The lure of the silver screen or why I never became a cowboy

The bioscope (as cinemas in South Africa were then called and probably still are) was my second home in the 1950s. Saturday mornings generally found me in a queue of juvenile aficionados clutching a few comics (for swapping), waiting to hand over sixpence in exchange for a ticket of entry (first come, first served, no reserved seats). The Rex, Greenside was a short walk from home. Otherwise it was a trolley bus ride into Central Johannesburg, where there were many bioscopes to choose from, ranging from the Bijou (dingy) to the Plaza (where a gentleman playing the organ rosé magnificently from the pit) to His Majesty’s (a grand theatre, booking in advance, suitable for dating couples). Suburban bioscopes were known as bug-houses, though I never saw or felt the effects of any vermin in any of them.

Picture the scene on a Saturday morning: a darkened auditorium, a restless, talkative audience, the occasional flinging of sweet wrappers or paper cups in random directions, whistles and catcalls if the film snapped or if there was a delay of more than a few seconds between reel changes. Blissful silence once the ‘supporting’ program kicked in, cheers for the Batman serial, fidgeting during the newsreel (African Mirror, heralded by sounds and images of tribal drums), a boring documentary about the harvesting of grapes or work in a chocolate factory, a few adverts and eventually,the main feature.

It was the cowboy movies which had a particular hold on my imagination: images of the hero firing his six-gun, outnumbered by hordes of ‘Red Indians’ (sic) in war-paint and feathered headgear who suddenly materialized on the horizon. After much galloping, whooping and shooting, some of the warriors fall off their horses and roll about in the dust while others gallop off to regroup. Meanwhile, the hero is trapped in a shootout among some rocks until a bugle sounds in the distance and a posse of friendly soldiers gallop to the rescue. Occasionally, I was obliged to witness the hero’s passionate embrace with a skirted lady who had just stepped out of a carriage (whistles and yells of “Half-time” from the adolescent audience).

The end was signaled by the hero trotting off into the distance to continue his mission elsewhere. A portrait of the Monarch was flashed up on the screen to the strains of ‘God Save the King’ but most of the audience had better things to do than stand to attention for this finale and shoved their way through the exits into the harsh daylight of the real world.

I quickly outgrew my cowboy phase but not before it had left its mark on my identity. South Africa, though part of the British Empire, took most of its cultural feeds from the United States and few little boys failed to model themselves on the sun-tanned, lantern-jawed cowboy as he slugged and shot his way to victory over his numerous adversaries. In addition to the adventure element, it was a case of identifying with the ‘goodies’ against the ‘baddies’.

How, then, did I avoid taking on the persona of a cowboy, as revealed in the numerous movies of this genre which I watched entranced? For this, I must thank my parents. Though grudgingly supportive of my addiction to the movies (and bear in mind that there was no television in South Africa in those days) they also made sure that I saw a fair number of movies of a more uplifting nature. ‘Fantasia’, ‘A Song to Remember’ (about the life of Chopin), ‘GI Joe’ (the story of a Jewish mother’s search for her child after the War), ‘How Green was my Valley’ (about life in the impoverished Welsh coalfields) and ‘Oliver Twist’ were just some of the movies which touched my parents and therefore channeled my own inclinations towards sympathy with the underdog.

Perhaps I should add that there were other factors at play which prevented me from becoming a cowboy. Who, for instance, before Mel Brooks’s ‘Blazing Saddles’ had ever heard of a Jewish cowboy? And being of a bookish disposition, myopic and somewhat afraid of horses to boot, I simply did not fit the job description.