I found this old Manchester Evening News newspaper from 1982 in an old family photo chest.
What interested me were the Saturday TV and cinema listings. I was 21 at the time and living in Germany.
In Britain these were the days of just 4 TV channels and countless small town-centre cinemas.
Interestingly they included a Saturday night thriller, which I assume was a TV play, 2 horror films - Fiend Without a Face and The Strange Door, a prime-time episode of Shogun and an episode of Cannon.
TV stations also ended early in the morning for the night as signified by the word 'close'.
What else catches your eye?
The cinema listings are a revelation and reminded me just how many cinemas there were showing both popular and in some 'blue' movies.
Films being shown included Zombie Creeping Flesh, the Warriors, the Entity, American Werewolf in London and Flesh Gordon.
Interestingly The Fall were playing a gig at Manchester's Lesser free Trade Hall. The influential lead singer Mark E. Smith, hailing from Salford, has passed away this week aged just 60.
The suburban cinemas around Manchester were showing an even more eclectic mix of thrillers and sleaze with films like The Thing, Brimstone and Treacle, Poltergeist and Hot T-Shirts.
They were also showing Wolfen, one of my fave horror flicks of all time.
What would you have gone to see?
What a great ephemeral time capsule of eighties entertainment, you've found, Woodsy. I saw The Warriors at our local Odeon at that time. Also a fan of An American Werewolf in London and The Thing. Fascinated by most of Dennis Potter's stuff, including Brimstone and Treacle. His TV mini series, The Singing Detective, was/is my fave though :)
ReplyDeleteGreat observations Tone. Yep, American Werewolf is one of my faves too, such a great film. I think the moors at the start of the movie are meant to be the North Yorkshire Moors, which are about an hour away from us in West Yorkshire. Not sure if they actually filmed it there though. Never seen the Singing Detective!
DeleteWow...That's a lot to process.Taking a quick glance,I saw plenty.The first thing to catch my eye was the Pyramid Game,a game show listed in the Granada schedule.The cinemas were overflowing with good stuff.In addition to big blockbuster fare like Rocky 3,movies more my speed were Cat People, Love at First Bite, and an obscure movie called Death Valley, which I love.I noticed some racier stuff too, like an installment of the Emanuelle movies, and Flesh(not Flash)Gordon.As for the concert listings,My hat is off for Roy Harper ;p, and would have loved to see Killing Joke.What a time to be young,wouldnt you agree?
ReplyDeleteBrill insights Brian. Are they similar to 80's TV in the US? Never seen Death Valley. I'll have to track it down. As for Roy H, I loved him as a hippy teenager and played my one LP of his to death. Largely forgotten now, I imagine that Led Zep's tribute to him is the main way a new generation might discover Roy. I saw him live in Manchester of all places in 1988 in a venie called Band on the Wall. Never heard any Killing Joke but I was rather blinkered in my hippy ways when it came to techno or new wave. I was also abroad for half of the Eighties. Are they new wave?
DeleteKilling Joke probably could be categorized as "industrial rock".I think they were an early influence of goth,myself.80's TV in England is definitely different than U.S.although many TV shows did cross the Atlantic one way or another.
ReplyDeleteIndustrial rock eh. I'll have to have a listen. Most UK TV now is dross Brian. Endless tales of misery, car chases, heart by-passes, home auctions, pawn shops and celebrity gossip. A waste of TV space.
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