When Labour got into the movie business (and bulk-bought 'fimms')
At a family gathering earlier this evening, we were talking about current events and somebody suddenly said: ‘Remember when the Labour government thought that film distribution was something the state should take over?’ I couldn’t for the life of me remember, until somebody else pronounced the magic words De Bah-loon Vend-errrr and De Lust Dah-di in the mellifluous tones of the late lamented Victor Galdes, and suddenly it began to come back to me. For some reason, Labour had either restricted or banned the distribution of films by the private sector and had taken over the running of this particular show. The government brought in a few already outdated Italian B movies dubbed into English and used its ventriloquist’s puppet, Xandir Malta, to promote them heavily. Every time we turned on the television, there seemed to be a promo going on for The Balloon Vendor and for some other pathetic film that I think was called The Last Daddy. This is a forgotten chapter in Labour’s hilarious approach to running the country, and I can’t remember much of it except for the sound of Victor Galdes promoting The Balloon Vendor (it echoes down the years). Can anyone out there fill in the missing details, please? This is one for the comic-books.
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Don’t remember “the last Daddy” but I do remember ‘The Champ”. I also remember the bloody awful, locally filmed ‘The Last Shark’ which was a cheap version of Jaws.
And what about the advertised-to-death Chinese Bond spoof ‘Wen-Weng – Agent 00″ at the Upper Savoy? I was never allowed to see it but I cannot forget the constant adverts. How’s that for an example of the power of the media?
LOL.. remembering those times is fun actually.
The Israeli “Lemon Popsicle” films… again I was never allowed to see them (was around 10 then) but they were shown on Bravo some time back and they were painful to watch.
So many films come to mind – but it somehow it was always the Savoy ones that were advertised on telly… Pierrino the Terrible, remember that one? (and by that I don’t mean, “did you see it?”!!)
The decent block-busters were always shown 6 months to a year after their release. Gone are the days of soft spongy pop-corn and oily Cock’s Crisps. Sigh!
Daphne, this post brought back long-forgotten memories of my childhood in 1970s and 80s Malta but I had no idea that the state was actually distributing films. I clearly remember the TV commercial for The Balloon Vendor. You mentioned Italian B-movies dubbed into English: that reminded me of how TVM even used publicize soft-porn movies form Italy (“Pierino the Terrible” with Alvaro Vitali and Edwige Fenech) and – of all places – Israel (“Lemon Popsicle” 1, 2, 3 . . . )As 15 year old boys we used to flock to them like there was no tomorrow! Some day I want to write a book on life in Malta in the 70s and 80s for those who care to find out about such gems from our past as the Madonna Pellegrina statue making her way from street to street, ration cards for sugar and cooking oil, bulk-bought cheese (remember the TV advert for “Gobon Cheddar ta’ New Zealand”?) and I guess also the state distribution of B-movies.
[Daphne – Lemon Popsicle! That’s another one. And gobon cheddar ta’ New Zealand….I’d forgotten all about that. It’s unbelievable how backward Malta was. And then to think I was surprised because when I took a packet of Coco-pops into the maternity ward in 1986 all the women gathered round me like South Sea Islanders around an 18th-century trader with beaded necklaces, to see what they were – and like those South Sea Islanders, instead of talking to me directly, they discussed me while gathered round me, wondering what I’d got in that packet and whether it was something biex tipporga. There they were nudging each other, ‘saqsiha, saqsiha.‘ Just 22 years ago….]
Oh, the Balloon Vendor. Old memories. When I was a kid (maybe 6 – 8 years ols), I remember my parents taking me to watch this film in th 70’s. I can’t remember where the cinema was (Valletta or one of the town cinemas which existed at the time). I remember that a lot of people used to talk about it at the grocery store. As a kid I thought that it was a big hit (so many people were talking about it) along the lines of Ben Hur.
How wrong and naive I was! Little did I know that there was no choice in the first place.
Here are my missing pieces.
