Clips From A Life

Not infrequently, Miss Robinson would answer, ‘Not today, sir. Time of the month.’

I would consult my list again. ‘But, Miss Robinson, you said that two weeks ago.’

Like as not, she would fix me with that bold Elephant & Castle stare and answer, ‘So?’

Barely eighteen years old and wearing my father’s dinnersuit, I was aware – as were they all – that I did not know enough about the mechanics of the matter to pursue it. ‘All right, Miss Robinson. Excused ice cream tray.’

The Hyams brothers enjoyed their reputation as ‘the last of the great showmen’ and never neglected an opportunity to live up to it. Of the three, Mr Phil was the most flamboyant and forceful. A tall, heavy-set man with hunched shoulders, he always seemed to be in a hurry, glowering and snapping out his words, although at unexpected times he would suddenly bestow a surprisingly friendly grin. The eldest of the brothers who had given London its most spectacular suburban cinemas, he acted on snap decisions and hunches, most of which worked out as anticipated. And while there would be some fearsome scowling when they failed, he would still flash the occasional conspiratorial grin.

I liked him enormously and jumped at the chance of attending his 100th birthday party, at which he sat in a very fancy wheelchair attended by two trim, short-skirted nurses, like old Mr Grace in Are You Being Served?. When I commented on this, I was given the same grin as sixty-odd years ago.

One of Mr Phil’s dicta that he and his brothers managed to live up to most of the time was, ‘Always give an audience everything they expected to see plus something they weren’t expecting.’ Sometimes he would couch it as ‘If they’ve paid sixpence for their seat and you give them nine-pennorth of entertainment, you can hold your head up with anybody in any business.’

The other lesson he taught me was ‘Never be slowed down by a cup of tea.’ What this meant in practice was learning how to drink a cup of tea while it was still scalding hot, never wasting valuable time waiting for it to cool down.

Among the Gaumont State’s wondrous new technical amenities was the ‘rising mike’ system, a set of microphones positioned at various places underneath the stage floor. Operated by remote control, each of them could rise silently into view through a small hidden trapdoor to whatever heights had been preselected, then just as silently slide down out of sight again, leaving the floor of the stage as flat and smooth as before.

Soon enough, that inconspicuousness was to provide its own hazards. I recall one of the big dance bands that played a week there when I was a stagehand. For reasons I never discovered, the bubbly blonde vocalist who was one of the band’s main attractions missed the rehearsal call on Monday morning and arrived only just in time for the opening show in the afternoon.

She bounded on stage for her first number dressed in a long, full skirt and, smiling radiantly, stood directly over the little trap door through which the rising mike slid upwards …

In 1939 the next Royal Command Performance was due to take place in November and, for the first time, the Hyams brothers were being given a chance to produce it.

Their plans for it were typically ambitious. It would be staged at the Gaumont State and, with the intention of bringing Hollywood to Kilburn, Eddie Cantor would be flown over to compère a bill that would include Shirley Temple, a song-and-dance duet by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, comedy from Laurel and Hardy and a sketch by the cast of MGM’s enormously successful series of Andy Hardy films. In addition, there would be lavish numbers from four West End musicals and contributions from whoever was topping the bill at the Palladium.

For the finale, we would see Deanna Durbin, alone on a darkened stage and lit only by a pin-spot, singing ‘Ave Maria’, while 400 choirboys, each bearing a lighted candle, would descend from the upper circle to the stage on specially built ramps attached to the side walls of the vast auditorium.

That was the scene I was looking forward to most. But then, along came 3 September …

The Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, where I graduated to Assistant Manager in 1940, had one of the most elaborate interiors in the Hyams brothers’ cinema chain. The auditorium, seating 3,500, was resplendently Italianate, sumptuously decorated, the marble columns and pink mirrors extending to the waiting rooms and loos.

On the second Sunday after I arrived, the General Manager left me in sole charge, a responsibility I shouldered fairly adequately until we came to the stage show.

