Any nominations for the near perfect double-bill?     Highly popular, usually at second run cinemas, in the era when cinema attendances were declining and performances were continuous.  The Essoldo's, Granada's, the Electric Cinema (Portobello Road, W11) and independent cinemas throughout the country.

My first choice would be the double-bill for "Some Like it Hot" (1959) and "Jazz On A Summer's Day" (1959).        'SLIH' had enjoyed a long run at the London Pavilion before opening at the Cameo-Poly (off Oxford Circus), probably a 500 seater.   The pairing with 'JOSD', in 1960, brought huge queues which used to stretch towards the BBC at Portland Place.    I met with House Full notices at the first few attempts but succeeded when I arrived in good time for the evening changover.

'JOASD' was a 85 minute documentary filmed by Bert Stern at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with a mouth-watering cast: Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Dinah Washington, Chico Hamilton, Anita O'Day (just listen to her rendition of 'Tea for Two'), George Shearing, Chuck Berry, Jack Teagarden and Thelonius Monk.   Cinema audiences are usually undemonstrative but this film was punctuated by applause and cheering throughout. The director trusted his performers and didn't resort to quick cutting to appease any fidgeters.    After the Pearl & Dean commercials we were all in the right mood for the era of Prohibition and quickly suspended a feeling of unease in the St Valentine's Day massacre to engage in 'Running wild, lost control..' with Tony Curtis (I almost typed Cary Grant!), Jack Lemmon and, of course, 'Sugar'.

   In 1973, I attended a 'live' recording with Jack Lemmon; a jazz enthusiast and no mean performer on the ivories, for his solo performance on "Parkinson".   A generous, witty man and it's a pity that some of his comments on 'SLIH' were edited but it was criminal to roll the credits as he started his jazz contribution at the keyboard.

We had to wait a further 10 years for "Woodstock" when Michael Wadleigh's 3 hour documentary was premiered at the Empire, Leicester Square, rather than being shunted in the backdoor at the bottom of a double-bill; albeit a memorable double feature.   I saw this programme several times and nodded my appreciation when I returned to the Cameo-Poly, in 1962, to see Francois Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim' - a solitary feature on this occasion.   

I've seen CASABLANCA with PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM as a double-bill, and it works rather well

In the same vein in the theatre I've seen Chekhov's THE SEAGULL with Akunin's THE SEAGULL in one evening (with the same cast) and it's an amusing evening

[Akunin's SEAGULL picks up the last line of the Chekhov play, Trigorin and Dorn's sotto voce exchange - "For God's sake get Madam Arkadina away from here... Konstantin's shot himself!" and spins it around with the reply "No, not shot himself - someone has shot him!",  and then revisits the Chekhov play as an affectionate spoof of the "Country House Murder Mystery" genre.]

Another memorable double-bill was the re-release of 'On The Waterfront' (1954), in 1960, with the Russian 'Ballad of a Soldier'(1959) in the same programme.   I saw them at the Playhouse (later the Classic, Cannon and whatever it is now!), Hampstead - bottom of Parliament Hill Fields. 

A superby contrasted double feature.   'On the Waterfront' (OTW) perhaps over-heated, today, although it still packs a steel-fisted punch.   Look at the accreditation.   Screenplay, Bud Schulberg, based on his novel; director, Elia Kazan; score, Leonard Bernstein - we had to wait some years for the CBS LP with Lenny conducting.  A coruscating theme of fear and violence blending with tenderness in the quite beautiful love theme. - The cast included Marlon Brando (Terry), Rod Steiger (his brother Charley), Eva Marie Saint, Lee J Cobb and Karl Malden.

The central theme was ridding the New York docks of control by a waterfront gang boss (Lee J Cobb as Johnny Friendly!) and the lethal consequences from becoming a witness for the prosecution - an informer, or stool-pigeon - following a series of murders.   One such was thrown off a block of tenements.  'He might have been a canary but he 'soitonly' couldn't fly!'  The film was initially released at the height of the House of UnAmerica Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings.   Director, Kazan, had, in fact, named-names of fellow communists and this became a stigma for the rest of his life with the final snub when he got a tepid reception when he was given a Lifetime Award at the Oscars.

Richard Schickel's biography, Elia Kazan (2005), mentions Budd Schulberg's surprise when Kazan, in his earlier biography, frankly acknowledged the analogy between Terry's (Brando) role as informer on the dockside racketeers and his own HUAC testimony.  "I never denied it."      A complex argument has raged over these issues for several decades but perhaps this is for another day.

A highlight, in the film, is the taxi cab scene between Terry and his brother, Charley (Steiger), a legal 'front' for the racketeers:

    TERRY:  "It was you, Charley.  You and Mickey.   Like the night the two of you's come in
                the dressing room and says, 'Kid, this ain't your night.  We're going for the price on
                Wilson.'       It ain't my night.   I'd of taken Wilson apart that night.  I was ready.
                Remember the early rounds throwing them combinations?   So what happens?
                This bum Wilson he gets the title shot.   Outdoors in the ball park.   And what do I get?
                A couple of bucks and a one-way ticket to Polookaville.

                "It was you, Charley.  You was my brother.  You should have looked out for me
                instead of making those dives for the short end money."

  CHARLEY  "I always had a bet down for you.   You saw some money."

    TERRY   "See.  You don't understand.  I could've been a contender.  I could've had
                class and been somebody.  Real class.   Instead of a bum.  It was you, Charley."

The cab driver was an informer and Charley is brutally murdered.   Terry kneels over his brother's corpse,  "I'm going to take it out on their skulls" as he decides to name-names for the Prosecution.

The bill was completed by "Ballad of a Soldier" (1959).  A revelation.   A couple of years earlier, I'd seen "The Cranes are Flying" (1957) at the Curzon (Mayfair) and, after the haze of the cold war years, was pleased to see a world which I could recognise.   My only experience of Soviet cinema had been, say, 'The Battleship Potemkin', 'Ivan the Terrible', and the Maxim Gorki trilogy - this remarkable trio used to be screened at the Everyman, Hampstead, before disappearing - My Childhood, My Apprenticeship and My Universities.   C'mon C4 or BBC 4.   Let's see them again.

"Ballad of a Soldier" tells a simple and poignant story of a soldier granted four days' home leave before returning to be killed at the front.   

East and West were sharply contrasted in this double-bill and I still wonder whether the pairing was accidental or deliberate.   Both remain vivid in my mind after 48 years.   

                     'Something's coming
                      I don't know
                      what it is
                      but it is
                      goin' to be great...'

I saw 'Summer Hours' last night with Juliette Binochhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhe and a really fine-tuned ensemble of french thesps and good blended bit part by Kyle Eastwood as Binoche's bloke. The atmosphere is the score,palpable. Subtle downplayed meditation on youth and age and zeitgeist/ our times-I'd pair it with Summer with Monika or Smiles of a Summer Night.

I don't have  tv these days, Stanley -but I find coming across a cache of art house dvd's (including a Bergman box) in a quiet cinema -Renoir,  near Russell Square-that does good coffee made me very tempted to invest. I love the buccolic element in his high seriousness, its so full of life.Also the only quiet spot in central London for an important phone call during the gadarene evening rush hour. I do reccommend 'Summer Hours' , a minor classic I think, thematically more 'Wild Strawberries' I guess, but  with Summer  light  in every sense. Nice to enthuse with  you.