Malta had two film distributors. The smaller one would distribute Italian films which were screened at the ABC and the Radio City in Hamrun (now the Labour Party HQ). My two favourites were the cartoon Fritz the Cat, the first ‘porno’ cartoon based on the wonderfully subversive underground comic of the same name. The other was the violence strewn Flavia la Monaca Musulmana about a Muslim girl turned nun who wreaks havoc on the Arab invaders (heady stuff from my teenage years!)
The other distributor was the Malta United Film Corporation (MUFC) now better known as KRS. It was/is responsible for importing all the American and English blockbusters. More importantly it was BRITISH owned and Mintoff was not having any of that.
So he decided to use Xandir Malta as a film distributor, place as its head Lino Cassar (better known as King Kong, the proud importer of Playboy for health reasons, and who refused to admit that Raid on Entebbe was banned for political reasons when he was chief censor).
Then they bullied the cinemas in Valletta and Sliema into carrying their films. In those days cinemas were already doing badly due to the economic depression and lack of investment on the part of their owners. This simply added to their woes. Eventually the Lower Savoy and the Majestic carried the Xandir Malta movies. The Balloon Vendor (ironically an Israeli product, if I remember well) was its most successful film, a tear-jerker a la Zeffirelli. But the same distributors also brought us the wondrous peaks and troughs of Edwige Fenech and the classic Close Encounters of the FOURTH kind. There are rumours that the distributors had also brought in a consignment of porno movies which they were thinking of screening to make some cash, if Labour won in 1987. But I cannot confirm that.
Probably more information than necessary. But, ah, the bliss of being a film geek!
[Daphne – The Balloon Vendor was an Italian B movie dubbed into English. Lemon Popsicle was Israeli. Thanks for the rest. I have this distinct impression that The Balloon Vendor saga wasn’t in the 1970s because I remember it far too clearly. Early 1980s, maybe? If it was the 1970s, then it would have had to be at least 1979 or I wouldn’t remember it at all. I was 14 then. The film was made in 1974, and we only ever got films that were around four or five years old anyway. I don’t think the Radio City is now the MLP HQ. I think it’s just been knocked down. Wasn’t it opposite the Little Sisters of the Poor? Thanks for the info.]
L uniku film sura li qatt urew kien the black pirate ghalkemm xorta ma kaxkarx oscars,u la qbadniha fuq is 70s tiftakru meta mintoff ried jaghllimna l gharbi bilfors u fit 8 u nofs ezatt wara l ahbarijiet kien jigi nader salem rizzo jighdilna kif niktbu alif ba ta the etc…
hehe :) missieri jiehu pjacir li jiftakruh jghallem fuq it Tv. Naqra memorji :)
Apart from the ones being mentioned, I do recall watching some decent movies worth mentioning though. The Deer Hunter, Midnight Express, Escape to Victory, First Blood, Enter the Dragon (Brucie was quite en vogue at the time)are amongst the few I remember.
Even though I was 18 years old in 1980, entering Valletta in the evenings, however, was always considered a high risk feat during the late 70s and early 80s. Kien zmien il-glied bejn il-Beltin kontra z-Zwieten kontra (mhux Hamrunizi, izda) tal-Hamrun kontra kullhadd.
Whether it was the stadium, or a discotheque, or movie, you could never guarantee a trouble-free and pleasant evening ahead. This is what I remember vividly during this era. Grazzi Perit.
The Balloon Vendor was released in 1974 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072358/), although I do not know when it was being shown in Malta. I also remember Porkies 1, 2, 3 etc; we used to play truant from school to go watch them. I also remember the Coliseum showing 1950’s movies of the gladiator type, and the Bruce Lee movies at the Alhambra.
And wasn’t the distributor KRS or something; they used to hang posters on the corner of Mountbatten Street, opposite Saint Joseph’s School?
@ Daphne
The Radio City is still there and the part which used to be the entrance (a nice one at that) is now almost always closed and is in High Street Hamrun but forms part of the MLP Headquarters which entrance is at the back of the theatre. The one in front of the Little Sisters which has been brought down was the Hollywood Cinema.
[Daphne – Yes, of course – Hollywood; that’s another memory. Kullhadd ghal ghand il-Holiwut.]
