1965 Ankara, Turkey
Yavuz Mahmut
Born 1952
First movie memories in Ankara, Turkey
Interviewed on 1/24/2019
By Demirkan Coker
Television arrived late to Turkey, like most things. We had our first nationwide broadcast in the late 60s, but then we could only watch the public television TRT, and no one could really afford one anyway. For much of my youth, the movies were where it was at.
I was lucky because there was a theater close to our apartment in Kizilay, the Ulus Cinema. It was only a short walk away. That’s where I saw the first movie I remember going to. It was called “Birdman of Alcatraz”. It would run for seven days a week, four times a day but you still couldn’t get a ticket. It was always sold out. It ran for a very long time too, it was very popular. This was around 1965, I think. I was 12 or 13.
I remember going there by myself. It was about this man, who had been jailed for murder. While in his cell, he found a sickly little bird and started to take care of it. He cured it. His life was changed after that. He got more birds and took care of them too. He was so good that he even wrote a book about birds. But then he was transferred somewhere else. To Alcatraz, yes. And he wasn’t allowed to have birds there with him.
Burt Lancaster played the birdkeeper. I remember him well. He played in many westerns too. You know how much I love those. I haven’t seen one in a theater for a long time. TRT still airs them on Sunday mornings. But, no, it’s not the same on television. People in the theater would cheer on John Wayne and curse at the bad guys. They would clap when the damsel was rescued. That’s how real it all felt.
Burt Lancaster was very good in that movie too. And the story was wonderful. I remember feeling very upset when he was taken away from his birds. For the life of me, I can’t remember how it ended now, but I loved every minute of it, it was gripping.
Going to the theater was always an occasion. There would be ushers to show you to your seat as you walked in. There would be stands outside where they sold all kinds of snacks, but we didn’t have popcorn for a long while. That came very late as well. Everyone would drink soda during the breaks. They would also sell these chocolate-coated popsicles called “Frigo Buz”, those were definitely my favorite. But people would smoke inside too, before all the bans. The smoke would be so thick sometimes that you wouldn’t see the screen.
I still loved being there. I even worked at two theaters later on, as a young boy still. For one of them I sold tickets at the box office, for the other I was a courier. You see, theaters in Ankara at the time would often have to share one movie reel among themselves. They couldn’t afford to each buy one of their own, I suppose. So, I would go see a movie, take the reel from the projection room, put it on my motorbike and take it to a different theater before their showing began. It was tiring work, but it was a lot of fun too, you know, racing against the clock!
