Rain drops on roses and GHOULIES & TRANCERS

Right dear reader, let us not delay, I hope you’ve had a good dose of caffeine today as we’re going to visit a lonely goat – high on a hill.

The first full-length film I can recall seeing in the cinema was Robert Wise’s ‘The Sound of Music’. Obviously this was a re-run (it was made in 1965, three years before I was born) so I estimate it is around 1974 when I first got to see Julie Andrews’ yodelayheehooing nun on the run. The glorious Dominion Tottenham Court Road (sadly now a theatre) provided the splendidly grandiose auditorium in which my mother, father and I watched from high up in the circle.  In glorious 70mm, the widescreen canvas below us unfolded a dazzlingly barmy musical romp with Nazi’s trying to trample all over Austria’s edelweiss whilst Maria melodiously conjures up creative culinary suggestions such as schnitzel with noodle: for close on three hours. The programmer at the Dominion back then must have been some kind of sadist because he’d even included a short film preceding this malarkey – as if the programme wasn’t long enough already! The short film was something about Loch Ness and I recall very little about this long-lost gem, except for a brief cartoon shot of Nessie’s head rising above the waters. Clearly the film left an impression on me (‘The Sound of Music’ that is) or at least the music, as the first album I ever purchased happened to be the original soundtrack. We didn’t have a proper stereo back then, only a cassette player, but I played that album continuously until the tape unspooled and reduced ‘So Long, Farewell’ to a disturbing satanic-like drool one day. You know what? I think Jerry Goldsmith really missed a trick when he sat down to compose his symphony for Satan for ‘The Omen’. Don’t get me wrong, Jerry’s score was masterful – but 20^th Century Fox could have saved a small fortune on the choir and orchestra’s fees if Jerry had just played them back Julie Andrews’ dulcet tones at half-speed (copyright permitting).

But I digress... 

The Dominion provided me and my father with our first real taste of Dolby stereo when we went to see ‘Star Wars’. For any younger readers who may have inadvertently strayed onto this blog, by ‘Star Wars’ I mean ‘Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope’, made in 1977, with real models, real sets, (and real actors). My dad (who probably snoozed through most of the films I chose to see) was waxing lyrical about how it sounded like the ‘spaceships’ were coming from right behind him – and clearly keeping him awake (!). He was to get another auditory revelation soon after at the Odeon Marble Arch when the opening crescendo from Steven Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’  exploded from the rear speakers and both dad and I (and probably half the stalls in truth) flew out of our seats in unison. I didn’t see that many films at the Dominion (I probably saw more concerts there in the 80’s), but I do recall the very last two films I saw there. A terrific double-bill of B-movie 80’s schlock: ‘Trancers’ & ‘Ghoulies’. From Rodgers and Hammerstein to Charles Band – from singing nuns to toilet dwelling goblins – these, dear reader, are a few of my favourite things...