1977: ROUSAY's Tenacious FILM SOCIETY | Arena | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

"Five miles long, three miles wide, one road, 210 inhabitants, two shops, a post office, a pub... and a film society."
Arena's Gavin Millar visits Rousay, one of the northern isles of Orkney, and the home of what is quite possibly the most remote film society in Britain. The Rousay Film Society endeavours to meet the cinematic needs of its 75 fully paid-up members, and movie lovers who arrive by boat from nearby islands. It is the brainchild of Bradford potter Frank Harris and his wife, who transform the Island hall into a functioning cinema, drum up support among residents, publicise the film programme in the local shop, and operate the projector. Frank Harris' mother stitched the hall's cinemascope screen together from sail cloth.
The film reels themselves arrive from Mainland Orkney on Mansie Flaws' ferry boat. Films shown by the society to date include Doctor Zhivago, Romeo and Juliet, A Man For All Seasons, Lenny, Soldier Blue and The Music Lovers. Tonight's attraction is Fiddler On The Roof.
Since the sad demise of Sandy Wylie's mobile cinema some ten years ago, a night at the pictures has become an expensive and arduous ordeal for North Isles residents - as Gavin discovers when he takes a trip to the nearest cinema, the Phoenix Cinema in Kirkwall. So thank goodness for the Film Society.
Originally broadcast 2 February, 1977.
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[@brianbrino4310]

Interesting and challenging! Peaceful and a quiet life!!Seems great to me!

[@egparis18]

Got to applaud Sandie Wylie for performing the dialogue himself - and the imperturbable horse too.

[@postscript67]

If I remember right Sandy Wylie also had a story about taking "Scott of the Antarctic" to the island of Eday, being caught in a snowstorm, and having to pull the film and his equipment to the hall on a sled!

[@NeilPeelParanormalPeepShow]

The presenter made the fatal mistake straight out of the gate, calling it 'the Orkneys'. It is Orkney.

[@griersson]

Lovely stuff! The following year the Rousay Film Society won a couple of National Viewers Sessions awards at an event held at the NFT, and beating 700 such clubs across Britain because of their high standards. The film club only having been formed in 1976

[@mattsan70]

Deathwish would be my choice, If I was a rich man.

[@georgebailey98]

The 1977 presenter couldn't have imagined the joys of Death Wish 3 in 1985.

[@petergivenbless900]

Pretty progressive programme of titles, I'm not surprised the locals were shocked; so were most cosmopolitan audiences of the day! What's up next season; 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'; 'Salo'; and 'Deep Throat'?

[@robbflynn4325]

Weird. Everyone had green eyes!😮

[@kipnis9864]

Wow

[@Behindstage]

Nice condescending view here.

[@danyoutube7491]

I didn't see or hear anything at all condescencing. Perhaps you are paranoid and as a result see insult where it doesn't exist. Or perhaps you yourself look down upon the subjects of this programme, and are assuming that other people share your disdain.

[@IAmSoMuchBetterThanYou]

Back in the day when you could still buy a house there for a few hundred quid.

[@stepheng8779]

Patronising the natives since 1922, only usually with more enthusiasm.

[@heraldeventsandfilms5970]

'Laughing at the plebs'.

[@fetus2280]

I see nothing has changed at the BBC . Londoners looking down on the regular folk then and even worse Now . Condescending much ? One thing i Do like about these old films... there is no Strength of Diversity . We will look back at this like anthropologists watching old films and reading stories of the Natives who once inhabited these islands .

[@danyoutube7491]

There's nothing condescending about the concept of this programme nor in the tone of it.

[@heraldeventsandfilms5970]

They Do still do that and they call it 'laughing at the plebs' but there is no instance of that here.