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| David Farleigh - projectionist and Stuart Lucky - October 1996 |
Last night I went to my neighbourhood movie house, the Hollywood Theatre with my youngest daughter Hilary to see Lawrence of Arabia. It was impossible for me not to remember (nor did I want to) its connection with my wife Rosemary who died on December 9 2020. The immediate connection with the Hollywood is that the last film we saw there before it closed its doors in that distant past 20th century was the Wizard of Oz with our granddaughters Lauren and Rebecca.
But there was another connection that filled me with memories of living with Rosemary in Mexico City in1968 (I am not sure I was married to her yet as we might have been living in sin). The first film we saw together was Lawrence of Arabia and we saw it at the monumental (pronounce this in Spanish) Cine Diana which had state-of-the art sound and a huge wide screen.
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| That's West Side Story on the marquee which I saw at that movie house with Rosemary |
The second film we saw together was 2001: A Space Odyssey at the equally monumental Cine Latino.
2001: A Space Odyssey - John Lekich former Georgia Straight film critic.
Extremely famous match blowing scene.
Roger Ebert mentions the match blowing scene here.
But it was a third film that is more inside my brain and it is all about the delights of going to the movies. That expression “going to the movies” might come back to lovely usage if my Hollywood Theatre makes a go at it.
The third
film was Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Music Lovers. We had yet to move to our
new little house on Arboledas, Estado de México and we walked from our
apartment on the Zona Rosa to the nearby Cine Chapultepec (smaller and not so
monumental as the Diana and the Latino). The film with Richard Chamberlain
playing Tchaikovsky was rated “Adultos”. When we arrived to buy our tickets we
were asked to show ID. We were initially bothered but then pleasantly surprised
that we looked like teenagers! When I photographed Chamberlain in 1998 he laughed when I told him our experience.
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| Richard Chamberlain |
In 1996 I took a photograph of projectionist David Farleigh at the Hollywood Theatre. In the tradition of Cinema Paradiso I photographed him with a little boy, Stuart Lucky.
I can now reveal here that going to see a movie at the Hollywood is a first class entertainment to the fullest. The place has been lovingly restored and about a half of it features two amazing bars (they serve alcohol) and food and there are tables there where you can drink if you arrive early or you can sit with your Margarita (not your date by that name) while you watch the film.
