I joined the College of Engineering, Trivandrum in 1959. I was staying in the college Men’s Hostel. The college had not been shifted to Kulathoor then, (It was shifted only in 1961). The college and the hostel were near the Mascot Hotel, a famous landmark in the city.
Coming to Trivandrum, opened up new vistas in many fields — one of which I fondly remember is the English movies. Having pursued my school studies at different small towns in the erstwhile Tranvancore state, I never had had a chance to see many English movies till I came to Trivandrum and began my encounter with the Sreekumar Talkies.
I had only a few English movies during my school days — Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Tarzen (Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan) and some other films; two of which still stand out in my memory very vividly. They are Samson and Delilah and Bicycle Thieves. After coming to Trivandrum I learnt that Samson and Delilah was a Cecil B De Mille movie and it was Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr who acted as Samson and Delilah, and that Bicycle Thieves was a Vittorio De Sica movie.
From the hostel we used to go for the second shows. The budget for a movie was one rupee. Remember it was the late Fifties/early Sixties. We used to go in a batch of six. There used to be an organiser. The organiser would collect the money in advance. After the movie, we used to return by taxi; the taxi fare being Rs 1.50.
When the college was shifted to Kulathoor in 1961, it was difficult to go to the movies. We made an arrangement with a local lad to screen good movies in the open air near the hostel which was great fun.
During those years, especially the first two years in college, we saw many great movies. To name a few — Big Country, Ben Hur, Casablanca, Giant, Gone with the wind, Guess who is coming to dinner, From here to eternity, Man with the golden arm, Moby Dick, Misfits, Peyton Place, Psycho, Rear window, Sayonara, Shane, Ten commandments, The bridge on the River Kwai, The man who knew too much, The old man and the sea — I can go on and on. I became a fan of many actors and actresses. Starting from Alec Guinnes, Anthony Quinn, Antony Perkins, Audry Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, Clark Gable, David Niven, Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, Humphry Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Hawkins, James Stewart to John Wayne, Merlyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Shirly Macline, Sidney Potier and Spencer Tracy.
After graduating from college, I accepted a job in a PSU near Cochin. However, my encounter with English movies did not stop. I managed to continue watching good English movies whenever I got a chance.
Now I am retired and I seldom go to the theatre to watch a movie. I watch movies of interest on the TV. I must confess my ignorance about the new generation actors/ actresses and the movies. Though I have seen quite a few wonderful new generation movies — I mean no disrespect to them, yet, I still yearn to see the old movies of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.