Sunday nights were Amateur Talent Night and by the second performance, it was plain that things were slipping beyond my control.

On the stage, a thin blonde girl was trying to get through ‘Alice Blue Gown’, to the accompaniment of Bobby Pagan at the organ, but the audience was becoming restive. As I watched helplessly from the back of the stalls, the whistles and barracking grew louder and the girl’s voice was becoming ever more quavery.

How it would have ended I don’t know, but I suddenly became aware that a bulky figure in a heavy overcoat and with a pushed-back black Homburg on his head was standing beside me. It was Mr Phil. ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’

I could only gesture, ‘I’m sorry. They just won’t – I don’t quite –’

But he was gone, striding down the aisle towards the steps that led up to the side of the stage. Mounting them, he came to the mike and motioned to the girl and Bobby for silence. As the noise from the audience died away, he stood centre-stage and, taking off his black Homburg, addressed them. ‘You all know who I am.’

Indeed they did. Mr Phil often took the opportunity to talk to an audience from the stage and sometimes he would stop by the sixpenny queue to solicit their opinions individually. Tonight, they gave him an encouraging round of applause. He stilled them.

‘I want to tell you something that happened here a few years back. I dropped into the Troc, as I often do, but this time I came in through the stage door. And as I came up the steps, I heard the sound of sobbing coming from one of the dressing rooms. I went to investigate and there sat a young girl crying her eyes out. I said, “What’s the matter?” and she said, “It’s them. That audience. I can’t do it. I just can’t face them. I’m sorry.”

‘So I said to her, “Listen. I’ll tell you about the Elephant & Castle audiences. Yes, they’re hard. They’re the toughest audience in the country. But let me assure you of one thing. However hard they are, they’re fair. They’ll give you a chance. Will you take my word?”

‘She nodded and, sure enough, she went on. And, ladies and gentlemen, may I tell you that girl’s name? That girl’s name was Gracie Fields.’

There was a respectful silence. Then from the audience came a yell of appreciation and a storm of applause. Mr Phil nodded to the girl, gave Bobby the go-ahead sign, descended the steps and rejoined me at the back of the stalls. The audience heard the girl out in a silence that was almost reverent and rewarded her with another vociferous round of applause.

When we had retired to the office to inspect the night’s takings, I ventured, ‘That was a wonderful story, Mr Phil. I’ll remember that.’

He gave me that sudden, unnerving grin. ‘Pack of lies.’

A prodigious amount of eating went on during the early evening programmes in thirties and forties suburban cinemas. Mothers with basketfuls of food would pick up their children from school and feed them their tea while they were all watching the movie. The consequent chomping, munching, slurping, rustling and muttered instructions was often so distracting to other patrons, someone at one of our weekly managers’ meetings suggested dividing the stalls into eating and non-eating areas, as some cinemas went on to do with smoking and non-smoking.

Nor did the families dutifully deposit their detritus in the rubbish bins provided, as happens (sometimes) with later generations. The result was that when the cleaners came in at the end of the day to vacuum the stalls’ carpeting, their first task was to pick up the overlay of eggshell, orange peel, apple cores, biscuit wrappers and the scattered assortment of bread crusts which, thanks to the surrounding darkness, children had found it so easy to leave uneaten. These were in addition to the ever-present topping of monkey nut shells, which always made walking between the empty rows sound like a giant eating celery.

It was, though, another measure of the way in which going to the pictures in those days was regarded as a family experience. Indeed, there were many mothers who used their local cinema as a crèche, a warm and safe place to deposit their young whenever there was a need to offload them for a few hours. I still treasure the memory of a small boy tugging at the sleeve of one of our tall Trocadero doormen to ask, ‘Please, Mister. Mum says what time is the big picture over three times?’

The great majority of men wore hats of one kind or another in those days, placing them carefully on their laps when they sat in the cinema. As it was also a time when cigarette smoking was soprevalent as to be practically compulsory, Frank Muir and I found great satisfaction many years later in combining the two habits for one of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches we wrote back then.

