There is nothing so insufferable as a friend who has acquired that new status symbol the video recorder.
And nothing so piteous, so grovelling as the cinema sycophants who attend his picture nights.
One of my friends now has a video recorder and he acts as if he has just leased Disneyland.
I can forgive him the beret and talking like Sam Goldwyn and idly tossing off the names of the great stars.
I can forgive him his daughter, suburbia’s new Cyd Charisse, and even his wife who dispenses chocolate rice bubbles from sticky patty pans during interval. But I can’t forgive him has arrogance, his sending me to the video film exchange (“Shirley Temple again, mate? Why don’t you grow up”)
I can’t overlook his constant consulting of vintage copies of Screen Gems and his smirking re marks about my re semblance to the larger part of Laurel and Hardy.
But this is all part of this social phenomenon, this electronic status symbol.
“You see, Fatchen” he said, sprinkling ash over me from his Alfred Hitchcock cigarette holder, “I am no longer the slave of commercials, I am my own man. If you want to attend a session, see my casting director. We don’t just allow riff raff at our viewings.”
I noticed that he was growing a beard for a coming screening of Henry VIII while his wife was already doing her block because she couldn’t dress as Anne Boleyn.
He screens every weekend and some neighbours begin arriving with chutney and apricot conserve even before the declining sun has kissed the western rooftops and slid into the blue crab riviera of the gulf and before the local David Nivens have stabled their fast cars before an evening at the tables.
Let my friend mention he is showing Mutiny on the Bounty and every woman in the street wears a flower behind her ear, and knock on any door and you’ll find Fletcher Christian.
Everyone afraid
There was the night we had the sinking of the Titanic and everyone was afraid to defrost the fridge for weeks.
Dracula caused the worst outbreak of tonsillitis for years and I know at least two people who had to visit the kitchen sink during a screening of The Cruel Sea.
Of course we’ve had The Adventures of Robin Hood which even I reluctantly admit enjoying despite my friend’s wife shrieking on my arrival, “Well look who’s here. Friar Tuck!”
Certainly my friend consults me about his new releases but it’s merely a kind of snobbery so that he can blabbermouth his cinematic chit-chat
For instance he rang to see how I felt about Doris Day.
I said that indeed I had been big for Doris Day at one stage. But then I began to detect in Doris a terrible tendency to dominate the male and so I had shed her for Debbie Reynolds who was as sweet as syrup.
I knew by my intake of honey crumble that we were involved in a meaningful relationship but just as everything was as neat and nice as a ribbon on a chocolate box who should happen along but “Legs” Liza Minnelli I and began doing little routines from Cabaret which got me some odd stares in that strong hold of conservatism, our local train.
But then my age began to tell and I reverted to Greer Garson That’s the way we golden oldies go. Greer today and corn tomorrow.
So I haven’t a video recorder. I’m still with those big poles on Mount Lofty and what they like to send to my old aerial with its bird lime and thoughtful sparrows, quivering its impulses into the telly set in my uncluttered sitting room with its easy chairs lined with crumbs and peanuts.
But at least you can still see nice people feeding chunky pieces to their dogs, cockneys singing among the furniture, lollies exploding and beautifully coloured plaque on teeth and even, if you’re lucky, a fleeting glimpse of Des Colquhoun making our State great.
Machine freak
At least you won’t have to endure the staggering crust of the video recording machine-freak
One of my friends called yesterday. Normally at sane woman, she was wearing a pith helmet and chattering shrilly in Swahili so I knew that she had been invited to a screening of The African Queen. But I shall not weaken again. Not for Doris or Debbie, Marilyn or Bette.
A pest even on Cleopatra. She may have left her Mark on some but you won’t find me grovelling for carpet space tomorrow night.
So go leap in Golden Pond, you cassette creeps
Now my friend wants me to see his screening of the original Lost Horizon.
There’s only one response to that.
Get lost!
Max Fatchen