Smoking at the cinema

The good old days... I always used to sit on the right hand side so I could have a cig if the film was boring. And purposely blow my smoke to the left just to annoy the straights ;)
 
I remember those little round ashtrays in the arms of the chairs. The haze of smoke wafting around the projector light.

The ABC cinema in Streatham used to have a licenced bar on the balcony just outside the entrance to the cinema. Everybody used to smoke in those days. From the queue to buy the ticket to the seat in front of the screen. Even the usherettes used to puff away.

The good old days!!:)
 
I remember going to see the film version of On The Buses there! I remember having to queue for about half an hour to get in! Could you imagine a film version of My Family causing huge queues! No best not to even imagine such a thing!
 
hmm cant smoke anywhere now but it would be good i think,

worse part of our cinema is all them beer adverts at the begining for half hour and then you cant drink, had me crying with all them adverts! lol
 
I worked in cinemas during that era. Yes, I recall the 'split seats' technique, smoking on the left. but oddly enough in the 60's and 70's you didn't really get many complaints about it.

And back in the 60's when it was smoking everywhere, you could barely see the film through the hazo of smoke sometimes...but yet it seemed quite normal at the time.

Then in the mid to late 80's the whole health thing about cigarettes kicked off, and the complaints started to rise, so the cinema companies just decided to go with the flow and stop it. There was some resistance, of course, I remember back then it was not actualy against the law to smoke in cinemas and public places, it was only the rule of the premises. You could not actually stop someone smoking, but of course you could reserve the right to remove them from the premises,

However...one trailer that did take me by surprise on that video was the British Film Year one.

I doubt anyone on the planet remembers that one!

I think it was 1985, and it was an attempt to promote British movies. There were various special screenings of new British films, and there was a commitee made up of various industry people, including some cinema managers...of which I was one! I recall we used to meet in a room above what was then the Leicester Square Theatre (now the Odeon West End...I think).

The only screening I can remember is one we did for a movie called She'll Be Wearing Pink Pyjamas, with Julie Walters. It was about a group of middle aged women bonding on an outward bound course in the Lake District. I recall we showed it on a Sunday morning, and we tied lots of pink balloons to the bannisters.

Damned if I can remember anything else about the venture, as I recall I don't think it was particularly successful.
 
As tv series spinoRAB go, the OTB movies were actually not too bad.

I can still get a laugh out of them now. Different times and attitudes, but you have to take that into consideration and just go with it.

Holiday On The Buses is one I remember fondly, largely because in the scene where they drive over the bridge and they lose the suitcases in the river, it was filmed just next to Rhuddlan Castle in Rhyl, North Wales - and as a kid we used to go to a caravan site right next to it called Sun Valley holiday camp. We went to see the film at the Astra in Rhyl one summer, and were astounded to see it up on the big screen! It still brings back happy memories of summer holidays in Rhyl in the seventies as a young kid when I see it now.
 
Similarly, I liked 'Holiday....' because we used to go to the Pontins holiday camp they filmed at in Prestatyn.

The 'On The Buses' spin off films may be the only example of film length versions that are superior to the original show. Not hard in the case of 'On The Buses', but still, it's something you can say for them.
 
I wish I could find the animated intro that Showcase used to use in the late 80's/early 90's. He looked like an old school friend of mine.
 
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