Clubs

I’ve already mentioned the film shows at the working-mens clubs in #24 of this series, they were extremely popular and the right film could fill a large venue and the more crowded the hall, the happier the manager(s) of the club. Word of the cash in the coffers of some of those clubs must have spread as we would often find ourselves inundated with requests for film shows and would have to turn them down, we just couldn’t fit any more into our schedule. Horror and Kung Fu were always a sure bet, but ‘The Sound Of Music’ made several return visits and Derek and Johnny even worked out a sound system were we could attempt to re-produce those rumbling sub notes for the film ‘Earthquake’. Some clubs would ask for occasional ‘Adults only’ programme of two features, but these ceased after a film we had brought back from a London trip the previous day, had turned out to have been a print used for shows in a cinema club in Soho and still contained some rather explicit sequences. The manager of the working-mens club had made an apology during the intermission and made a personal guarantee that this sort of film would not be shown again. The audience had booed him off the stage! Derann had as many as three teams working up to four or even five nights a week, with two workers in a team. Each was equipped with two projectors, quality speakers and a tape deck, which would all link up to produce a  professional show, with adverts, trailers, shorts if needed and changeovers with the aid of a couple of beer mats. I was soon part of Dereks team, John headed a second and Colin headed a third. Some clubs, like the Longbridge Social Club or the Bloxwich Memorial Club, could seat six or seven hundred and the bars would often have extra staff laid on to cope with the extra influx, some clubs even went to the trouble of installing their own screen, which could save us as much as 20 minutes when setting up. This isn’t to say there weren’t some shows we would never forget and for the wrong reasons, projection or exciter lamps popping or projectors breaking down mid-reel, speakers dying on us and even  worse, a member of the audience stumbling while returning from bar with a full tray of drinks and bringing both projectors down!! Derek would book with all the major 16mm distributors, often calling in with his bookings while in London and it was on one of those visits I met Tom Kenny head of Columbia/ Warner 16mm rentals. I was able to arrange a special deal with Tom and one Christmas I had on hire a quantity of 50’s flicks for my own enjoyment. ‘Beast with a Million Eyes’, ‘Beyond the Time Barrier’, ‘Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow’, ‘Voodoo Woman’ and ‘The She Creature’ were just a few of my viewing pleasures that Christmas. With the introduction of large screen Plasma TV’s and then video projectors the interest in ‘Film’ shows waned and by the mid 80s they had all but dried up.