Malcolm’s Memoirs 

I wanna tell you a story, a true one. I was born in Newport, in that fair and smiling land of Gwent. The birthplace of the poet W H Davies:-

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare

My first recollection of the cinema is from when I was six. My mother, at this time, went through a lengthy period of being afraid to travel on buses, so we walked everywhere. She was five foot nothing and a slow walker. The walk to the cinema took us a good forty minutes. At the time (1948) there were eight cinemas in Newport. We always went to the Odeon. It was very spacious and the front row, where we always sat, was as far away from the screen as the back row in most multi- screen modern day cinemas. The Odeon, being warm and comfortable, was a step up from where we lived, and we would often stay and watch the film twice over, resulting in her having to wake me up to stand for the National Anthem at about 10pm. I was not a happy lad on the walk home, particularly on cold dark nights, as short trousers were the order of the day until early teens. The film that stands out for me from this period is The Three Musketeers starring Gene Kelly, before he took to singing in the rain. We definitely saw it twice over and I stayed awake and walked home without moaning once. Incidently, footage from The Three Musketeers appears in the film Singin’ in the Rain. It was used as part of the Lockwood/Lamont film The Royal Rascal.
Despite rumours that Douglas Fairbanks Jr was set to star, in June 1947 Gene Kelly was announced as the film’s lead d’Artagnan. In October, Kelly broke his ankle, forcing him to give up the leading role in Easter Parade(1948), subsequently filled by the one and only Fred Astaire; another film we saw twice and certainly walked home  a couple of swells that night. The broken ankle delayed the start of filming, and whilst it  had mended sufficiently to begin shooting in January, 1948, his elaborate fencing scenes required more healing time, and were pushed back to the end of filming. The critics weren’t over impressed by Kelly’s acting but recognise his energy, dancer’s grace and agility were used to good effect in the sword fighting scenes. This six year old thought he was brilliant, reliving every thrust and parry on the walk home.