Scala!!!

Scala Me Blood Red

Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly
Strange Rise and Fall of
the World's Wildest Cinema
and How It Influenced a
Mixed-up Generation of
Weirdos and Misfits
Directed by Jane Giles and Ali Catterall
UK Fifty Foot Woman 2023
London Film Festival screening,
15th October 2023

My third and final film of this year’s London Film Festival was the documentary movie I was most looking forward to. Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits, to give it its full title, is co-directed by Jane Giles (who used to work at the famous... no, infamous... Scala cinema at King’s Cross) and is based on her fantastic book Scala Cinema 1978-1993, which she published back in 2018 and which I reviewed here. I suspect some of the information in the movie, which is much more a look at the classic venue from the audience’s point of view, could also be gleaned from the booklet sold at the early Scalarama revivals around ten or so years ago too.

As such, in terms of the various stories and anecdotes which actually made it into this movie, I think I knew most, if not all of them. But that’s absolutely fine because, a) many people won’t know them and b) it’s just so great to hear them from the actual people who were there at the time and to see what they look like. In the introduction to the movie (both Giles and her co-director Ali were at the screening to introduce and indulge in an informative Q&A session afterwards), it was stressed that this wasn’t intended to be a dry, talking heads style documentary and, okay... it is kind of talking heads oriented but, it’s certainly not a dry one and it’s full of wonderful clips from both some of the films shown at the venue, historic footage from the times and even an animation, in one anecdotal story, of a mushroom fuelled stint behind the ticket counter.

So, if nothing else (but it IS everything else too), it’s a nicely put together, good looking piece. It obviously mentions the influence of the whole Scala experience on the audiences of the time, rightly pointing out how it helped shape a generation of film makers, musicians, artists and activists. So, of course, since the cinema is so fondly remembered by the people at ground zero, as it were, the documentary is full of interesting and somewhat famous people such as Alan Jones, Kim Newman, Peter Strickland, David McGillivray, Beeban Kidron, John Waters and Ben Wheatley... to name just a few... along with the various staff who worked and passed through there, talking about various incidents in the Scala’s past. So yes, you will get to briefly meet the Scala cats, you will hear about the guy who died of a heart attack during a screening, the guy who killed himself jumping from the toilet window (in a surprisingly moving account, actually), the guy with the prosthetic limb and the huge pile of left over, sticky latex gloves after the ‘all-girl night’ found in the morning.

The film has a driven, almost chaotic approach in its editing and its musical score, which gives it some pace and ensures that, even if you’ve heard it all before, you are nothing less than entertained all the way through. I was also very lucky to be in attendance at the Q&A session after the screening where I did actually hear about some stuff I didn’t know. Like the old lady, “audience regular” who features prominently in one piece of archive footage and who liked the films with chainsaw killers and cars driving fast over hills. When the directors tracked her down for this documentary, they managed to get in contact with her son (who it later transpired was actually her grandson) to find that she was in the hospital with Alzheimers. By the time editing on this film was finished, she’d passed away at the age of 102. The only three people at her funeral were her grandson and the two directors of this movie... which is a lovely story in some ways but reminds me of my own mortality and the fact that, the longer you live, the less people you have left to share life with, as they die around you.

And that’s me done on Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits which, incidentally, also covers the time when the Scala was located in Tottenham Street, before it restarted in the more famous King’s Cross venue. I will try and see this one again when it gets released in cinemas here in the UK (on January 5th 2024 apparently) and I might also go to part of the Scala season at the BFI which is, presumably, going to coincide with that release. I’m also eagerly awaiting a Blu Ray so I hope it gets a good physical release on the BFI label, for sure. So there you have it, a film about the audiences at one of the most iconic cinemas of its time. A definite recommendation from me for this one, for sure.