Saturday Mornin’ Pitchers

This is where it all started for me and countless other kids, the home of that great Institution that enabled many Mums and Dads to play…well….Mums and Dads while the nipper was off clutching his threepenny joey which gave him or her admitance to the palace of dreams AKA ‘the pitchers’.

In my case it was out of the house, turn right, take five steps, cross the road, take five more steps turn right and through the doors of my local Odeon, saying hello to my uncle Len who was chief commisionare. I would then pay my three pennorth and watch the little stub of ticket spit from its slot and enter the warm noisy fug of the cinema. Finding my oppos down the front I would take my place in expectation of the first part of that mornings entertainment, the mighty wurlitzer. This used to appear from the bowels of the odeon in a blaze of coloured lights as a jaunty tune was knocked out by the jaunty lady who played the organ and lived down my Grans road. This meant that I got a cheery wave every time the organ hove into view and my street cred went through the roof as the other kids would shout, ‘cor, ‘e knows the lady on the organ’. After the singing of the odeon song….’and ‘ere we are on a saturday mooorrnniiin’ the last note of which was always shouted on the upturn, the cinema manager bedecked in his dinner jacket complete with bow tie, would try and compete with the armpit farts and raspberries that always broke out at his appearance. He would read out a few announcements, usually birthdays of happy odeoneers before the lights dimmed, the curtain straggled back to reveal a screen pockmarked by direct hits from ice cream cartons thrown over the years until the familier bulls eye logo of the cartoons lit up the screen heralding the outbreak of a decibel meter crunching wall of noise as hundreds of kids yelled and shouted with joy. After the cartoons there followed the staple diet of westerns heroes, space heroes and downright bizarre heroes and heroines to educate and entertain us. I’m sure that some of the more bizarre ideas that I try and foist upon Mrsoldmove stem from the flickering images on the screen that have imprinted themselves on my brain. Take a look at some of these and you will see what I mean.

Hopalong Cassidy, everyones favourite, no undue ifluences here unless you think that as he always went off with his horse rather than the lady he had just rescued rather odd, then so be it.

Gabby Hayes, Hopalongs side kick, spent most of his time talking gibberish, spitting, cussing and not washing.

Lash Larue

Now we start to enter the ‘rather wierd’ area. Lash was also a favourite, he was a man dressed all in leather who spent every waking moment whipping and lashing every man, woman, child, dog, building or cactus plant that came within reach. Whenever he had a quite moment he would polish the end of his bull whip to a glistening sheen. Suffice to say the the shape of the end of his whip must have caused many a homo erotic career to be launched in the dark of the cinema.

Flash Gordon

I think you are beginning to get the picture now of how our lives were shaped by the films we used to watch as kids. I guess Flash had to hold onto something when he posed for this picture, it probably came from the same prop store that Lash larue shopped in. I liked Flash Gordon a lot and the legacy is a lifelong love of science fiction and fact. I was thrilled when all the early Flash Gordon films were released on DVD, what a great collection.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

We now come to my favourite of all time, Sheena, Queen of the jungle. Sheena had a very particular way of dealing with those who upset her in the jungle, be they man, woman or beast. She would wrap her huge, sweating, bulging, muscular, heaving thighs around her victim and slowly squeeze the bejabbers out of them. She would then dive under the water and there would be many, many, many shots of her huge, muscular, bulging thighs, kicking and flexing underwater. She would then emerge dripping wet and get straight into her next fight to the death utilising her huge, bulging….well, I,m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you that Sheena was my favourite screen heroine of all time.

It is often said that the ‘boom baby’ generation has more hang ups than any other. Considering what we were subjected to in the dark of the cinema, does that come as any surprise. Happy Days.

All together now….’So ‘ere we are on a saturday moorrrnnniiin’.

Cor Sheena!!!

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Author: oldmovieguy

Another Boomer who wishes he had the stamina of youth to go with the cash of age. Fond of pricking the hot air balloons of pomposity and cutting little dictaors down to size.

