Veteran film critic Barry Norman tells Matthew Jenkin why 3D films are not the future of cinema, how he nearly had a fist fight with John Wayne on a train and why he doesn't miss his former TV day job.

FILM critic Barry Norman will be testing audience members’ knowledge of cinema in his very own quiz night at Woodville Halls in Gravesend of Thursday.

The former presenter of the BBC’s Film programme will be asking the questions and running through the answers, before fans quiz Barry himself about his life and career.

To get him warmed up I asked the 77-year-old some questions of my own.

What was the first film you saw which made you fall in love with cinema?

Barry Norman: It's impossible to tell because I was brought up in a film household.

My father produced The Cruel Sea and directed Dunkirk and many other films. So I've been brought up with movies all my life.

When I was a little kid I used to go to the Saturday morning matinees at the local cinema, which is really where I developed my love for Westerns because the films were mostly of that genre.

Being so immersed in the world of film already, was there ever a point when you wanted to strike out and do something completely unrelated to that industry?

BN: When I left school I wanted to go into the film industry and follow in my father's footsteps.

But it was a time when the British film industry was in one of its many slumps and there were thousands of qualified technicians out of work.

The other thing I was interested in was writing. So I thought, ok, I'll go into journalism.

I'm glad I did actually because had I gone into the film business I would have been taking too much luggage with me. There would have been people saying I'm only here because of my father or comparing me to him. Going into something entirely separate, I had none of that. My father didn't have any contacts in newspapers so I had to stand or fall on my own.

I don't have the patience to be a film maker, having to spend a year or two of my life on something which, through no fault of my own, might turn out to be a piece of crap.

With so many bad movies still raking in millions at the box office, despite negative reviews, and the emergence of bloggers and social networking sites, do you think the role of the critic has now become redundant?

BN: No, I don't really. Let's face it, everybody is a film critic. You go to see a film and whether you're concious of it or not there's a part of your mind telling you whether it's good or bad.

But the difference is, the professional critic should have seen a hell of a lot more films than the people who just bounce around their opinions on the internet.

He therefore has many more yard sticks with which to measure what he or she has seen. If somebody says, “hey, this is the best thriller I've seen,” it doesn't mean much if it's the only thriller he's ever seen.

What do you think about the revival of 3D movies? Is it the future of cinema or a gimmick?

BN: It adds something but, curiously enough, it doesn't add all that much.

Avatar is the one film which has really started this explosion of 3D. Technically, it's a superb piece of work, although I don't think it's much of a movie. It's just a Western in space.

But if you see it in 2D, it's still a vivid experience and it's the same with the new Toy Story film.

3D was a gimmick which came in a long time ago and everybody said it was the future of cinema and then it died away. I think one of the reasons is the glasses. It makes it all a bit fiddly.

I can't see it dominating the film industry because there's not much point in having an ordinary thriller or romance in 3D. But I don't think it will fizzle out like before.

I think there will be films made in 3D but I don't think everything will be made like that and nor should they be.

During your long career as a film critic, was there any screen icon who you were particularly star struck by?

BN: I never was star struck. That again was because I was brought up in a film household where we had actors and actresses coming in and out of the house.

I met a lot of them through my father and I understood at quite an early age that they are pretty much like the rest of us.

They might be prettier than most of us but they have the same problems everybody else has. They're only people after all. I've never seen any reason to be in awe of someone who makes a living by pretending to be somebody else.

Who was the most difficult star to interview and why?

BN Probably the worst and strangest was Robert De Niro, who only does interviews because it's in his contract.

He doesn't like doing interviews, gives as little as possible, is monosyllabic and, in my experience, is kind of charmless.

John Wayne was one I nearly came to blows with once on a train from Denver to Salt Lake City.

The train was was full of journalists and John Wayne for the premier of True Grit. We went in groups of six or eight and were granted an audience with the great man.

It was the time of the Vietnam war and we got into a fierce argument about the whole thing.

It really pissed him off, but to be honest he had drunk 15 double Borbourns and it was only midday. That might have had something to do with his bad temper.

At one point, he got out of his chair with the obvious intention of hitting me, which was a bit frightening. He's a big man and if he tripped and fell on me he'd probably have killed me.

It was a long train and I thought, hey, I can probably out run him and I was about to do that when fortunately some PR people from Paramount Pictures interposed themselves between us and broke the whole thing up.

So, there have been a couple of awkward moments but by in large they're alright. I have always paid them the complement of treating them as my equals.

Was it difficult to finally give up your career as a film critic?

BN:No, it wasn't actually. I thought it would be but it wasn't.

I'd thought about the decision for some while and then I finished my last series from Sky in mid-June and I thought I'd be wondering what to do with myself by August, but it never happened.

I stopped because I didn't like the way the film industry was going. Not in the sense that I disapproved of the films, but the publicity arm had taken over the whole industry.

This absurd cult of celebrity we have now meant every television and radio programme or magazine wanted to interview top celebrities who were the A-List stars in Hollywood.

The whole system had changed, so you've got the junket coming in, where people queue up in a hotel to interview somebody for, if you're very lucky, 15 minutes, which is nonsense because you can't really conduct a decent interview for television in that time.

It must have been quite maddening.

BN: Yeah, it was. It's annoying because by the time you've asked the basic questions you have to ask, you've no time to get into the nitty gritty.

PR has taken over and to the detriment of the industry really. Because if you flick through the television, every channel has one or two programmes which are film orientated.

You'll now find almost identical interviews with stars on every channel. They're dull because nobody is allowed now to ask them the awkward questions.

What's your stance of the Government's decision to scrap the British Film Council?

BN: I am sorry in a way but I think it got like all these quangos. It had got inflated. It was employing too many people. Something like it should be in place but something smaller and more intense.

We need something like that because there is no real centre to the film industry in this country. America has got Hollywood and India has got Bollywood and most other countries have a kind of centre, but we haven't.

We've got a cottage industry here and the film council, at its very best, was able to bring all the component parts together. I think it does need some kind of organisation to do that.

Barry Norman Quiz Night. Woodville Halls, Gravesend. Thursday. 8pm. £10. For tickets, call 01474 337774 or visit woodvillehalls.com