Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Two films at Horsham I remember being shown were ones that were barred from general release "Culloden" 1964 and the TV documentary "War Game" 1965.
They were only shown at CH because it came under the same category a "Private Club".
War Game was deemed too shocking for general consumption. In other words the authorities felt it played into the hands of CND and that would never do!
Culloden was regarded as too gory. I expect the SNP might revive it in order to stimulate the pro independence vote north of the border.

Misterbee wrote:Two films at Horsham I remember being shown were ones that were barred from general release "Culloden" 1964 and the TV documentary "War Game" 1965.
They were only shown at CH because it came under the same category a "Private Club".
War Game was deemed too shocking for general consumption. In other words the authorities felt it played into the hands of CND and that would never do!
Culloden was regarded as too gory. I expect the SNP might revive it in order to stimulate the pro independence vote north of the border.

I have a vague memory of The Life Of Brian being shown in the theatre whilst it was banned in the wonderfully open-minded metropolis of Horsham.

Not really quite on topic, but not worth a separate thread. I remember going to the Dome in Brighton to see Vivian Fuchs talk about the transAntarctic expedition, and am also sure there was a trip to hear Dr. Evans talk about the Everest climb (though a bit dated by then).

Re the Everest climb:

There was a teacher called Tyson who was ThB junior housemaster for a while. He'd been on the Everest exhibition, and gave an in-house slide show about it.

I remember two other things about him. One was that he went to school on skis one day after about a centimetre of snow had fallen, which everyone thought rather ludicrous, and the other was that after the fall of the Iraqi monarchy (that is putting it rather antiseptically) and the concomitant burning down of the British embassy in Baghdad, he noticed that we were huddled round the dayroom radio at a time when it shouldn't have been on, listened himself for a minute or two, then switched it off and gave us a briefing on the history of Iraq and Britain's involvement there. He had a manner which in the slang of the time might be described as 'keen'.

I am rather shocked that the "War Game" should have been shown to such a young audience, whether, or not, they were "deemed to be members of a private club." In one of my employments in the late 1970s I saw it several times and found it a traumatic experience every time, as did virtually all other members of the audiences. One scene which many talked about afterwards was the police firing squad executing looters, but there was much else that was equally distressing. Was it shown to the school as a whole, or to a restricted audience, such as seniors, or the CCF, or something like that?
David

I'm pretty sure that I watched The War Game as a school film during my time at CH.

If it wasn't that, then it was Threads, but since that's set in my home city I would have remembered that.

Edit: Just checked and Threads was made two years after I left, so I definitely watched The War Game at CH. Now, whether it was a school film in the theatre, or on a VHS player in a classroom I cannot be certain, but my memory of it is on a big screen. (The school acquired a solitary VHS player during my time, no doubt very expensive, and my recollections of Biology lessons was watching David Attenborough's Life On Earth.)

Given its' release date, I doubt that I would have seen it, since it was released during my last Michaelmas term at CH.

That is, unless it was a special showing in the Science Lecture room, where we received the Dr Matthews lectures.

I do remember seeing a CCF promoted film there, which demonstrated the way the army controlled riot mobs in India/Pakistan.
Basically, identify the mob leader and eliminate him.
I remember nothing else of the film, in B & W, but just this person being identified and taken out by a sniper.
I hope they were actors, but it seemed pretty realistic at the time.

Mention of the Science Lecture Room (with its epidiascope, anybody?) has unaccountably recalled to me the Franco-British Society which showed films there. I couldn't have cared less about the French, but membership was just one way of avoiding having to be out in the cold on HOOB (House Out Of Bounds) afternoons. Another was Vol Art, which worked quite well until Nell Tod saw me drawing a tree, asked if I had ever seen one and sent me out to the Quarter Mile to sketch the real thing. I learned form this and switched to abstract compositions after that - and have always thereafter been very scathing about abstract painters who do it because they can't draw. Hypocrite, moi?

The odd thing about this is that I can't recall ever thinking about the FBS since I left CH in 1954! What else is there in the lumber room of my brain I wonder.

I remember seeing Le salaire de la peur at the Franco-British society, but I can't recall anything else.

I think I saw that film too. Or rather, I know I saw the film - it sticks in my mind to this day - and I think it was at school, probably at the FBS.

michael scuffil wrote:I remember seeing Le salaire de la peur at the Franco-British society, but I can't recall anything else.

Oh yes! One of the greatest films I have ever seen, though it turns out nitroglycerine isn't really * that* sensitive.

The Franco-British Society's filmshows attracted some people who never studied French and knew nothing of the language. They attended because they liked films. This was probably a good thing to disseminate the values of French culture (although the two films I mention now were not very good cultural examples).

Two films that I much enjoyed, shown by the FBS, were, "Les vacances de M. Hulot" (Monsieur Hulot's Holidays, with Jacques Tati) and "Fanfan la Tulipe" with Gerard Phillipe (no translation possible, it's a name).

I adore Jacques Tati films.

In a way, a fore-runner of Mr. Bean, (Rowan Atkinson).

I am convinced that we saw at least one, and maybe two, Jaques Tati films, in Big School.

Certainly we saw Mon Oncle in Big School. But I don't remember seeing M. Hulot there.