Film 107: “The Glenn Miller Story”

“Wonderful film! Lovely venue” (Audience feedback)

We were expecting a slow start to our new Sunday Matinee series – it takes time for word to spread – but if you’ll forgive the pun, everyone was “In the mood” for a great film. We were really pleased to see 43 people book to watch “The Glenn Miller Story” – around half of whom had never visited Billericay Community Cinema before.

Our gallant Volunteers were kept incredibly busy serving everyone drinks and snacks – 38 cups of tea and coffee were drunk and 34 portions of cake consumed along with a variety of soft drinks, water and sweets. Our huge and very grateful thanks to Sheila Sparks (who baked 2 Victoria sponges and 2 lemon cakes) and to stalwart Volunteer Iris Ellis for her Madeira cake – it’s fair to say everyone enjoyed their generous slices!

James Stewart and June Allyson were excellent in their starring roles and well supported by Harry Morgan (Col. Sherman T.Potter in M*A*S*H) whilst the mix of dialogue with some of Miller’s classic arrangements made for an entertaining couple of hours. Despite a sad ending to the film (hardly a dry eye in the house!) there was a lovely ripple of applause as the film and with the audience feedback rating “The Glenn Miller Story” an excellent 9.9 out of 10 for the film and 9.8 for the event overall it was clear you enjoyed the afternoon.

Where can we improve ? Well with one of the main window blinds out of action on a very sunny day more light entered the hall than we would have liked but hopefully this will be fixed before our next show. We were making tea to order – however, given the quantities of drunk we need to invest in some teapots to speed up our service. Other than that everything went to plan. Feedback is important to us, however, so please do let us know where you think we can improve.

Here’s a snippet showing our audience enjoying “String of Pearls”

We managed to get some of our gold poles and red braid outside to welcome guests – and our banner stood out well against the clean lines of the Chantry Centre.

We had a number of suggestions for films to show in future including Doris Day in “Move Over Darling”, Ealing Comedies (gets my vote, I’m a huge fan), Cary Grant in “Father Goose” and “Casablanca” – we’ll add them all to the list of possibles, thank you.

Our Matinee is taking a month’s break in September, however, we’ll return on October 17th with “Military Wives”. Inspired by the worldwide phenomenon of the Military Wives’ Choirs it stars Krysten Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan. Then on November 21st we’re showcasing “The African Queen” starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in director John Huston’s 1951 classic. Please subscribe to our monthly newsletter to ensure you hear about our films first – the form is on the right hand side of this screen.