I went with a couple of friends yesterday for our, slightly earlier than usual, Halloween meet-up, and we ended up in Deal. Taking the chance to visit the Museum of the Moving Image there, which is a house run by a couple of enthusiastic collectors supplemented by volunteers, I would well recommend a trip to this museum. Chronicling early pre-cinema days of shadow plays and magic lanterns the museum moves forward through the early years of cinema and has a fabulous collection of old posters and ephemera mainly from the Ealing films era. There's not so much on modern films or too many different genres, but this is a small museum and hopefully over the next few years will rotate some of their collection and exhibitions.
Anyway apart from buying a biography of Boris Karloff from their second-hand books shelf, we all had a laugh at the display containing one of the most odd merchandising toys ever sold.
A firm favourite of mine is the 1945 British portmanteau horror film 'Dead of Night,' so imaging our surprise to pull out a drawer and see a Hugo ventriloquist's dummy in front of our eyes! I can't imagine why, if you have seen the film you would have ever wanted to buy your child one of these disturbing toys!
Monday 21st October 2019
