A movie called South Pacific; a musical and no Jaffas.

The first movie I remember going to see was with my Mum and Dad and I was pretty young. We lived in the western suburbs of Sydney and a bus trip took us to Fairfield cinema to see South Pacific, a musical. I discovered this when the lights went out, not that it mattered much. We didn’t own a telly yet.

I remember very little of the movie being pretty young, but a few things stayed in my memory and important things they were too.

I was the youngest of four kids at that time and I wasn’t questioning why I got to go to the movies and they didn’t.

I remember feeling pretty good about being there with my parents, I don’t remember what, if anything, we ate.

Even at my tender age (maybe 6-8yrs) something didn’t seem right about people singing their conversations to each other instead of talking. After all, what person sings out loud as they walk down the street or sit in a shop, or worse still, a library or other place where you had to be quiet?

Lucky the people singing could do it okay and … where was the music coming from? Why, when the people stopped singing, didn’t other people in the movie do or say anything? They must have heard something.

Now, three other things made me want to ask …. Why did the faces of a couple singing to each other have to be so close together? Did they accidentally spit in each other’s eye when singing almost chin to chin? What if some of the singers had bad breath?

Lastly; I wondered in an abstract kind of way, how was it that I was allowed to hear throughout the movie, the name of a woman called Bloody Mary? Bloody was a swear word wasn’t it?

Anyone else have a first movie experience?

The first video is the original trailer for the movie; the second is the moody, mysterious song of Bali Hai (to me at that time anyway. It is the piece of music I remember most).

Word(s) for today;

Musical Film; a film in which characters sing songs which are interwoven with their spoken script. They might dance as well.

More to come;    same blog time, same blog channel.

Footnote(s)

1/  Jaffas (chocolate center) are for eating during the movie and rolling down the aisle. A waste of a good Jaffa if the aisle has carpet; no-one can hear it.

2/  1/9/2013 I added a video and changed the original as it seemed to be having problems loading.