With reference to Thinking outside the box: 01, I think I might’ve got inspiration from what happened in my childhood when my mother had to be called out to a childbirth. She was a private midwife.
Babies don’t make appointments for arriving in this world, so my mother would get called out at all hours: in the middle of the night; while she was visiting another patient for post-natal care; and while she was in the cinema.
One night, I was watching a film with her when at the bottom of the screen, just above the subtitles (for a British or American film), appeared an extra improvised subtitle: “Madam xx, please go home”.
All credit goes to the man handling the reels in the back room of the cinema.
The desperate husband must’ve gone to my house, was told my mother was at Paramount Cinema, got there, but then how to get hold of my mother without stopping the film altogether, bringing on the lights, and making a public announcement on stage? Of course they could’ve done that, if it was really necessary. The reel-operator wrote his message on a strip of celluloid, and inserted it at the bottom of the machine. Genius!
(Singapore, 1960s)
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