I don’t know if it was a purely UK phenomenon, but back in the day some movies took time to make their way onto the broader release circuit. Disney had held their premiere for THE BLACK HOLE in London’s Leicester Square - their Christmas release for December 1979. It would be a full three months down the line to March 30th 1980 before it would escape to cinemas farther afield. It was a typical cool grey Saturday morning in mid April, a fact I can now call with certainty thanks to a press clipping which surfaced on the internet fairly recently. For reasons I cannot recall I was not staying at my grandparents that particular weekend, and without a clue as to what I was going to do I remember looking over my dad’s shoulder that morning, spotting the cinema listings as he read the newspaper. With it being mid to late April the Gaumont cinema would have been into their final screenings for the movie.. it may even have said so in the listings. Towards the end of 1979 I’d happened upon “Disney Time”, something of a routine nostalgia holiday show at the time, it would appear sporting clips from Disney movies to entertain kids for half an hour. I remember it was British magician Paul Daniels that was hosting it that year, and one of the last pieces he introduced gave audiences a sneak look at this sci-fi fantasy movie, a clip which absolutely mesmerised me. Robots, adventures and thrills.. it looked like something I’d love to catch. Up to this point my total cinema exploits had taken in a couple of viewings of the old Doug McClure fantasy adventure WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE and Bond movie MOONRAKER (which I would later find out was also scored by John Barry). I knew of STAR WARS from a Christmas present graphic annual and the plethora of media which covered everywhere at the time, but somehow I completely missed it on the big screen first time around. To this date I still don’t know how (though I would get to see it on the big screen the following year whilst on holiday in Scarborough, as part of a double bill with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). Maybe it was a combination of having missed STAR WARS and my interest in astronomy which made me a little more determined to try and grab a viewing of this flick. With little convincing my Dad agreed to take me to see it, and I had no idea at the time that this would become one of the most impactful film experiences in my life.
We parked up, and as expected there were few people now attending. As we queued up with the handful who had shown up, I stared at the poster - being the artistic type I loved to catch the poster work for films. The poster for SUPERMAN was a beautifully minimal creation. That film had wowed and even scared me a little so from that point on, far from being a mere advert, to me a film’s poster gifted further anticipation, becoming a part of the overall emotional package. This poster felt quite similar in promised spectacle but was somehow more disquieting. The tag line “A JOURNEY THAT BEGINS WHERE EVERYTHING ENDS..” stretched across the top. Beneath it, and rightfully taking up the lion’s share was a massive, scary looking vortex of blue and orange, dragging a damaged, glass and steel structured spacecraft along with a trail of matter and gas into oblivion. Off to one side, in big bold letters was the title THE BLACK HOLE, the letters crumbling as they got closer to the hole.. next to them a small “A” film rating.. different for Disney. Things were looking up. Below all that were thumbnail images of the cast and the usual crew listings. At the time the only actors I knew were Ernest Borgnine and Anthony Perkins. My love of films had brought the face of Norman Bates to my attention even at an early age, although I obviously hadn’t seen PSYCHO at that point so Alex Durant was just a familiar face. The other was Ernest Borgnine, a face from TV screenings of “THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE”. Due to that flick I knew him better than Anthony Perkins, and had sympathy for his character in that movie so he was slightly more familiar.
Whilst my dad bought our tickets I looked around to the poster again - I don’t know if there were any lobby cards or the movie production booklets/posters which were usually available, but I really wish in retrospect that I’d paid attention and grabbed anything there. We settled into the comfy seats and waited.
The Gaumont cinema was a pretty serious affair. A venue for live music in the 60’s, hosting legendary acts such as Eddie Cochran, Bobby Darin, Cliff Richard, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, at this point it was a two screen cinema capable of seating 1,150 in the stalls and 737 (an odd number?) in the balcony. I imagine this was a pretty vast place for adults, but for an eight year old it was nothing short of a gargantuan experience. The ABC cinema, Sheffield's only other major screen at the time was a significant venue, but this was I think grander. A full 2.35:1 Cinemascope presentation on a huge curved screen set back across a deep stage, and one of eight showings in the UK featuring Dolby Stereo.. this was going to be good. The lights dimmed and the pre rating caption popped up.
THE BRITISH BOARD OF FILM CLASSIFICATION
3 Soho Square London W1D 3HD
This is to certify
THE BLACK HOLE
Has been certified for exhibition - Adult guidance advised
A
A mystical, dark starfield filled my vision and the loud, adventurous strains of John Barry’s “Overture” track blasted out, raising the hairs on my arms. I’d never seen a film with an overture before (history would come to know that both this film and “STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE” would be the last to carry this tradition.), and it threw me at first since I was expecting the film credits.. it was however an extra layer of promise. Then came the opening strings of THAT theme music. I was hooked as the “camera” panned across a vast green spacetime grid and starfield (I was familiar with this representation from my astronomy books, so I guessed where it was going), swaying in concert with a disconcerting and even slightly scary waltz. From the corner of my eye a vast hole in the grid steered into view, the audience getting drawn inexorably into it, down into utter darkness.. wow. A small vessel appeared in the distance, some character narration rolled as our protagonists aboard the small vessel “Palomino” flew by, the thunderous roll of her engines filling the auditorium. This was the most powerful thing I’d heard and felt since Superman’s opening scenes on Krypton.