It says alot that the advertising was more memorable than the films themselves.
I distinctly remember (presumably Victor Galdes’s) deep mellifluous voice rolling ‘SUMMMTHINNG CREEEPING IN THE DAAAHRK’ out and some bint spouting ‘Sex…wit a smile’. Not that I ever bothered to watch them. I still do a damn good imitation of Mr Galdes when I spot a cockroach…
As for films banned by the puppet board of censors, apart from the classic ‘Raid on Entebbe’, for political reasons, there was also another classic – Monthy Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ – which was banned for religious reasons – talk about pragmatism. I was fortunate enough to get to watch it in a London cinema in about ’82 if I remember correctly (In the days when one had to go to a bank with passport and flight ticket in order to exchange liri for sterling, and have the transaction noted and stamped on one’s passport).
Ah those days…I also bought a job lot of Cadbury’s choccies from Woolworth and smuggled them in in the lining of a jacket, subversive that I was. Later I learned how to smuggle cash out concealed in a (metal) tube of toothpaste (Pepsodent, of course, the only kind available) and use my clandestine currency to buy chocolate, Colgate toothpaste and other luxuries like Italian pasta (not to mention baby requisites from Mothercare, including a pram/pushchair). Yep, incredible but true, we only had 2 locally-made models of prams available in those days and a Mothercare pram was a status-symbol.
This ‘business’ of importing and distributing films – mostly Italian weepies – in competition with MUFC was run by Xandir Malta. The man in charge of the venture was Lino Cassar (of Ix-Xewka and other vulgarities fame). At the time he was a Xandir Malta employee.
Incredibly,he used to do this while he was at the same time Head of the Governmnet board that censors films! When I pointed out (in Parliamnet) that this was a case of a conflict of interest, he retorted that I was wrong to think that he was making any money out of it!
@ Brian*14
The Deer Hunter, Midnight Express, Escape to Victory, First Blood, Enter the Dragon were all distributed by MUFC (now KRS Film releases) as was Star wars which was the premiere movie for the Gawhra ( one of the two cinemas created out of the innards of the Embassy)
@Darren
The Coliseum and the Plaza (in Sliema) were both equipped with 70mm projectors so they showed the ‘big’ movies. I still remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia (brilliant) Ice Station Zebra (boring) and Around the World in 80 days (which had six-track surround)(very funny)
God I’m such a geek!
@Daphne
The Radio City Opera House (that was its full title) was a fully functioning theatre till the ’60’s (more info here : http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1835/ophouse.htm) and Daphne you are right, the period you are referring to is the late 70’s/mid-80’s
Phew! I think that’s enough geek talk for today! :)
[Daphne – This is not geek talk. It’s a cathartic process, like our grandparents’ generation talking about shelters and going hungry while bombs rained down.]
“Yep, incredible but true, we only had 2 locally-made models of prams available in those days and a Mothercare pram was a status-symbol.”
I have just had to run around trying to decide on our first pram and I wish there were only two to choose from :)
@Darren: KRS still hangs posters on that very same corner, so it must have been them.
Speaking of films, I wonder if anybody remembers when instead of just distributing films, persons close to the MLP tried their errrrrr hand I suppose at producing, and even acting, of porno films. Stephen somebody, if memory serves me right. But this was later on of course.
[Daphne – Oh yes! A home-made porn film with a hand-held video kemra and a few naked members of the Labour Party’s cheer-leading team, the PomPom Girls, rolling about with a naked Labour Party official called Stephen. Imagine what a festa the newspapers would have made out of that in these less prudish times. Back then, there were lots of people who didn’t even know it had happened. Oh my god, how hilarious. One for Lino Cassar’s collection….]
A memory I “cherish” from those dark days is (was?) the Kinne bottle. The one with green, red and white ink markings.
My sister has one. God knows where she found it.
What a load of rubbish!
[Daphne – Actually, Gerald, it’s called social history.]