‘Something else I observed, Watson, was that our quarry had recently been to the cinema?’

‘Good Heavens, Holmes, how did you discern that?’

‘There was ash in the crown of his trilby.’

In forties cinema-going, there were more scenes of a sexual nature enacted in the audience than on the screen. B-movie scenes that were played in shadow or darkness were the most conducive to back-row action and I have sometimes wondered whether that might account for the prevalence of ‘film noir’ during that decade.

It was an era when the local picture-house was about the only place that offered affectionately disposed couples both warmth and darkness, particularly the back row, known among the GIs as Hormone Alley. None of the theatres I worked in had installed the special banquette-style ‘Couples Seats’, a purpose-built facility that was often a feature of North of England cinemas, but every usher and usherette on the Hyams Brothers circuit was instructed to exercise discretion when shining their torch along that area.

Among the more venturesome males of the period, a body of back-row folk-wisdom had gradually developed, some of its tips more helpful than others. Of the only two I remember, one was the initiatory manoeuvre that could be described as ‘slide of hand’, while the other strongly recommended beginning the proceedings by kissing the nape of her neck. Not only was it believed to promote arousal, it also allowed you to watch the picture at the same time.

When I arrived at the Trocadero, the General Manager was Bill Fowler, a large, easy-going man with huge hands and amused eyes. He was unfailingly forbearing with me, allowing me completely free rein except on one point. At five o’clock every evening he would go up to his office, lock the door and I had to make sure no one on any account disturbed him. At half past five I had to go round to the side-door of the adjoining Rockingham pub and collect ‘Bill Fowler’s usual’, a quarter bottle of Scotch. Concealing this under my jacket, I would return to the cinema and knock softly on his office door. It would open just wide enough for his hand to take the bottle from me.

At a quarter past six, he would reappear, in evening dress, freshly shaven, good-humoured and ready to take his place in the foyer to welcome incoming patrons. ‘I was born three double Scotches under par,’ was the only confidence I had from him about our nightly procedure. ‘If anything happens to the Rockingham, stay clear of me.’

As things worked out, I had been transferred to the Gaumont, Watford, by the time the Blitz started in earnest, the Rockingham got hit and the wartime whisky shortage began to bite. I can only report that Bill Fowler continued to turn up at all the managers’ weekly meetings, as good-humouredly imperturbable as ever and still surveying the world with an expression of private amusement.

It was an afternoon in June 1940 and a two-thirds full house at the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, was under my sole command, Bill Fowler having decided to take a day off. So when the telephone call came from Head Office I had to deal with it on my own.

The voice at the other end was both grim and urgent. ‘The news has just come through that France has surrendered. That means England is on its own, so you’d better let the audience know straightaway.’ I quickly alerted the projection room to stand by and hurried into the auditorium.

Making my way down the side of the stalls to the door leading into the back-stage area, I reached the organ pit and, from there, phoned projection to stop the film and bring up the houselights. Then, eighteen years old and dimly aware this was some kind of historic moment, I pressed the organ’s Up button and ascended with it to stage level.

A spotlight hit me as soon as I came into view. With a preliminary cough to make sure the mike was working, I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have to inform you that France has fallen and Britain is now fighting the War alone.’

I paused, uncertain how to continue. There was a moment of complete silence, then from somewhere at the back came a solitary shout that was immediately taken up by the rest of the audience. ‘Put the bleeding picture back on.’ As the shouting increased, I signalled the projection box, the houselights went down and the picture was resumed.

When, many years later, I described this incident to Dilys Powell, soon after she joined My Word!, her immediate response was totally characteristic. ‘What was the picture?’

Fortunately, its title was difficult to forget. ‘It was Old Mother Rileyin Society.’

She nodded understandingly. ‘Well, there you are,’ she said. ‘Arthur Lucan. He really was very good.’