Alastair Fyfe's World of Cinema

Alastair Fyfe is a Chartered Accountant (University of Edinburgh). He still works as a Financial Controller of a Sydney Company - but not full time. Alastair has lived and worked in Singapore (11 years) and Zambia (4 years). He came to Australia in 1980 and is an Australian citizen. He is married to wife Sheila and they have two children, 39 and 36.

Speaking about the World of Cinema Class, Alastair says, "I Attended Sydney Uni for many years with Bill Collins's and David Stratton's Cinema Appreciation classes. The U3A course is based on David's presentation programme style."

The class sessions consist of one hour of film clips highlighting a particular theme followed by a full length film directly related to that subject. We break after the film clips for coffee and biscuits to discuss what has been shown. At the end of each session study notes are distributed to expand on some of the people or topics covered during the day.

Historical references and geographical observations are incorporated into the tutor commentary where appropriate and much film trivia is spread thickly throughout the presentation of the film scenes shown.

Our subjects this year have included profiles of John Garfield, Joan Crawford, The History of MGM Studios, and Women in Adversity. We cover films from 1927 to the present day.

Film trivia as an additional background for study provides, perhaps, nothing more than some interesting things to say around the barbecue or at a cocktail party / dinner table. One frivolous example comes readily to mind :- Cheeta, the chimpanzee in most of the Tarzan pictures is still alive, living in California - now at the ripe old age of 74, outliving Johnny Weissmuller, Gordon Scott and various other Tarzans.( Johnny Weissmuller was Romanian, by the way!)