… I recall watching this porn video at the PN club in Marsa !!!! I clearly remember getting a call from Sandro S.A. (still PN then) for a “private viewing” of the MLP porn video at the PN club. It was an absolute scream, the poor filming, but very evidently filmed at the MLP Macina HQ – but porn it was ! I do recall saying if Fenech Adami found out the PN club was screening it (behind closed doors), he would terminate the barman’s permit forthwith , and our party membership too .
MLP has such a colourful history…it attracts such dysfunctional people
[Daphne – Oh dear, Sandro. That’s one dysfunctional person the Nationalist Party attracted, though it had the good sense not to allow him to stand for election under the PN ticket, unlike another party I can mention.]
@Chris
Thanks for the information. If the Coliseum and Plaza used 70mm, what did the rest of the cinema centres use? Does that mean they could project specific films which others could not? And what are the specifications for present pojectors being used in local cinemas?
Gerald: And you read it.
@ Gerald
Close your eyes, you sad man, here is more rubbish..
Speaking of pornos, hands up everyone who remembers ‘Helga’ – the Swedish sex education movie.
Playing to packed houses, the Coliseum also became home to the St John’s ambulance brigade who assisted the faint hearted (literally).
The nurses would place bets as to who would get out when. The birth sequence was always the moment when a veritable climax of burly men would head for the exit in various stages of faintheadedness. The burlier, the more likelier to faint. LOL
Remember the 9pm intermissions at the cinema, barely 15 minutes into the film, as the tuck shops would close early? You could buy these filling-breakers for want of edible chocolate.
[Daphne – Iced Gems – I loved those.]
Anyone remembers “Confessions of a window cleaner” at the savoy?
[Daphne – The star has lived in Gozo for many years. He still has the same hairstyle.]
@Darren
ok, more geek talk. 70 mm refers to the size (more specifically the width) of the film stock. Most films are printed on 35mm stock (although the special effects of Star wars were filmed on 70 mm and then printed on 35 mm to hide the mistakes.
The last film to use 70mm was Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet which was never shown in Malta because it was on 70 mm stock. 70mm (in a square format 70 x 70 )is used to create the Imax films. Its a lush hi-definition image which is very immersive.
Other film sizes are the 16mm (and super 16) still used for TV and 8mm (and super 8) which was used by home movie makers before video cameras turned up
Paul Caruana: Yes, I remember those. And puff candy bars selling at 2c each. And people smoking in the dark and hurriedly putting out their cigarette when the silhouette of a policeman loomed large in the the wedge of light of the open theatre door. And mass booing and hissing when the film snapped and the dingy screen showed half a frame or nothing at all.
Cinemas aren’t half as much fun now, are they?
Does anyone remember being bussed out of school to some mangy cinema as a ‘treat’ because the film shown was considered educational and suitable for catholic children?
I remember watching a film about the sinking of the Titanic and another about Vjolet Szabo, a Polish resistance fighter in world war 2, in a musty cinema in Rabat. Both films were in black and white but at least they had their own sound track.
Chris I (formerly known as Chris): That must have been one of the H-rated ‘fimms’, marked down by the Diocesan Film Commission as “Hazin”. An ’18’ rating wasn’t enough to warn parents that their children should not be allowed anywhere near it.
They couldn’t do much about the explicit posters hanging up at Msida and Hamrun, though.
Once at St Aloysius College they showed us The Return of the Pink Panther as a treat and there was a scene with 2 topless girls. The whole college went crazy clapping whistling etc. The next day the headmaster toured each class saying that it was a mistake, that the person who supplied the film misled the Jesuits and “please tell your parents that we are absolutely against such films”. This was 1985 or 1986 I was in Form 3, this episode is still legendary among those who were present.
@ Corinne When I was in my teens in the 60’s the explicit posters
at the Savoy and ABC had black paint painted over the
explicit parts.
Remember is-Sur Guz at the Alhambra? He waddled around with his torch while we quickly stubbed out our ciggies. His battle cry was ‘Ser talaqlu hemm hi?!’ if I remember correctly.
Aaah! The joy of Sunday afternoon films at 4.15pm!
Darren – They still hang their posters there
Gerald – “What a load of rubbish!”
