama.

There were a couple more movies in the following months, and although they both went off quite smoothly, the audience, maybe turned off by their first experience, quickly dwindled and the Cinema Club was forced to quietly follow in the footsteps of the Star and the Nu-Era, bringing a final close to the era of film on the Islands.