Throwback Thursday: Ticket scalpers who cashed in on movies 

Oh, going to the movies, going to the flicks, it’s a rich treasure trove of memories for everybody, apparently - going right back to the heyday of Laurel and Hardy.

You will that Throwback Thursday reader George Harding mentioned a scene from one of their films that happened to be the very first one he ever saw, and asked if anyone knew which one it was. Readers weren’t long in coming forward with the title, and Tom Dennehy was one of the first last week, identifying it as The Flying Deuces.

Not far behind was Dermot Knowles, who wrote in: “As always, your Throwback Thursday column is a wonderful trip down memory lane, misty water-coloured memories of ‘the way we were’, to quote La Streisand. In these dark and damp February days, it’s a treasured pick-me-up.

“Your contributor, George Harding, has a lovely memory of the great Laurel and Hardy and is wondering about a scene from one of their films where a shark fin slits Ollie’s pants seat.

“I can put George out of his misery and reveal that the movie was The Flying Deuces, made in 1939. When it did the rounds of Cork cinemas in the ’40s and ’50s, this film would have played as the lower half of a double bill ing the main feature. But it’s a masterpiece of physical comedy and comedic timing, and is now rightly regarded as a classic and a minor masterpiece of the genre.

“George might it as the one where Hardy dies at the end but is reincarnated as a horse!”

Dermot continues: “By then, Laurel and Hardy weren’t considered headliners, only acts. Their genius, much like Van Gogh and his paintings, only came to light when they ed away, Oliver ‘Babe’ Hardy in 1957, and Stan Laurel in 1965.

“Their heyday was really in the ’20s and ’30s. By the mid-1940s, unfortunately, they had run out of energy and inspiration.

“The old music hall joke, ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard’ certainly applies here. Laurel was the inspirational genius of the duo. He was the one who wrote much of the scripts and worked out the timing of the gags.

“He started as a child performer and was in fact at one time in the same troupe as another genius of comedy, Charlie Chaplin.

“Their visit to Cork in 1953 is well documented in the Echo and Examiner files. When they arrived in Cobh, thousands turned out to give them the warmest welcome. The bells of St Colman’s Cathedral even rang out the strains of their theme anthem, The Cuckoo Clock. Babe Hardy was so overcome with emotion that the tears ran down his cheeks.

“Uniquely for comedy teams, Stan and Ollie never fell out with each other. They complemented each other perfectly, and remained lifelong friends.

“When Stan ed away, the great Buster Keaton was overheard at the graveside saying ‘I wasn’t the funniest, Chaplin wasn’t the funniest, this man was the funniest.’ A fitting epitaph.”

Dermot also has other memories to share.

“Your photo in last week’s column capturing De Assembs brought back so many memories.

“The picture is dated 1967 and De Assembs, or, to give it its proper title, The Assembly Rooms, closed its doors around 1965.

“In a previous contribution to Throwback Thursday, I wrote about being taken to the Assembs as a child when the entrance fee was 7d, the cheapest cinema in town then when the going rate to the posher Savoy was a bob.

“So what if the seating was long rock-hard timber benches? We were well used to that fare at Mass every Sunday, weren’t we?

“Great value, and always a double bill plus Tom & Jerry. Happy days, boy!

“The side of that photo shows the sweet shop (now an auctioneers) at the entrance to the cinema. I the shop assistant being a very old lady (everyone over 45 looks ancient through the eyes of a seven-year-old) who made up white paper bags of sweets ( ju jubes, bulls eyes, apple drops, etc.) which could be purchased for thruppence. So entrepreneurial.

“I often wonder why these tiny, inconsequential childhood vistas are so lodged in my subconscious after all these decades when sometimes I cannot yesterday. Perhaps a scribe like yourself, Jo, might have an answer?”

I think it has to do with the age we were, Dermot, when life hadn’t jammed quite so many events and experiences into our short existence. These occasions – a visit to the sweetshop, to the cinema – were red-letter ones and ed vividly forever.

“Incidentally,” adds Mr Knowles, “The Flying Deuces is freely available on YouTube, so George Harding and your many readers can wallow in its timeless delights. Highly recommended. None of your Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple, or any of the other streamers and their conveyor belt rubbish can compare.”

Then he adds a P.S.

“Recently, you published a photo of my old school principal, Joey Kerrigan, effortlessly scaling up a tree when he was in his nineties. If I had not seen the photographic evidence I simply would not have believed it.

“What diet was this man on? He made Bear Grylls look like a boy scout who failed his merit badge for cooking. Astonishing.

“The word ‘legend’ is tossed around so carelessly today. Every Premier League footballer who scores a goal that’s deflected off his rear is deemed a legend. In Joey’s case, however, the word is so apt.

