Movie Cuts

A while back, someone I knew told me how they had managed to miss the ending of Ben Hur three times thanks to freaky bad luck. I had something similar with South Pacific. It was on TV during a thunderstorm and about 15 minutes before the end... bzzzt... nothing.

But my most annoying, frustrating and yet also most funny cut-off moment wasn't due to a power cut. It was... well, let me tell you the story! It all started in a movie theatre, on a planet in a galaxy far far away...

 

It was some time in my teenage years and the movie was the long-awaited sequel to the first original Star Wars.

I'd been waiting an eternity to find out what happened next. Now finally, there I was sitting with all the other excited Star Wars fans waiting to watch the sequel. The movie started and the magic began. Luke Skywalker came bounding back into our reality, riding a wonderfully weird alien critter on a planet of snow. I was hooked, once again.

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Luke, seemingly lost in the snow, sees a vision beginning to form before him. The ghostly figure of Obi-Wan Kenobi appears. Luke stares... shocked.

The entire audience held their breath as Obi-Wan lifted a hand and, with a deeply serious look on his face, he pointed at Luke and said... (in a very loud, unknown voice)

"Will Johnny Smith please call at the front desk.

 Your mother wants to talk to you."

Noooooooo

What kind of insensitive idiot breaks in with a message at the critical moment of a movie?

Now, you have to remember I was a teen and my finances did not run to seeing a movie a second time purely to hear one or two sentences. And this was long LONG before video tapes or DVDs. I had to wait ten years to finally rent the movie out from a video shop and find out what Obi-Wan said.

And you know what's really funny? I can't remember what he actually said! I'll forever remember him humiliating Johnny Smith, and probably bringing about the break up of his relationship with his mother, in front of an entire jam-packed Saturday audience.