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Films shown on board

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#1 · (Edited)
Remember how on some ships the R/O would double as projectionist and show films to his shipmates.

Films I remember seeing from the 60s are: How To Murder Your Wife; Guns At Batasi, Morituri; Hot Enough For June; Two Weeks In Another Town; The Cincinnati Kid; The Seventh Dawn and The Professionals.

When changing reels there would be catcalls if you took too long about it All the reels would have to be re-wound afterwards.

I visited cinemas in the following places.
USA; Canada; Antwerp; Aden, Colombo; Calcutta, Panama; New Zealand and Australia.

But spent lots of my pre-MN youth at the Plaza cinema in Blaydon.
 
#28 ·
Reel movies

I was Master on Sanko tankers in the early 70's, we had the film exchange, usually three boxes per movie. Often we would end up with two reels from one movie and the third reel from a completely different one. Made for an interesting night.
Given half a chance the Filipino crew would watch every movie the first night on a thirty day passage.
 
#29 ·
Went through Capetown on the Pipiriki. This was not a normal port of call and NZSC did not have a regular agent. Went ashore to swap movies and they didn't have any for us. After a bit of sweet talk they said they would send some down to the ship. When they arrived they were the movies intended for the Oriana. Ten movies for the Indian Ocean crossing was a luxury. I hope the Oriana crew liked Billy Budd.
 
#31 ·
On Shell tankers as an engineer apprentice1968-70) it was the apprentice's job to show the movie.
On first ship we got taught how to join up broken sections. Movies from Walport were shown in the Saloon and crew had them in their messroom.
On one occasion, only the skipper wanted to watch a cartoon so as the duty guy, I set it up for him alone then went to bar for a beer. Went back 5 minutes before the reel should have been finished and heard the drive reel spinning really fast as there was a break.....must have broken about 15 minutes before the end but the Skip just sat there, waiting for me to return.
My first trip as a 5th eng was on a topping-up ship at Bonny in Nigeria. We used to top up other ships over the bar to fill other tankers. We were permanently tied up to a buoy mooring and were the storage ship for Walport and used to have about 10 boxes (with 3 movies) at any one time. The Chinese crew and UK crew each had projector every 2nd day and we had a great choice of movies.
Some times we had no topping-up duties for weeks at a time and down time let the Chinese crew to have 24+ hour movies.
Never leaving Nigeria, we used to order supplies from visiting ships. Much of the oil went to a refinery in S France so we often got given crates of wine for free. From Spanish ships we also got Sherry and Port. Wine was always available for dinner and the waiters never knew the difference between sherry and white wine. You could ask for a glass of red wine and get 1/2 pint of port.
We used to get Carlsberg Elephant beer. Really, whatever the local food and drink from the supply ships.
I had 6 months on that ship.
 
#32 ·
Radio Officer showing films to the crew.

It is an odd coincidence that only yesterday, here in New Zealand, on Covid-19 lockdown, I was looking through my old diaries.

Here is an extract from my diary while aboard my first ship as junior R/O. Other than showing the films I really enjoyed this trip. The ship was an ex Eagle Oil ship that was just transferred to Shell, the SS San Calisto (GCDE) We sailed from Tilbury to Maraicaibo.

Sunday 16th December 1962
The swimming pool was filled up and we all enjoyed a swim.
There was a heavy swell and I had to do the film show for the crew back aft down in the crew mess. I had to haul the equipment across the flying bridge to the aft accommodation which was smelling of oil and fumes and was very hot. The aft of the ship was going up and down and I was slowly loosing my fight against seasickness. The sailors and greasers were all smoking and drinking huge mugs of strong coffee or cocoa which did not help my condition. I was looking forward to the film ending so I could pack up and get out of there but the crew had other ideas. Whenever the heroine in the film came on the screen they all demanded I wind the film back so they could see it again. I was very pleased when this show came to an end.
Had a can of Orangeboom beer from the Queen of Holland.
 
