Harry Leech meets projectionist Liam Hughes, who retires this month from his job at the Savoy Cinema after 40 years’ service
As you sink into the plush seats and the red curtains slowly pull back to reveal the cinema screen, you could be forgiven for thinking you have been transported back to the Savoy’s opening night on November 29th, 1929. But no – it’s 2009 and it’s Harry Potter up there rather than Hal Roach. Still, everything about the Savoy exudes the class of a bygone era.
The cinema celebrates its 80th birthday later this year, but this month reaches another milestone with the retirement of its head projectionist, Liam Hughes, on August 7th after 40 years of service.
The man I meet in the projection room is sprightlier than his 68 years suggest, and is clearly as passionate about cinema now as he ever was. A chat with Liam about what’s currently showing in the Savoy brings numerous detailed recommendations.
Getting his first job as a pageboy at the Stella Cinema on Deerpark Road, Mount Merrion, in 1955 was not easy, but thankfully Liam had contacts. “My father was almost 50 years in the business. He was the head usher in the Stella Cinema in Rathmines, and so he got me the job. The cinema industry was a real family business in those days.”
In more ways than one: Liam’s wife, like her mother-in-law before her, caught the eye of her future husband while working as an usherette.
It’s hard to understate the importance of the cinema in Ireland at the time. Before the widespread availability of television, cinema was the only show in town. There were 56 cinemas in Dublin city and its suburbs; on the north side of the Liffey alone, the Savoy had to compete with 24 other cinemas within a two-mile radius, with grand names like the Coliseum, the Cameo, the Ambassador and the Regent. The main rival, however, was the Carlton, which screened Paramount & MGM pictures while the Savoy exclusively showed Columbia and 20th Century Fox films.
After serving his three-year projectionist apprenticeship at the Camden de Luxe on Camden Street, Liam moved to the Metropole on O’Connell Street (now Penneys) in 1964. He transferred to the Savoy in 1969 when the cinema was ‘twinned’ and the massive 2900-seater auditorium was split into two screens. At the time, Liam was one of nine projectionists for the two cinema screens.
Unbelievably, the equipment he uses today is much the same as it would have been when The Godfather opened in 1972 or E.T. in 1982. “Movies still arrive broken into 20-minute reels and we have to assemble them in the correct order, check them for defects and do all the minor electrical maintenance on the projectors.”
The 35mm film is then threaded onto the projector and the bright lights cast the moving pictures onto the big screen. The projector Liam is using on the day we talk started in the Savoy at the same time he did, in 1969. It seems Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso could as easily have been set in Dublin in 2009 as in 1950s Sicily.
Having seen thousands of movies over a 54-year career, Liam’s passion for cinema remains undimmed. But his all-time favourite comes as something of a surprise. “People always get a shock when they ask me what my favourite movie is. Even to this day, it’s The 10 Commandments. I have it at home on DVD – the flat-screen, the surround sound, the whole lot – and no one else will look at it but me! Cecil B DeMille was a real showman. Brilliant stuff!”
Liam is retiring to Killaloe, County Clare, to spend more time with his family. He’ll be able to bring the grandchildren to the cinema more often once he is retired; a busman’s holiday, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. He’s leaving the cinema in capable hands – the Savoy’s three other projectionists, Brian, Paul and Eamonn, have between them well over 100 years’ experience.
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