42 thoughts on “Saturday Mornin’ Pitchers”

  1. What a great gallery of heroes, OMG. I notice you kept the best to last. Your Sheena is definitely a punk rocker.

    I’ve watched the old black and white ten minute epic Flash Gordon serials on TV and thoroughly enjoyed them; short, sharp and punchy with a cliff-hanging ending. On the other hand I’ve never heard of the sadistic Lash Larue. You’ve certainly brought him to my attention.

    Super post and a great read of bygone times. Thanks.

  2. OMG, this is a lovely post. I remember the Odean cinemas when I was growing up in Birmingham.
    The names Pearl and Dean rings a bell too.
    I used to love the usherettes with their torches, and when they appeared with the ice cream and drinks tray strapped to their bosoms. I remember the spiralling smoke as it rose from the smokers cigarettes into light radiating from the film up high at the back of cinema where the projectionists were.

  3. Right on the button. Excellent post. You were a lucky chap OMG. By the way, is that the Rose Hill Odeon? If so I will tell you a sequel.

  6. Nope its not Rose Hill. I was thinking of the Gaumont Cinema. Rose Hill, Carshalton. The organ there was later installed at Tulse Hill Comprehensive school, South London where my brother and a few other gifted pupils played that ex-cinema organ at the daily assemblies.

  7. I thought you would be making a contribution Zen, you never disappoint, that brought back a few memories seeing and hearing that. You would get all the fancy, slick, well produced ads for Well known brands and products like ‘Lyons Maid’ and Barclays and then a little run of ‘local’ ads that had been through the projector so many times that the screen flickered and popped like a WWII air raid.

    “For a hot night out and a spicy time, come to The Star of India Restaurant, 23 Rupee Buildings, The High Street……Free Poppadoms to patrons of this cinema”

  8. That’s it Zen, Pearl and Dean.
    OMG I have a feeling, there’s going to be lots of memories woken here, good on yer for this.

    Strangely enough, yesterday, they showed the film ‘The longest day’, when I saw it advertised, I remembered seeing it at the Odean cinema, and if my memory serves me correctly, I was sat on the back row……does anyone else remember the back row of the cinema? 🙂

  11. Val…SNAP!..I saw ‘The Longest Day’ at the Odeon Hammersmith, it’s called the Apollo now, It’s a mahoossive dream factory just of Hammersmith Broadway, there were exhibits in the lobby about D Day. And yes, I do remember the back row but I will have to wait for the watershed before telling you more.

  12. Ferret
    King of the Rocket Men was one of the stalwarts of a Saturday Morning, the actor who played him got addicted to the explosive used in his rocket pack and was found by police one day eating a firework…..they let him off.

  13. Nice post OMG. I have a feeling that I commented on the original post? These were the words to the song:-

    We come along on Saturday morning,
    Greeting everybody with a smile,
    We come along on Saturday morning,
    Knowing it’s well worthwhile,
    As members of the Odeon club,
    We all intend to be,
    Good citizens when we grow up,
    And champions of the free,
    We come along on Saturday morning,
    Greeting everybody with a smile, smile, smile,
    Greeting everybody with a smile.

    This is the Odeon picture house that I used to go to as a kid:-

    I did a search for the song and could only come up with this. For those too young to remember, it will give an idea of what it was all about.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAhZ41IaKEg

  16. Toc, I have walked down that street many times. I think the cinema was converted into a music hall, I remember the Kinks performing there in the mid 60’s.

  18. zenrules :

    Toc, I have walked down that street many times. I think the cinema was converted into a music hall, I remember the Kinks performing there in the mid 60′s.

    Zen, my father was stationed there in the early fifties. I went to see this film at that cinema when it premiered in about 53/54? The Para’s had a huge display in the foyer, the ‘Shot being the home of the Para’s.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhG84QSrwk

  21. Ferret, the Gaumont theatres were fabulous weren’t they, there was one in Birmingham much the same as the one you’ve put above, wonderful buildings.

