Movie nights at TKC

It was something all the girls looked forward to ... movies. Once a month, we gathered at the Hall to enjoy a movie night. Some movies I remember well, some I cannot recall at all. One movie I remember very well is Splendor in the Grass (1961), starring the beautiful Natalie Wood and the handsome Warren Beatty. Only what I mostly saw on the screen then were just blurred visions of this much tormented couple. Alas, that was the time I discovered to my consternation that I needed prescription glasses! Sheesh, what a time for a light bulb moment!

Another movie well remembered is Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, a 1955 movie adapted from the autobiographical novel by Han Suyin*; about a Eurasian doctor and her American journalist lover in Hong Kong. I still remember that ominous scene when a teacup fell and broke. And who can forget the beautiful theme song? I also remember with clarity (and some hilarity!) that there was quite a technical glitch that night. The film reel moved backwards a number of times, which meant that the actors walked backwards and ... it was during that romantic scene on the beach of the protagonists acted by Jennifer Jones and William Holden. The projector did play up that night and gave the projectionist (our classmate then, now eminent UN astrophysicist Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman) a hard time. It did not help I think, that we were laughing out loud every time the glitches happened and the actors started 'undoing' their actions!

Audrey Hepburn movies I recall because I admired this great beauty - in movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964). The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) I remember because there were trains involved and West Side Story (1961) because it was such a sad, sad musical (sad movies make me cry). Other movies I cannot remember so much except for their titles. Like Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) - I remember because I had to look up the meaning of it. Then there were his other thrillers and their deafening sound effects - The Man Who Knew too Much (1956), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). Other movie night films include Harvey (1950), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Bonnie & Clyde (1967), Mary Poppins (1964), A Hard Day's Night (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Guess who's coming to dinner? (1967), The Graduate (1967), and Lolita (1962). Wait a minute - I may have seen some of these movies at the cinema, not at TKC Seremban. And ... was I even old enough to have seen these last two movies then?

Anyway I do remember those movie nights at TKC (1964-70) with great fondness and maybe quite a few of us (including moi) became movie buffs because it was recreation we enjoyed with a lot of camaraderie.

*A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin (1916-2012) was published in 1952. Han Suyin was the pen name of Elizabeth Comber, born Rosalie Matilda Kuanghu Chou of Chinese-Flemish parentage. Her very interesting life also included a six-year marriage to Leon F. Comber, a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch and they lived in Johor. In 1956 she wrote  And the Rain My Drink, perceived to be very anti-British/Government.