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My sisters and I practically lived in the movie theaters, it was great, we saw all the Beatles movies, Beach Blanket Bingo, movies, and I thought the billboard for the "Tenth commandment" was a Hercules movie, so went to see that too. I think one of my first movies that gave me nightmares from nearly pre-birth far into my teens was, House on Haunted Hill, with Vincent Price, I think if I watched that movie today, it would still scare the bejeeses out of me. Seemed they ran the movie in theaters long after it originally had come out. I guess some theaters in my area must have been getting some older movies or something, because I was barely born with it first came out. How I was allowed at the ripe age of about 4 or 5 to see that movie is beyond me, it did a lot of damage, so did a lot of the movies I was drawned to see, you know the ones with the crawling hands, living body parts that wrecked havoc on people's lives. Nightmares foreva.
Anyway, my mom loaded us down with snacks too when budget didn't allow for purchases at the movie snack counter. I think, mostly, my parents wanted to get us kiddies out of the house for some lone time. But my fav memories are of those beatle movies and a movie called Catbaloo or something like that.
Going to the movie theater was great fun, then bacame a great production later the more elaborate the house became, now it's just a big expense, that why I'll wait for most to come out on dvd, unless I feel a need for a visual and sound feast that can't be matched on my home system.
I'm in my early 40s, so my first childhood experiences with movies were in the 1970s.
My first movie I saw in the theater was Benji. Then I would often go to all the Disney movies like Escape to Witch Mountain, Return from Witch Mountain, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Apple Dumpling Gang, the Shaggy D.A., Freaky Friday, Pete's Dragon, and all the Herbie the Love Bug movies.
We would get Raisinets and Snow-Caps, and drink Dr. Pepper (which I was only allowed to have at the movies, not at home).
I would get that rush of excitement when in "General Cinema" theaters the lights would go out, then you'd hear that "ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch" and that tune with the cartoon movie camera. http://youtu.be/m6uHhUKURYE
We had a little local theater in my home town called the Eric Theatre. It was kind of old even when I was a kid. When we were in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, we could have one or two people pay to get in, then open the back door and let in more friends. This was for R-rated movies (like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Caddyshack, Porky's) that we were technically too young to see, but no one really checked.
I also remember my parents taking us to the drive-in movies in Atco NJ as a kid. My sister and I would wear our pajamas, and sit in the back seat with pillows and a blanket. There would be like a triple feature, so we'd stay awake for the first one, usually a kid-friendly movie, then grown-up movies would come on. I remember trying to stay awake for Smokey and the Bandit and Death Race 2000. Then my mom would have to take us to the bathroom in our pajamas and slippers, and there would be other 5-7 year olds dressed the same way.
Haven't been to a movie theater in years. I'd rather just buy the DVDs. Hate the expense of the tickets and overpriced snacks, hate the LOUD sound that kills my eardrums, hate the freezing A/C and the "stadium seating" and people's cell phones going off. Hate that I can't pause it and got to the bathroom. Maybe I'm old, or maybe the movie theaters just suck nowadays. Maybe a little bit of both.
Last edited by Tracysherm; 06-28-2011 at 03:05 PM..
My family never went to the movies, ever. But we did go see "10 Commandments" with Charlton Heston when I was 4 or 5 years old. And I was in absolute awe over the whole movie because it was in color, and "Egypt" in general fascinated me.
Saw a couple of movies before joining a theater full of screaming kids to see "Hard Day's Night" when I was 12.
Although seeing a movie on the big screen in color was a major event in my childhood, I have to say that I grew preferring that most old movies not be colorized.
I remember complaining about paying $1.50 to see a movie in the early-70's ("Breezy" and "Play Misty For Me").
One thin dime would get you into the Saturday Matinee; an additional 10 cents allowed you to load up with two boxes of candy like Dots, Milk Duds, Good 'n Plenty, or Raisonettes. One theater would even let you in for an Indian Head nickel.
Although the cartoons were in color, the newsreel and the movies were black & white. (Disney produced some color films, and I did see about four of those. "Song of the South" still has a warm place in my heart.) During the intermission the theater manager would hold a raffle and your ticket stub could win a nice prize. Once I won a Teddy Bear that was bigger than I was, but the day I won a baseball bat I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world.
We moved from the city to the suburbs when I was ten, and I didn't see a movie for three years, until we moved to yet another city. There were so many things that kids could do then that I never even missed seeing movies, but how I missed those raffles.
Last edited by JustPassinThru; 06-28-2011 at 11:28 PM..
When I first started to go to the cinema as a small child in about 1960, there were
five cinemas in my home town, now there are none. Oh, there are plenty of the
out of town multiplexes around, but none in the town itself. There was the Odeon,
the ABC, the Empire (great double seats in there), the Kings and the Victory. All long
gone. My father told me when he was a boy in the late thirties every neighbourhood
had its own small cinema. I went to the library and looked at old local newspapers at
the time he was a kid. In 1939 there was at least 30 cinemas were there was only 5
by 1960. Thats down to TV I suppose. Kind of sad.
arriving during the middle of the movie (as others have stated), and trying to recall where you came in during the next showing; the practice died out, I guess, during the rise of the multi-screen theaters
the awful trash on the floors. Back then people simply threw down their drinks and waste on the floor. If you arrived at the third or fourth showing of the day, it was sometimes a challenge to find a spot where your feet did not stick to the floor.