  22. We were ‘Minors of the ABC.’ Without googling…

    We are the boys and girls well known as
    The minors of the ABC
    da da da daa da da da da da
    da da da da da daa and shout aloud with glee
    We like to laugh and have our sing-song
    Just a happy crowd are we-ee
    We’re all pals together
    We’re minors of the ABC!

    A threepenny bit to get in, another for a drink on a stick…

    Nice one, OMG. Now, who else was an ‘Ovaltiney?’

    Hi, everyone, I’m back 🙂

  25. what a great reminder of days gone by. I remember well queuing up both outside and in the basement of the Odeon Folkestone to see the great films of the time on a Saturday morning. Robin Hood, Zorro, The Lone Ranger.

    Then we moved to London (1962) and it was the Gaumont North Finchley, but the Saturday morning cinema was drawing to a close by then and only lasted a couple of years.

    Both cinemas now gone and large shopping centres have taken over.

  28. Goodness, OMG, you have me sunk in nostalgia now. Funny how all our heroes wore tights..

    Ivanho, the Lone Ranger..(surrounded by Indians; ‘Looks like we’re in trouble, Tonto.’ ‘What you mean ‘we’ Keeomosabee?’) Range Rider, the Cisco Kid – bit novel that one, with a Mexican hero and all…

  29. Ivanhoe Roger Moore. I remember that being on telly. I just sat down to watch it and my sister tipped a kettle of boiling water over her bum (don’t ask) and we had to go to the hospital so I missed Ivanhoe, I have never forgiven her for that.

  30. Wonderful post, OMG, and great comments from everyone. Thanks. Real nostalgic stuff.
    I was an ABC Minor, too – happy days!

  32. Great post and evocative memories in the comments!

    Love the picture of youthful, noisy enthusiasm that you paint, OMG.
    Lash is such a perv though! Flash Gordon looks like Rupert Everett gone blonde.

    LOL at your description of Sheena. I know a woman called Sheena and I’d love to read that out to her face, but i fear she would not be much amused. Sheena have been a bloody good cyclist with those thighs. I think she’s my new role model. 🙂

    Talking about ABC Minors, I was too minor to be allowed to go, but Capt Sensible was an ABC Minors Monitor. Used to patrol the back row of the stalls shining a torch on the snoggers. Disgusting voyeurism! 😉

  34. I have no memory of this as even my mum barely remembers this time, if she remembers any of it at all. This will, perhaps, date me. My earliest memories are somewhat sketchy and I barely could sit still long enough to watch a television programme, much less a film. The one programme I have always liked, though, was Alfred J Kwak. As I spent those years in a border town, the language the programme was in was Dutch rather than German. Keeping faithful to that, I will post a video link to an episode I watched back then in the language it would have been in.

  35. Toc, you’re quite right, of course – the Royal on the sea-front and the Odeon in London Rd. I was an ABC minor in Uxbridge – my old man was in the RAF Central Band, and Uxbridge was still a village.

  36. After you had been to the flicks in the morning your older sister and her boyfriend went to the Late Night Double Feature Picture Show (in the back row).

  37. Hang on a mo!

    I am only 44 and I was an ABC Minor in the 70’s. You lot are making it sound like the last preserve of the baby boomers. Mind you we are slow to let stuff die oop here in t’norf where it’s grim like. 🙂

  42. Sorry I’ve not been responding to comments but a deadline crept up on me which is now out of the way. There are some great comments and recollections together with some very nostalgic video and pics, I was going to show a pic of my local Odeon but could not work out how do put a pic in comments when, lo and behold, Bearsie has given us all the gen on how to do it, so I’ll have a go later.
    The flicks was a big part of my life when I was a kid, you cannot beat that warm feeling that comes over you when you become part of a collective laugh that an audience gives out when watching a movie. The poor old East Sheen Odeon went the way of all flesh years ago and a very non descript office block was built, but at least some of the buildings survive, thanks to the dreaded ‘Bingo’ which proved to be a bit of a double edged sword.

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