“What a character. When Cork city had so many legendary characters, Joey was at the top of that pyramid.”

I am very touched by your tribute to my father, Dermot. Even as kids, obediently (if wearily) following him at full speed through muddy fields, across rivers, up mountains, we sometimes wondered what he was on to give him that inexhaustible energy.

I will tell you this truthfully: he is a hard act to follow.

And the equally inexhaustible Mr Knowles uncovers a hitherto unrevealed secret scheme practised by friends back in those heady days of picture-going.

“You wrote, recently, about the practice of pre-booking cinema tickets for Cork cinemas in the ’50s and into the early ’60s, and it brought back memories of a little enterprise my brother-in-law Joe and his pals engaged in back in the golden days of the Cork picture-going era.

“It was indeed the norm to pre-book for a Sunday night at the flicks. Now you must , Sunday Night was THE night to go to the pictures. Half Cork, it seems headed into town to catch a show, and every cinema bar none was packed to the rafters, so it was an obvious step for the cinema managers to think of offering pre-booking.

“I’m not sure when the practice was first introduced, but I assume it dates back to the ’30s or early ’40s.

“As my brother-in law (who sadly ed away recently) related his story to me, the tickets for Sunday night went up for sale on Friday, and it was first come, first served, two per customer, so he would do the rounds of the cinemas and buy up as many pairs of tickets as his funds allowed.

“Come Sunday night, he was in Pana early in the evening selling his wares, especially to all the courting couples who lucked out on getting into De Pav, The Capitol, Savoy, etc. At a nice mark-up of course.

“The majestic Savoy naturally had the most sought-after tickets. They were as prized as a Garth Brooks ticket to the Three Arena nowadays, so the scalpers on Pana could double their money on those.

“If a fella happened to meet a girl down De Ark on a Saturday night and made a date for Sunday night, then he was a sitting duck for the ticket scalpers. The pub wasn’t an option for well-brought-up Catholic girls back then, was it?

“The practice of pre-booking probably died out during the 1960s with the advent of Teilifís Éireann when cinema audiences slowly declined.”

Dermot adds: “George Harding sent you his cinema-going itinerary for 1963 for Throwback Thursday, and that struck a chord with me, for I too assiduously kept track of the pictures I attended every Saturday afternoon throughout my childhood.

“I note he saw the classic Western Shane in De Col that year. I too saw Shane at the Coliseum in 1963. (Brandon de Wilde, by the way, was the child actor who begs Shane not to leave the homestead as the film fades out.)

“My abiding memory is that there was a bus strike in the city at the time, and the army laid on transport for beleaguered Corkonians. The heavens opened that particular Saturday, so a free spin home in the back of an army lorry was both welcome and exciting. Were we strike-breaking, I wonder?

“And, of course, before heading to town, my mother always inquired suspiciously, ‘What picture are ye going to see?’ The reply of course was always the same mantra, ‘A cowboy wan’. Always ‘a cowboy wan’.

“Couldn’t let on we might be catching an Elvis movie. Heaven forbid! After all, Elvis had a bevy of insanely beautiful girls clad in bikinis dancing the ‘Watusi’ or ‘The Limbo Rock’ with complete abandon. So decadent. Unsuitable viewing by my mother’s church-going morals. Such innocent days.

“Those are just some of my recollections of some of the best memories of my childhood when I spent every Saturday afternoon bar none savouring the delights of our city’s rich collection of cinemas: The Assembs, The Capitol, The Ritz, the Pav, The Savoy, The Palace, and The Col - not counting the outlier cinemas, The Cameo, The Lido, and The Oakwood in Carrigaline, since those three were outside my catchment area,

“Going to the pictures back in the day was a subculture with a life of its own. It was a wild escapist adventure from life lived in the ironclad grasp of Catholic Ireland.

“Scanning Friday night’s Echo to see what was showing, long queues being entertained by the violinists Michael and Christy Dunne (to whom a beautiful tribute was paid in the Holly Bough last Christmas under the heading ‘The Blind Dunnes’), scanning the lobby stills (referred to by Tim Cagney last week) to catch a flavour of what was the next coming attraction.

“Loading up with penny bars, Cleeves toffee, or gobstoppers to see us through the afternoon (wiped out even before the credits to the ing feature rolled on the screen).

“For the courting couples who were jagging strongly (you explain that one to those unfamiliar with the term, Jo!), catching the last bus leaving the Statue at quarter past eleven… Those were the days, we thought they’d never end…”

Gosh, Dermot, you bring tears to the eyes.

Come on, the rest of you, let’s hear your own memories of those carefree days.

Email [email protected] or leave a message on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/echolivecork.