I recently began an internship at the Florida Theatre and
today I had an opportunity to visit the theatre to attend one of the Summer
Movie Classics events. The movie this week was From Russia with Love. As I have mentioned before, I am a huge James Bond fan and Sean Connery
is one of my favorite Bonds. It is interesting to see how Bond has developed
over the years and how over time, it has picked up certain trademarks that make
it the ‘brand’ that it is today. Since this is one the very early Bond films,
it lacked a lot of the trademarks that we would recognize today, such as the
standard phrases ‘Bond, James Bond’ and ‘shaken, not stirred’. Although I did
enjoy the humor, I missed the quirkiness and the references to previous Bond
films. Overall, it was a great experience and watching a cinema classic on the
big screen was incredible.
I sat in section 300 in the very back, and I still had a
clear view of the film. The layout of the theatre is great because there does
not really seem to be any ‘bad seats’ because it is arranged in such a way that
you can basically see the entire stage from everywhere. Next time, I plan on
trying to get a seat upstairs and experience the view from the balcony. The
sounds quality was great, but there were a few points throughout the film where
it seemed to be un-restored and the film was grainy. This somewhat added to the
authenticity of the experience of watching a classic film.
I was amazed at how many people were there to see the film.
Although it was hard to tell in the dark, it looked like most of the bottom
floor of the theatre was full. I did not get a chance to check and see how many
people were up in the balcony. It was nice to see that there are still many
Bond fans out there that, like me, drove through incredibly heavy rain to enjoy
this classic.