For the next ninety plus minutes I would be hooked, through the mystery, awe and suspense. The visuals were stunning, the black hole powerful and dangerous looking. The Cygnus was an incredible and beautiful spacecraft, with a very haunted feeling, but I wanted to be there. This place would fill my dreams for quite a few years after. To the child viewing the film, I became instant friends with the Palomino crew as I tagged along with their exploration, and as the youngest member of the crew Joseph Bottom’s character Charles Pizer became the closest embodiment of a good on screen friend and cocky, confident ally. All was well until we met Maximillian. I was very unsettled by him - this robot didn’t speak, except by eye and body language. It wasn’t Forbidden Planet’s Robbie, nor the same kind of unsettling as BLAKE’S 7’s faceless Zen.. this thing seemed like it was on a short leash, teetering on the edge and just waiting for the slightest provocation. Similarly Reinhardt, who seemed initially to be a very grandiose, genial host and somewhat grandfatherly figure started to become unsettling company as matters took a turn for the gothic. Holland’s exploration of the crews quarters and the funeral.. Booth’s botanical robot with the limp.. nothing felt right but the eight year old wasn’t into reasoning what was happening, simply content to let it all roll over him as he was utterly absorbed by the most incredible environment of steel and lights, shadows and and a sense of unsettled wonder. After some chat and light character building with Vincent and Bob the tension racked up a little, as the latter robot exposed the humanoids for what they were. Then there was the sharp shock of conflict with the sentries, the crew becoming split into two groups after Vincent’s call for Holland to see him back on the Palomino.. The hammer began to drop when Durant’s obsession with Reinhardt’s mission threatened to actually split the crew up.. I couldn’t believe he truly wanted to join his mission. McCrae explained the situation to Durant - he still didn’t seem to see it and I couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t hear her. Then the matter came to a head when he removed the humanoid’s mask.. something I really didn’t want him to do because I knew he would get caught. My heart leaped when he removed the mask and again when Reinhardt shouted “What are you doing!?”. As soon as they made a run for it I thought “about time!”, just as Max launched at Durant, in what was probably the most terrible death I’d ever seen on film up to that point. Bloodless, but that didn’t matter - the implication was clear. Then all hell let loose. McCrae’s rescue from a lobotomy, the fight to the Palomino, Booth taking the cowardly path even as friend ally Pizer went to rescue his/our comrades, the loss of the Palomino and the final half hour rollercoaster of adventure approaching genuine terror for the very impressionable artistic me, who still didn’t give a damn about the logic and soaked up every moment of desperation as things went from bad to worse, through visuals and close calls I’d never experienced. It was like reliving the destruction of Krypton all over again, but about twenty times over, and certainly unlike any Disney film I’d ever seen. This eight year old viewer was fraught as Maximillian cut the crew off in the last dash, shooting Bob down and battling Vincent in an enraged fury, to the death. We lost Bob at the last hurdle, nearly lost Pizer, and just when I was half expecting them to escape the black hole, it turns out that Max had managed to seal the probe ship’s fateful journey. Cue said journey, which by this time this little viewer really feared to take. A trippy, psychological dilation plunge into the black hole, the unnerving metaphysical ending as my mind raced to take in the events which were unfolding for the crew, the grandfather turned villain figure of Reinhardt condemned to the shell of monster he’d created, now trapped in some kind of hellish landscape with the damned, as the fragments of the Palomino crew were guided by what I presumed at the time to be Reinhardt’s redeemed id, towards some kind of questionable safety, drifting wordlessly off into a planetary sunrise back in normal space. Where were they? The ship was small and limited.. would they survive?
Roll credits and that eerie soundtrack once again.. It ended and I was left feeling blown away.
It’s funny to see how people felt about this film after I’d seen it. I obviously didn’t think in quite the same terms back in the day, but the adult in me now would voice the child’s feelings as “who are these soulless b*****ds reviewing this film? Had they even seen the same film I saw?”. Clearly they hadn’t seen it the same way, and this was one of my first lessons in creative subjectivity. I collected annuals and story books, model kits, a Viewmaster 3D pack, jigsaw puzzles, the soundtrack album, magazines, almost all before I even had the film for the first time on video, which suffered terribly in “pan and scan” 4:3 format. It would be twenty three years before I would again get to see it in it’s correct widescreen. I’ve seen it many times over, even again at the cinema back in 2014.
I used the Cygnus as a template for practice in Blender 3D modelling..
I’ve even remastered the bluray as a personal project for video production practice.
Through the experience of adult eyes, which have seen many, many more films since, it’s flaws are obvious. Nevertheless if I watch it with real purpose and remember the eight year old who saw this in the cinema, it can be as haunting an experience for me now as it was over forty years ago.
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