ENGLAND had won a World Cup in Oz, but the really earth-shattering event of the weekend happened at City Screen, York, not once but twice.

Screen One at the old Herald Buildings was struck by an earthquake, and not any old earthquake but an Earthquake that last erupted in 1975.

Mark Robson's Earthquake was part of the Seventies boom-boom in disaster movies, and now thanks to City Screen technical manager Darren Briggs and senior projectionist Bill Thomson, Earthquake has returned in Seventies retro style.

The print, provided by UIP in its original 70mm high definition format, is so much clearer (all the better to see Charlton Heston's wig). The sound effects come courtesy of Sensurround, a system of earthquake-replicating low frequency audio waves.

For added atmosphere, cinema staff and a pipe-smoking scientific boffin were wearing hard hats to warn of the big shake-up ahead. A spoof trailer and a vintage Universal warning from 1974 spread further alarm with talk of "actually feeling" an earthquake. Each trailer then extricated the management from any legal repercussion for your reaction. No-one left. Here was cinema as a fun-fair ride, although where was a seatbelt when you needed it most? Sensurround gamely went about its task, rumbling away as the earth quaked and a dam burst, amid the flashing strobe lights and dry ice. When the smoke cleared and the screen rubble settled, a Saturday night audience of more than 80 and near-full house on Sunday were happy that a disaster could be such a success.

Updated: 13:11 Monday, November 24, 2003