You are obviously too young to appreciate it all. Watching repeated adverts of The Balloon Vendor and the like is part of our youth, as were the primitively typed words on our TV screens saying “tonn taz-zejt, ghola 3 millezimi; Flying Wheel luncheon meat, ghola millezimu …”
It looks like all of you have forgotten City Lights, with its predominantly male customers.
Daphne / Paul Caruana – You’d be please to know that “iced gems” seem to have made a comeback. I’ve spotted them (locally-packed by Rocky Products, if I’m not mistaken) at a San Gwann grocer.
“Dan taghhom…. imma qed nixorbu jien … ghax ghandi bzonnu aktar minnhom… Glamour Sugar Free tal-Canada Dry”, must be the most remembered advert of the time.
(More about cinemas) Remember when:
An unidentified liquid would trickle down the sloping floor towards your feet, and you then realise that the “gentleman” behind you has decided that he couldn’t be bothered walking to the toilet to relieve himself?
Cockroaches creeping along the top of the seat in front of yours, while the person occupying that seat is totally oblivious to the creature?
When ‘intermission’ meant that attendants selling ice-cream in trays hung around their necks would walk along the aisles?
And, best of all, when the cinema fee was only 10c? When it eventually cost 28c and the price was increased to 35c and everybody complained? (Though we now think nothing of paying Lm2.60 or whatever… To be in cleaner comfort, of course, at the very least.)
Does anyone remember a test-card of some sort being shown on the cinema screen at the Salesian Domus when an “inappropriate scene” was about to come up?
I’m 46 years old and I vividly remember waking up for school to Radju Malta’s top DJ Vincent Scerri, taking phone-in callers participating in a radio game of “Kaxxi Vojta” and “Kaxxi Mimlija”, or something of the sort, in between advising married couples to shower together to save water and advertising a product called “Water Boy” which when sprayed in the toilet bowl saved the household a flush or two a day!
And the guy’s still around today, lending his voice to PBS programming schedules and making the odd appearance on Xarabank extolling the merits of some Prime Minister or other!!
And what about Eileen Montesin?! She’s the symbol of the Xandir of the 70’s if ever there was one! She was the Mago Zurlì of Maltese children back then. She ushered most of us into the colour television world … literally … but that was the 80’s!
And she’s still around today, too … with “Dejjem Tiegħek, etc” AND extolling the merits of … anyway :)
Lol … how I miss the 70’s!
I recall a cinema manager complaining that the authority dictated on what days the films of the government backed distributor were screened, that is on prime time Saturdays and Sundays.
They didn’t just use a test card at id-domus. They waved their hands in front of the projector to hide the rude bits. Then there was the infamous time they screened ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon” and the prospective St Francis stripped off his clothes.
That put them in a fix.
It was all a bit like Cinema Paradiso, except that the setting of that legendary cinema was some twenty years earlier.
Cinema seats costs 28cents if you sat in the balcony. 10c seats were in the stalls.
The balconies were usually empty.
Cikki: They still do that on magazines in Dubai.
People who seem to find nothing positive in the experiences of their childhood and youth might have some serious self-perception problems, you know!
I am really sorry for you that you look at your youthful days as having been so bleak. Our grandparents do not even paint the wartime situation in Malta in such bleak terms! Heavens! Come on, get a life.
We are talking of 30 years ago. How do you think were cinemas in small towns in Europe in those days? How could cinemas be maintained properly in those days when audiences plummeted? There was a time when there were at least two cinemas in every village in Malta. When audiences decreased, cinemas began to close down. The handful that didnt tried to survive on a shoestring.
Rather than ridiculing them, I actually salute them in trying to keep the cinema alive in Malta in those days.
[Daphne – You miss the point, Albert. Teenagers are capable of having a good time anywhere. The point, though is that we could have had a far more interesting and better life, with more opportunities, but it was thanks to somebody’s caprice that we did not. Don’t compare this to the war, please: the experience of World War II was common to the whole of Europe. Our particular frustration is that just 60 miles away in Sicily, life was in colour, and here it was in black and white. We could compare.]
Albert Farrugia: There’s another point you’re missing. We’re all laughing at our own experience – except you and Gerald, that is.
