Saturday Afternoon at the Empire Cinema Empire Cinema stood close to the Phoenix cigarette factory on the Carenage. People went to the movies regularly then. There were those who saw almost every film that reached Grenada. Some were able to do so because they received what was known as ah pass to enter the theater. Big Bear and a fella nicknamed Saltfish used to give passes now and then. The big shot people went to Balcony, the smaller shots went to House, and the no-shots called it George in Pit. If the picture buss, those who congregated in pit erupted first. They hated when the picture was disrupted. “Miss Parsad, yuh muddah arse! Haul yuh so and so,” they usually shouted. They vented their anger, not even knowing if Miss Parsad, who owned Empire Cinema, was present. A film that was cut in the midst of heated action was serious cause for angry shouts and bad words. Those were the days of the gun-toting heroes and villains like Fernando Sancho, Pecos, Django and the bad Wild West. People also flocked to see war movies like “To Hell and Back,” None, But the Brave, and “The Thin Red Line.” Those same people now sit in the comfort of their homes and see some of those movies on television. It was extremely difficult to get a ticket to see such films on Christmas Eve night or Old Years night when all the buses from other parishes jammed the Carenage. It was easier if someone threw a Jun Jun into the crowd and people scattered. A Jun Jun was a mixture of ingredients like rotten eggs or stale pee. When the crowd was thick and ram-crammed for the midnight show, the Jun Jun came raining down. It was always well prepared to disturb one’s sense of smell. Saturday Afternoon at the Empire Cinema Empire Cinema stood close to the Phoenix cigarette factory on the Carenage. People went to the movies regularly then. There were those who saw almost every film that reached Grenada. Many were able to do so because they received what was known as ah pass to enter the theater. Big Bear and a fella nicknamed Saltfish used to give passes now and then. The big shot people went to Balcony, the smaller shots went to House, and the no-shots called it George in Pit. If the picture buss, those who congregated in pit erupted first. They hated when the picture was disrupted. “Miss Parsad, yuh muddah arse! Haul yuh so and so,” they usually shouted. They vented their anger, not even knowing if Miss Parsad, who owned Empire Cinema, was present. A film that was cut in the midst of heated action was serious cause for angry shouts and bad words. Those were the days of the gun-toting heroes and villains like Fernando Sancho, Pecos, Django and the bad Wild West. People also flocked to see war movies like “To Hell and Back,” None, But the Brave, and “The Thin Red Line.” Those same people now sit in the comfort of their homes and see some of those movies on television. It was extremely difficult to get a ticket to see such films on Christmas Eve night or Old Years night when all the buses from other parishes jammed the Carenage. It was easier if someone threw a Jun Jun into the crowd and people scattered. A Jun Jun was a mixture of ingredients like rotten eggs or stale pee. When the crowd was thick and ram-crammed for the midnight show, the Jun Jun came raining down. It was always well prepared to disturb one’s sense of smell. We on the Screen Sidney Poitier and other black actors appeared on the silver screen in the Empire, Reno and Deluxe theaters. Every black man on the screen looked like somebody in Mt. Rich, Belmont, River Road, or St. Paul’s. People looked at the screen and bawled out – “Look, look! Dat is Black Boy’s brother!” “Bonjay! Look at Tall Boy!” Anthony Wendell DeRiggs When Chinese Movies Hit Grenada Yeah bwoy! They packed up Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, and all you heard was Chin Seng, Wang Yu and Shoalin Masters. All the war movies took a back seat. The James Bond movies too! If you were Grenadian and not riding the pine in Empire or Regal you were probably listening to a sermon in the Berean, Open Bible or Gospel Hall churches. For when those Chinese movies rocked Grenada, they rocked many people also. Those Kung Fu and Shoalin movies were different. The old men were the greatest fighters and some, like the drunken masters, fought harder when totally intoxicated. A Chinese man or woman warrior would stay on the ground and fly into a twenty-foot tree like a helicopter. One man would defeat an entire army. Spears were grabbed with teeth. The impossible was done, and people loved it. You would see a man train for two-thirds of a movie and then fight for the remaining one-third to avenge his parent’s death. Some of the movies were in Chinese with the English translations at the bottom of the screen. There was a fancy term for that called subtitles. But we did not mind; we were accustomed to sitting in the Catholic Church and listening to an entire mass said in Latin. All we wanted to see was action and action, from start to finish. It was not surprising when a bad flu hit Grenada around the same time the Chinese movies struck; it was said that people caught the “Wang Yu.” A Kung Fu movie sometimes started with fighting and for the rest of the movie was just that, fight and more fight. Sometimes we did not even know what they were fighting for. All we wanted to know was Silver Fox was there beating up the other masters of Kung Fu. And if there was no fight, the movie was no good and everyone would complain afterwards. Then the other craze came—the Kung Fu schools. I was in Florida (Grenada) one time, next to St. Paul’s shop. While the jukebox belted out some reggae and the fellas were skanking to the song “Ride yuh donkey,” others were practicing their Karate and Kung Fu. Ah fella called Chicken and another named Johnny, who became Prime Minister Gairy’s bodyguard, were talented martial arts men in Grenada at the time. Me? I only went to Regal and Empire and saw men kick up men. That was until they introduced women fighters kicking up both men and women. One woman would beat a restaurant full of men. And when the big crook heard of it, he would send some top crooks to challenge her. By that time, she joined with the star and beat up all the crooks. We sat in Pit and watched all ah dat and then we went home to practice our Kung Fu, ate our bakes and saltfish, and drank our bush tea. These days when I walk down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, I sometimes see all those Kung Fu movies on tape, selling for three dollars or so. I remember the time I used to spend sixty cents for a seat in House, back in Grenada, to see the Kung Fu fights and then leave the cinema wondering what the hell the big fight was all about. Anthony Wendell DeRiggs from my book Recollections of an Island Man: HTTP://WWW.AMAZON.COM/RECOLLECTIONS-ISLAND-MAN-ANTHONY-DERIGGS/DP/0977491609
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:41:37 +0000
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