THIS IS WHERE WE CAME IN
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
The title of this post was once a common expression now lost forever. It had to do
with going to the movies, which people did once or twice a week back in the early days
of the Sound period. But going to the movies back in the day was a very different
experience from that of today. If I want to go see, let's say Spider-Man: Brand New Day
(which is currently dominating the box office), I'd probably look it up on Fandango and
find a theatre near me that is playing it. No doubt, it will be playing on multiple screens,
and I will have no trouble finding a convenient time. I might debate whether I want a
rocking-chair cinema, or an IMAX, or a theatre with tiered sections, or with food service.
And I know that if the screening is at 7:30 PM that the movie probably won't start much
before 8:00, given the commercials and trailers and PSAs that will precede it. And when
Spidey has won the day, I will likely file out with everyone else somewhere during the eight
minutes of credits!
But moviegoing wasn't always like this. First of all, many of the theaters were gloriously large
and ornate movie palaces. Few remain today (although Radio City is still going strong without
actual movies!).
Below: The FOX Theater in St. Louis and the Bijou Theater in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.
Almost every town had a Bijou Theater.
But even if you were simply on a date at the local Bijou, it was a very different experience.
You didn't look up the movie times; you just went. Each theater would likely be showing a feature film that was made for a big budget, with name stars and quality production values. In the photo above, that picture would be The Bells of St. Mary's, the sequel to Going My Way, with Bing Crosby joined by the most beautiful nun ever-Ingrid Bergman--in 1945. As you can see above, there would also be a second feature, generally known as a B film. These pictures tended to be shorter (around an hour or a little over), often lacking stars and made on the cheap. They tended to be genre films--crime dramas, horror films, slapstick comedies, melodramas, westerns, etc. In addition, there would be a potpourri of other projected entertainments. They would always include upcoming movie trailers (previews of coming attractions), usually two. Unlike today's trailers, they were shorter and only hinted at what the viewer might expect, unlike today's trailers which often seem to reveal the whole story! Here are half a dozen trailers from famous films in the 1930s--from Gone With the Wind to King Kong!
You could pretty much guarantee that you would see two cartoons. Each would run between seven and eight minutes in length. As examples, I'm including a classic Bugs Bunny, Falling Hare from 1943. I'm also including what was always a family favorite--a "Follow the Bouncing Ball" cartoon. Each cartoon contained a popular song, and the audience would collectively join in singing. Imagine that today! Enjoy this rendition of "Shine On Harvest Moon" and feel free to sing along.
Perhaps a serial would come next. These extended series might run a dozen or more episodes. They were designed to get young viewers to return each week so that they didn't miss a key moment. Popular serials starred heroic figures of fiction and comic strips--like The Phantom, Captain America, Batman, and Dick Tracy. Each episode might last 10-15 minutes. Production values were very poor. There was plenty of action and impossible cliffhanger endings that always seemed easier to escape than thought possible the week before. I remember seeing a serial once when I was a young boy. But those days are long gone. Below is an episode from a Dick Tracy serial. Boys regularly collected Dick Tracy merch, especially the Two-Way Wrist Radio!
Travelogues were fairly popular entertainments. As far back as the Lumiere brothers, movie producers focused on the power of cinema to present exotic locales and customs to the world at large. Here is one from the 1940s that explores the wonders and dangers of Death Valley and its environs. When I was young, a number of travelogues were filmed with a big budget and presented at feature length in wide-screen presentations. Cinerama's South Seas Adventure was such a film in 1958.
Because there was no television in the 1930s, people got their news from their daily papers and the radio. They never actually saw their leaders, the political figures of the day, in action. At best, they heard them. Movies changed all that with the inclusion of a newsreel each week. Lowell Thomas became famous as the narrator of these news digests. Here is a newsreel from 1935, covering everything from fashion to foreign affairs.
A night at the movies wouldn't be complete without a two-reel comedy short. Chaplin, Keaton, and other silent stars led into The Three Stooges and The Our Gang comedies. Laurel and Hardy bridged both periods, so I'm including their classic--County Hospital.
I'm not going to include all the other enticements that a movie emporium might employ to secure customers. "Dish Nights" were popular. Each week you would receive a cup or saucer or plate or gravy boat. You just had to keep attending if you wanted a complete set of ceramic ware. But if we just focus on the films being shown, a schedule might look something like this:
Feature Film 3:00PM-4:50PM
B Film 4:55PM-5:00PM
Cartoon 1 5:00PM-5:07PM
Cartoon 2 5:08PM-5:15PM
Comedy Short 5:15PM-5:35PM
Travelogue 5:35PM-5:45PM
Newsreel 5:45PM-6:00PM
Serial Episode 6:00PM-6:12PM
Trailer 1 6:12PM-6:14PM
Trailer 2 6:14PM-6:17:PM
Feature Film Again 6:20PM-8:10PM
Suppose you and your date arrive at the theatre at 7:00PM. You are about 40 minutes into the feature film. You stay for the entire sequence until the Feature starts again. When you've seen the first 40 minutes that you had missed earlier, you turn to your partner and say, "This is where we came in", and you pack up to go. Or don't. Maybe you'd like to stay and see something again. There would be nobody to shoo you out of the theatre. Your dime or quarter let you stay as long a you like! Arrive early, and you could make a day of it. And on hot summer days, if the theater was air-conditioned, some people did just that!
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