At The Movies

Movie going used to be an event.

CHARLES BRITTON

Special to The Jewish News

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with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in
1942; attending movies was a Sunday
afternoon ritual with my family, and
so it remained until TV took over
about a decade later. I remained an
avid fan, regularly spending my
allowance on Saturday matinees, for
which I would take trolley and bus to
the big theaters in Hollywood.

OS ANGELES — A
younger colleague and I were
sitting in the back of an
older movie theater recently,
waiting for a screening of what Variety
calls a sci-fier.
"In the old days," I
said, looking around at
the early-'30s architec-
ture from one of the
back rows, "we'd be sit-
ting in the loges."
"The what?"
He had never heard
of loges. "These were
seats in the rear of the
auditorium that were
bigger and cushier than
general admission," I
said. "You had to pay
extra for them."
"But you watched the
same movie?"
"That's the way they
did it: general admission
50 cents, loges maybe
75 cents. And they'd
come around to check
your tickets, too." My
companion mused
about the curious cus-
toms of olden times.
"Here's another," I
said as the lights went
down and the curtain
rose. "They would never
open the curtains before
the movie began. Never.
They might not even
open them until the stu-
dio's logo was over."
"Odd," my friend
said, and then turned to
become engrossed in a
story about aliens —
Young patrons check out the films at the- neighborhood
which, come to think of movie house in the 1930s.
it, you hardly ever saw
in the old days, even
Yes, what everybody says is true:
after the curtains parted.
Going out to a movie was an experi-
For me, the old days begin in the
ence in those days. You got dressed up
early '40s. One of my earliest memo-
for it, just as you did for most excur-
ries is going to see For Me and My Gal
sions out of the home, even shopping.
Charles Britton writes for Copley
And the theater designers gloried in

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