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I suppose it all started with The Towering Inferno (1974) starring Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and William Holden.
In those days Ballinasloe, my hometown, had two movie theatres – the one nearer to my home was The Aisling. The other one a little further up the street was The Central Cinema. But it all happened on Society Street – I like to believe I live on an extension of Society Street although I live 2 kilometres away. It’s the connection to High Society (1956), Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and all that.
Anyways, all the children in my family, excluding the baby, were going to The Towering Inferno (1974) in The Aisling one Friday night and of course for some reason I thought I was going as well. My darling late mother in the end said no, so I went off to my room to cry. Sorry mum.
But in the ‘80s I got other opportunities such as seeing Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young in Blade Runner (1982) in The Central Cinema, which was a real treat when I suppose I should really have been studying.
I’m back in Ballinasloe a long time now, after many years studying and working in Dublin. My two cinemas of yesteryear are long closed down but a new one opened in 2023. It was really in Dublin though that my movie theatre experience really got going. I usually went to the movies a couple of times a week. Two mars bars purchased outside and a super large coke with straw inside were my only companions. What a loner.
I went to any movie of merit. I have to admit that my favourite movie theatre was the now-demolished Screen on College Green. Nice and compact and on one occasion in the ‘80s I went there to three movies one after the other on the same day – a life in movie theatre highlight. Also, does anyone remember the movie theatre down behind the Parnell Monument on O’Connell Street? I was one of those in the queue of 17 to see 1984 (1984) in 1984 with John Hurt, Richard Burton and Suzanna Hamilton.
But it was a movie from Denzel Washington, Fallen (1998), that I remember the most for some strange reason. The movie itself was about how, just with a simple glancing touch of a person walking down the street, evil could be passed from one person to another.
Amongst the movie-goers on that occasion I could see a guy sitting there in full blare of the screen, who I had seen around Dublin quite a lot and who I could well imagine to be evil. He seemed to be enjoying the movie a bit too much. It goes without saying that I wasn’t looking at myself in a mirror in the dark, as I’m the nicest person in the world.
Just made watching a scary movie in a movie theatre that much scarier I guess.