Joe M – How could anyone forget Eileen Montesin’s attempt at playing the ventriloquist, with “Ritchie”, her puppet? It was on “Bixkilla Ward u Zahar” if I am not mistaken.
Corinne – Yes, I remember that! Their attempt at censorship was a bit like our teachers instructing us to cross off “inappropriate” lines in our Shakespeare books.
Albert Farrugia – Maybe we’re just reminiscing
Does anyone remember the jingle “Cable Radio jaghti gewwa d-dar, idum sejjer, dejjem lejl u nhar”. I remember hearing it repetitively, just like the Balloon Vendor adverts.
And then there was P O Box Ghaxra, with Cowboy (Kajboj) John Muscat …
Amanda: Cowboy John used to air on Sundays … he used to gallop along with his faithful Cettina :)
PO Box Għaxra was the daily request program, where the same songs used to be played day in, day out. Cliff Richard’s “Congratulations” was the most popular 45 incher of the decade!
Daphne: thanks for the link to Pagine 70 … brought back loads of memories. However I would tread carefully when writing about the advent in Malta of colour television. In Italy, the official birthday of tv in glorious colour was Tuesday, 1 February, 1977, a mere four years before it was introduced here. Ok, time is relative (agħmilhom imdendel mis-suf ta’ saqajk erba’ snin!) but we weren’t light years behind our 60-mile-away neighbours neither, as some of us would like to impress upon the younger generations of today!
Joe M: The comment was about life, not TV. I can see why that mistake was made. Life for people here really was something that happened on TV.
Chris I (formerly known as Chris): That must have been one of the H-rated ‘fimms’, marked down by the Diocesan Film Commission as “Hazin”. An ‘18′ rating wasn’t enough to warn parents that their children should not be allowed anywhere near it.
Haha – that made me remember that the DFC ratings were the sole criterion by which we chose films – for the diametrical opposite reasons the ratings intended! (Jekk hu ‘H’ tlaqna narawh!) lol!
going even further back, I suppose few remember the Tivoli and Viceroy in Paola. 6 o’clock on Satyrday evening would see a stream of people walking (not driving) from Paola Square to the two cinemas for the night out.
[Daphne – Satyrday? Is that a Freudian slip or something?]
@ Amanda Mallia
Yes I remember the cable radio jingle!! And I also remember getting ready for school every morning to the sound of another jingle of a Vincent Scerri radio programme which went “Il-ferrovija muzikali ma’ Vincent Scerri – TOOT TOOOOOOOT!!!”
:-)
Do you also remember how we all used to practically wear the same clothes? Boys and girls alike? At school for PE we all wore those white Chinese gym shoes with green soles, not because they were part of the uniform but because they were practically the only thing around I guess… To go out we’d wear Sanga or Soldini shoes, Spider jeans, identical sweat shirts or T-shirts, and those puffy Red Devil jackets in winter.. and if you were lucky enough to have been able to afford a Benetton/012/Jeans West article you were considered to be the cat’s whiskers!
[Daphne – In 1978/79 ‘cat’s whiskers’ jeans came from Jean Machine in Oxford Street, and were FU’s – the most sought-after being in blue-and-white mattress-ticking, white or pale pink. There was one girl who had a pair of pale pink ones which she wore every weekend, summer and winter, with pride. Thirty years later, I still can’t think of her as anything other than XXXia Pink Jeans.]
Daphne / Becky d’Ugo – You’re forgetting “Fruit of the Loom” sweatshirts and t-shirts
Amanda: or were they “Fruit of the Look”? People used to buy this version fuq il-Monti :)
[Daphne – Satyrday? Is that a Freudian slip or something?]
no – it’s a simple misprint – it’s the fashion nowadays :)
Mariop – “Haha – that made me remember that the DFC ratings were the sole criterion by which we chose films – for the diametrical opposite reasons the ratings intended! (Jekk hu ‘H’ tlaqna narawh!) lol!”
DFC ratings – I remember those! Looking back, I wonder who viewed the films to rate them? Maybe that was one outlet for them …