Smoking! Many old theaters had the second floor available for smokers.
Unexpected outages: there was nothing unusual about the film breaking, or the lightbulb for the projector going out, hence the lights would come up and you would talk (or throw popcorn) for about 10 minutes (often stomping your feet to urge the projectionist to hurry up).
Loveseats: most of our old theaters had double-wide seats for lovebirds. It was pleasant to score one for yourself and spread out.
Reading the other replies, I am rather astonished that I never thought of sneaking in food. Heck, I recall that there was a bakery a few doors down from my favorite neighborhood theater (Bowie Theater, for Fort Worthians); strange I never took any donuts in.
Note: a new movie theater recently opened close to our weekend house in East Texas. They do not serve hot dogs. I was so astonished when the squirt behind the counter told me this I had him repeat it several times, once in Spanish. All they have is popcorn, 'nachos', and candy. I can't imagine a new theater opening in this day and age without at least a blasted hot dog. Anyway, there is a hot dog kiosh outside of the local Lowes, so my wife and I purchase our dogs and then sneak them into the theater. Strange I never thought of that as a child. I guess I was too honest back then. It has worn off.
I remember going to the movies with my middle sister and every time the Wehrenberg Theatres theme song came on, she would cover her ears, close her eyes, and hum to herself to tune out the music. She did this because when she was a kid, one of our aunts thought it would be funny to take her to see the Exorcist which scarred her for years on end afterwards. My oldest sister and I made it no better when we would sing the end of the song just to get her worked up lol. Good times...
It amazes me when I read here the different things you could get at american
cinemas way back when. I used to buy sweets on the way to the cinema from
Woolworths because the cinema did'nt sell much. In the interval a lady with a
tray sold ice cream and little cartons of orange juice. No popcorn, no hot dogs
and no sody pop!! There was no coca-cola here in the early 60s. I know because
once I was reading a Superman comic, and a character said he was going for a coke.
I did'nt know what it was, so I asked my dad - he did'nt know either!!
1950. Classic Theater, showed movies 7 nights a week, first show at 7, second show at 9. Kids were expected to go the first show, but it was not enforced. When we went to the first show, we'd stay and see the cartoon over again at the beginning of the second show, then go home. Our favorites were Droopy and Mister Magoo. Some nights there was a double-feature, when they would show the main film at 7, the second feature at about 8:30, and then the main feature again about 9:45. The cartoon was usually first, then a sparkly screen that said "Previews of Coming Attractions", when they would show trailers of upcoming pictures. Then a sparkly screen that said "Also Selected Short Subjects", which might be a RKO or Pathe' newsreel narrated by Westbrook Van Voorhees, or a technicolor travelog of some mysterious and distant place like Scotland, and there would be a few ads for a furrier, a jewelry store, and an insurance company. The number of "short subjects" depended on the length of the feature film, which was often only about 70-80 minutes in those days, especially if it featured Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey and the Bowery Boys.
We knew what movies were showing, because the theater printed up a Show Bill, a little paper with ads for the coming movies, that a boy would take around every two weeks and put on people's doorknobs.
Admission was 14 cents for under 14, 20 cents up to age 18, then I think 35c for adults. Most candy bars and drinks were a nickel, but Mounds and Almond Joy and Mars bar were 10c, same as popcorn. My weekly allowance covered the movie ticket, a Hershey bar, a coke, and a penny change. One night I came up one cent short for my concessions, and a grown-up put a penny on the counter for me, and I thought he was the most generous man in the world.
Every few weeks, the four of us would get in the Pontiac and my dad would drive 15 or 20 miles to another town, that had 2 or 3 theaters, and go to the movie there, and get hamburgers after in a sit-down restaurant (drive-ins were rare). We never knew what would be showing, just take our chances. In those days, all movies were good, more or less equally. My dad, from the south, called them "moon pitchers" (movin' pictures), be we called it "going to the show". He couldn't smoke in the theater, so he'd have to snuff our his cigar in a big pedestal full of sand in the lobby. Then after the show, he's get it back out of the sand and relight it. I used to be taken to movies like that when I was so young, I'd be asleep in the car when we got home, and I'd be carried in to bed. By big people.
There were 4 of us, my mom didn't really like movies (I don't think) and my dad was working crazy hours so we didn't see many movies.
When I would ask my mom about why not, she would say "Well, we saw Camelot and then we saw The Sound of Music as if that were enough!
When I was around 16 or so and Gone With The Wind came to town, my dad and I saw that quite a few times. It was his favorite and he and I just went together. I think my brother came a couple of times too.
Now, my husband grew up in Miami and there were lots of theatres and he and his parents saw a lot of movies. If we don't see a movie every couple of weeks, he feels like he missed something
PS - As a kid, I don't ever remember eating at the movies though. My parents were not into fast food type stuff at all (at that time).
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I think one of my first movies that gave me nightmares from nearly pre-birth far into my teens was, House on Haunted Hill, with Vincent Price, I think if I watched that movie today, it would still scare the bejeeses out of me.
Seemed they ran the movie in theaters long after it originally had come out. I guess some theaters in my area must have been getting some older movies or something, because I was barely born with it first came out. How I was allowed at the ripe age of about 4 or 5 to see that movie is beyond me, it did a lot of damage, so did a lot of the movies I was drawned to see, you know the ones with the crawling hands, living body parts that wrecked havoc on people's lives. Nightmares foreva.
Going to the movies as a kid....
