Cinema (2)

The Market, Melton Mowbray, 1912. Courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Interviewer: What was the cinema like safety wise?

Mr Brownlow: Aha! Well, the people inside were safe enough but I wouldn’t say that the operator was particularly, because the films in those days were, in this old Palace, they only had one machine, one operating machine, and it used to have the little habit of sticking in what they called the ‘gate’, well that’s where the film runs by the lens you see. And once it stuck like that, the intense heat set the film on fire you see, and that showed up on the screen that did, and all the flames on the screen. But they had shutters up in the operating box, and they pulled the shutter down with a bang you see, so you couldn’t see the flames. Course they had no film going on for a long time after that so we just had to play until it was mended, and then they went off again you see. Well that used to happen quite regularly that did.

Interviewer: What did the audience do?

Mr Brownlow: They never bothered, they got used to it in the end. It did happen quite a lot.

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