#33 ·
Aaah! Some memories:
*** Under a 1954 Indian Ocean tropic sky - Doris Day in "Calamity Jane"
*** 1954 Capetown. "Call Me Madam". My horror, in seeing Afrikaaners walk out of the cinema during "Go Save the Queen". I had lots to learn
*** 1955 in Rangoon. "Prince Valiant" The locals really got into it.
*** 1955 Odessa. Several Soviet epic movies of high quality, showing Tartars battling with more northern tribe enemies to save "oppressed" peasants, similar to U.S. cavalry coming to the rescue. Use the hairdos to know who was who.
***Then onward to nightly projecting movies into the TV cameras on P&Os "Canberra" in the early 1960s.
 
#39 ·
Remember how on some ships the R/O would double as projectionist and show films to his shipmates.
My first trip, as 2nd R/O on Baluchistan, I was advised I was responsible for running “film night”.
We only had one film on bard - “Bonnie & Clyde” - seems like I watched it a dozen times only getting a replacement on a second visit to Cape Town after running around the Gulf.
I have never liked Warren Beatty since!
 
#40 · (Edited)
The tankers that I served on always had a good selection of movies and there was a brisk trade around the Gulf to exchange them - hopefully you didn't get your old ones back! I remember changing five or six with a Caltex tanker in Mina or Ras Tanura and had a few with their sparkie of course. Two were in the boxes but one set was in a paper bag and it was hissing down with rain on the way back - the bag burst and one can dropped on to the wharf and slowly rolled to edge and ......

Fortunately my bacon was saved when one of the deckies said "We've had this filum in our mess for ages, can we change it...." - so the total was restored. I don't recall the titles but they had two reels of one and one of another....
 
#41 ·
We always enjoyed the movies on board but the worst was if somebody didn't keep an eye on the projector and the film built up on the outside of the reel and then fell off when the ship rolled or pitched more than usual. That meant hours of re-spooling to get it right.
I went to sea after college in 1965 and all became friends with the lady who ran the Walport agency in Durban. She passed away at a grand old age not to long ago. I had a nostalgic visit with her daughter about 2 months ago when she visited South Africa from the UK where her family returned to some years ago.
 
#49 ·
On a ship that shall remain nameless the films were shown first, in two showings in the saloon and then a couple of days later later in the e crew mess..
I showed the first session and the lecky the second..

The film was 'Darling' and we almost had a mutiny when I screened the crew's showing...

It turned out that, unknown to me in the second session, the demand to 'slow down' the boardroom sex session between Julie Christie and Laurence Harvey (to see if they could glimpse 'something more') had resulted in the session being just a brown blur...
I beat a hasty retreat pleading innocence..I think someone must have supported my position 'cos I wasn't murdered in my bunk...
 
#50 ·
We had a Sierra Leonian "Headman" (Bosun) who would go ashore and find the filthiest porno videos wherever we were in port. To recoup his investment, he invited all the officers down to his cabin with an entry fee of a case of pop (Fanta, Coke, etc., he was moslem). We always attended to keep up his stock of pop. We used to take the engine room stop-clock to rate the movies, dutifully "logging" the time for each activity and exceptional acts, beyond the norm.

Well, it passed some time and was, I suppose, harmless! It kept the crew happy too that we were subsidizing their bar bills.

The Sierra Leonian crews were very good and reliable, btw. Fond memories of them.

Rgds.
Dave
 
#51 ·
It was my job as cadet to show movies on my first ship with the other Brit and two nice Indian deck cadets. I think they came from Catermouls? They always included a safety film first. I remember in one sone idiot dropped a bucket on someone ina tank bottom who clearly swore at them. There was no sound but it was obviously the F word! As my older brother was at sea I was warned about all the tricks. When we crossed the line, I and the two Indian cadets stayed locked in my cabin to avoid being doused in engine oil. Even when they faked a 'Crew Alert' we stayed in until they gave up! Happy days.
 
#52 ·
Alas dear youath in the 60.s the BP safety films were a must, Shown now and again we we could not exchange the Walport Film Box: Then real excitement, besides using an un- secured ladder on deck, or while inspecting deck derrick arms or suuging and painting, there were the galley incidents chip fire exectra, and fiddlies on the mess tables and galley stove use off in heavy weather, and for us all I believe it was 20 mins long {Shot in Swansea docks on a defunct BP Tanker] the training film ''FIRE DOWN BELOW''
Then the second steward, the old mans goffer, offering ice creams at the end of the session.
This all could off course be 'bull ****' does anyone know better???
 
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