YESTERDAYS 1974
A MAN was violently sick and young girls fainted. Some people left the cinema shaking and some consulted a clergyman and a squad of helpers outside the cinema.
These were just some of the scenes witnessed at last night’s showing of The Exorcist.
Four St John Ambulance stood by to give first aid help.
But gruesome scenes and swearing in the film made a large proportion of the audience burst out laughing.
All but a few seats in the 1,800-capacity house were filled last night for the award-winning film in its first week in the city.
One man, aged about 30, rushed out during the showing. He vomited in the foyer. Other people were also sick.
Three young girls fainted and were given help by the St John men.
A St John superintendent said: “One man made it out of the cinema officers before being ill. This often happens.
“Some people have been leaving looking queasy.
“A lot of people are shocked at one scene which merely shows a real-life operation.”
A young housewife who needed “reassurance” from a minister after the film, 19-year-old Mrs Geraldine Gape, Pentrebane, Cardiff, said she would not watch the film again “even for £1,000”.
She said: “I was disgusted. It was revolting and blasphemous. I needed to speak to a clergyman after seeing it. It was horrible.”
An 18-year-old hairdresser, Karen Bridger, said she was shaking after seeing the film. She had only gone out of curiosity.
Some left the cinema during the film.
Clergymen in Cardiff have complained about the film, stating it torments people. The religious squad outside the picture house at every showing were handing out leaflets attacking the film and giving numbers people can ring if they are disturbed by what they have seen. A TAXI was damaged in a petrol bomb attack in Cardiff last night.
Police investigating the incident took away from the car a petrol can believed to be the core of a bomb thrown into the vehicle.
The £1,700 car, one of the Dolitax fleet, was in the firm’s car park at Hope Street, in the Docks area, when the arsonist struck.
The blaze was discovered by a policeman who alerted the fire service who put out the fire, but not before the vehicle was badly burned. A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy hung from a nail by his pullover which had caught around his neck after falling through the upstairs floor of a derelict public house in Merthyr Tydfil.
Now his mother has called for the demolition or bricking up of the building near Georgetown Square.
The boy, Paul Llewellyn, was saved after some boys came out of the Ship pub to say he had fallen.
His mother went in and heard Paul screaming. He had fallen through the floor and his jumper had caught on a nail and was hanging by the pullover around his neck.
“One of the boys went up and lifted the pullover from the nail and I managed to get him down safely,” she said. FREE holidays in Spain are being offered in a South Wales factory for bringing along a friend to work there with them.
The scheme to assist expansion by Royal Worcester Industrial Ceramics Ltd at Tonyrefail is the brainchild of managing director Mr Lyn T Davies.
Workers will qualify for a winter weekend holiday simply by introducing a new recruit – providing the newcomer stays at least three months. OUTSIDE-HALF Phil Bennett booted the British Lions to a first Test triumph over the Springboks in Cape Town this afternoon.
The little man from Llanelli landed a hat-trick of penalties with his half back partner Gareth Edwards dropping a goal to complete the all-Welsh scoring act in the 12-3 victory.