Flicks

from Jeremy Littlejohn

Not everyone eats at the cinema. I do. Sweet things on the rye, sweet things on the ear, sweet things on the tongue well, thats the preponderance of the senses taken care of for an hour and a half. But a sensory bonanza is a rare occasion, for all that, and the smallest imperfection can upset that exquisite balance required to maintain a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Which leads me to protest at the quality of frozen confection to be had at the Regent. Eleven cents commands more than a blotch (blob, I'm afraid, would over-state the case) of tasteless, watered down ice-cream hidden in a regulation size cone. Ice-cream that leaves one only too conscious of one's nose and one's bum for what seems, with credibility none too well suspended, an age. This, I can assure you, is not the case at the Majestic or the Cinerama. There, if not delectable, at least the fare is easily swallowed and little discomfort is likely to accrue, a very different state of affairs from that at the Regent where one is categorically informed that every bite is at one's own expense, and that there is no need to dine well to dine unwisely. That, I regret to say, is the rude awakening in store for those who go in search of a little sustenance at the Regent. Which only goes to make such a bloody awful film as 'The Gay Deceivers' all the more impossible to sit through.

Doubtless things will return to their former condition at the Regent and eleven cents will bring forth more palatable examples of the confectioner's art. And, doubtless, we shall see a similar return at the Lido—which, remembering the halcyon days of those choclate coated orange ice-creams, would please me no end, especially in view of the drabness and brittleness of what's being served up at present. Not that the invitation isn't beguiling.....corporeal debauchery with lashings of sweet spice, and all that. Sadly, as one fights to keep one's dinner down while unappetizing excesses of middle aged flesh flash from the screen, its an invitation one feels bound to decline, of course, one may feel rueful at missing a little delicacy tucked away in these, not obvious at first sight: but then one can be consoled. Nothing will be missed; as blatantly indelicate a film as 'Monique-Au Pair Girl' is, fortunately, a rarity.