dom56

http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/11-thi...185824694.html

1. Red Velvet Curtain
2. Uniformed Ushers
3. Dish Night
4. Ashtrays
5. Newsreels
6. Double Feature Plus A Cartooon
7. Serials
8. "Ladies Please Remove Your Hats" Signs
9. Intermission
10. Exquisite Decor
11. Fully-Equipped Cry Rooms

As a kid I remember movie theater I go had double feature and cartoon shorts. Badly need to bring intermission back, movie like Titanic are too long for people like me to hold their bladder. I gladly like to see crying room back cause idiot parents still bring their baby to theater. Thought?

Bluelitespecial

There are still some movie theaters out there that have #1 and #10 on that list. Thats why I love the revival theatres we have in town, and some of them do double features as well. They are more fun then the multiplex on a Friday or Saturday night.

hanshotfirst1138

Add 35mm to that list soon enough.

Groucho

Dish Night?

Solid Snake

Titanic was 194 mins. Long? Yeah. Long enough for an intermission? Maybe. MAYBE. I don't think that film needed one. I remember watching it in its release day. I was 10 or 11, depending when it was released. Not once needed to go to the restroom. I was big on getting a drink and huge ass order of popcorn. If I ever saw Lawrence of Arabia in a theater. I think I'd appreciate that intermission for sure.

GoldenJCJ

I remember going to the theater when I was a little kid (early to mid 1980s) and making my parents stay through the end credits so I could see the giant red curtain close after the film was over. It's a simple but good memory.

Ash Ketchum

I had to go to the bathroom during TITANIC--and the third LOTR film as well, but I was in my 40s by then. And TDKR and PACIFIC RIM, when I was a decade or so older. It's kind of a given now, with long movies, that I'll have to go to the bathroom. I saw plenty of long movies when I was 10 or 11 but my bladder was smaller then and didn't weigh as much when it was full. Plus I didn't eat or drink anything during the movie. Most of them had intermissions, e.g. TEN COMMANDMENTS, BEN-HUR, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, EL CID. But I remember a few that didn't. WEST SIDE STORY didn't have an intermission, nor did THE GREAT ESCAPE, which was about three hours long. And I sat through those fine. I'm not sure about IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, though. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY didn't have an intermission, but I was a little older (high school) by then.

I used to see double bills of the James Bond movies and then stay to see them both over again. And I remember that sometimes there would be a break between each showing of the double bill but not between each movie. So sometimes two movies would run back-to-back without a break.

bluetoast

Those restaurant urges can be quite powerful.

superdeluxe

Gettysburg had an intermission, but that was because it was around 4 hours long

Solid Snake

Goddamnit. That's what I get for never turning off autocorrect on this damn iPhone.

dom56

And yet 2001: A Space Odyssey was 142 min. and had a intermission, so go figure.

inri222

In the 70's I used to go to a movie theater that had vending machines in the back for popcorn, snacks, cigarettes and soda.
I remember the soda machine after you put in the coins and made your selection the cup would drop then shaved ice
would fall in the cup and then carbonated water and syrup would squirt into the cup.

majorjoe23

Some of these we probably haven't seen in 50 years. I don't remember serials or newsreels within my lifetime. .

Josh-da-man

The Warren Theaters in Kansas and Oklahoma (the IMAX theater you saw on news footage of the Moore tornado was a Warren) have curtains, uniformed ushers, and fancy decor. The guys who take your tickets wear uniforms and white gloves.

Troy Stiffler

Why did they get rid of cry rooms? Never heard of them before. That seems like a perfect option. Could have incorporated them into stadium style seating theaters.

A local luxury theater has a similar "private room" in the back, which you can rent (I don't think it's too expensive). I just assumed that it's for getting blowjobs and the like.

mcnabb

How about peace and quiet? With the advent of cellphones there is always some moron highschool kid's phone going on during the movie.

Save Ferris

I remember the days before being bombarded with commercials while you're waiting for the movie. JUST SILENCE from the theater company, while you talked to your friends and waited for the lights to dim and the trailers/movie start.

inri222

And the prices :

Ticket - $1.50

Popcorn - $0.50
Soda - $0.35
Candy - $0.25 - $0.50

bluetoast

Strange, when I saw West Side Story a few years back it had an intermission. Maybe there were different prints.

Solid Snake

True. Though I think that film MAY need it more than Titanic. It's not like Titanic is bombarding you into a tone or world like 2001. 2001 is unlike most if not all films. I may not tire of it in any form but I can see how it could have mindfucked with people in that time.

That's just what I think. Otherwise I can't imagine why it would have it otherwise. It does feel like a much longer film.

Mabuse

This is the thing I most dearly miss.

Regarding the list, there are still a few theaters near me that have 1, 2, and 10. I live near some historic theaters from the 20's and 30's so the decor is beautiful.

Regarding intermissions, I've attended revivals of films that had intermissions and the intermissions were honored (Seven Samurai, Gone With The Wind, 2001). But imposing intermissions on new films is a sticky proposition. The intermission can be a powerful narrative device. Lawrence of Arabia and Gone With The Wind both have major narrative and stylistic shifts that occur around the intermission. Pausing for an intermission is integral to viewing the film properly. On the other hand films without intermissions might suffer from "having the spell broken" by an intermission. James Cameron could have put an intermission in to Titanic or the 3D rerelease a few years ago, but he chose not to. Clearly he does not want the story interrupted.

bluetoast

I remember in India one summer I saw Toy Story and I vaguely recall that they inserted an intermission right after Buzz realized he was a toy.

Ash Ketchum

I saw WEST SIDE STORY in theaters some 20-odd times from 1963 to 1975 and it never had an intermission. So maybe you saw a special showing and they just decided to include one to make it more of an event. Do you remember at what point in the film the intermission was? I would imagine it would have to be right after the rumble scene. I don't remember where Act 1 ended in the original Broadway show.

bluetoast

I'm not sure when it was exactly, but I think it was after they see the Doc at the store? Looking at the description that lines up with the end of Act I. It was a 70 mm print, maybe it was a roadshow version.

Edit: Here we go: Looking at the Wikipedia for roadshows it has this:

I think this clears it up. Roadshow prints had it, but most prints did not:

http://cinemasightlines.com/roadshow_westsidestory.php

Crocker Jarmen

Theaters used to give away a set of dishes as a premium to get people to come to the theater. One week they would give away a free saucer, then the next week they'd give away the tea cup that went with it, then the next week they'd give away a small plate, so you'd have to go to the movies each week in order to get the whole set.

Jean Sheapard (the guy who wrote the stories A Christmas Story was based on) has a funny story about one of these, where the housewives spend all month going to the movies in order to get this whole set of dishes, but the theater screws up and instead of getting the final piece, is a delievered a second shipment of gravy boats (which were given away last week). Angered at this rip off, the women become unruly and it leads to the Great Gravy Boat Riot.

But yeah, other than one or two items, this list could have been published in 1982.