Ash Ketchum

All this talk about the summer blockbuster season starting sooner and sooner every year got me to thinking about what “summer movies” were like during my formative years as a moviegoer.

Here are some that I particularly remember from 1963-72:

1963:
THE GREAT ESCAPE
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
BEACH PARTY
X – THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES

1964:
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS

1965:
OPERATION CROSSBOW
HELP!

1966:
BATMAN

1967:
CASINO ROYALE
ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

1968:
WILD IN THE STREETS
ROMEO AND JULIET

1969:
WHERE EAGLES DARE
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
CASTLE KEEP
THE WILD BUNCH

1970
COTTON COMES TO HARLEM
KELLY’S HEROES
EL CONDOR

1971:
BIG JAKE
SHAFT
WILLARD

1972:
DUCK, YOU SUCKER (aka A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE)
JOE KIDD
BLACULA


Many of these opened earlier than summer at downtown theaters but didn’t make it to the neighborhood theaters until the summer, so, to us, they were summer movies. Two that actually had high-profile summer openings were the first two, THE GREAT ESCAPE and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, which opened downtown on the same day, August 7, the day after my birthday, and I was psyched about both of them, even if I had to wait to see them. JASON came to my neighborhood in September, but I had to wait till November to see GREAT ESCAPE. When JASON came to the neighborhood, a bunch of us went to see it on opening day and it seemed like every kid in the neighborhood was there (it was a Wednesday in the last week of summer vacation). There was even a line outside when the theater opened, a rare occurrence in those days. My siblings and I had to sit in the balcony to find seats together. It was our first trip to that particular theater, the borough’s biggest and most ornate movie palace, with a ceiling rigged to look like a sky at night with stars twinkling. Oh, and the movie was great, too.

Other great summer group events from this list include:

A HARD DAY’S NIGHT – a packed house with every girl in the neighborhood (including my sisters) screaming over the Beatles. The co-feature, ISLAND OF BLUE DOLPHINS, was pretty good, too.

BATMAN - we all loved the TV show (with Adam West) and couldn’t wait to see it on the big screen with all three major villains from the show working together—the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and the Joker (Cesar Romero), with the added bonus of Catwoman (Lee Meriwether). Plus, it was in color (we tended to have b&w sets in my downscale neighborhood, so I hadn't yet seen the show in color). Again, every kid in the neighborhood went. Too bad we had to first sit through a grade-B co-feature, THE RETURN OF MR. MOTO, with Henry Silva.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE – the children’s section of the theater was packed for the 5th James Bond film, and everyone went nuts during the big ninja battle in the volcano rocket base at the end. We'd never seen action like this before. One of the greatest times I’ve ever had at the movies.

Joe Molotov

Great thread. As someone who grew up several decades later, it's interesting to read about movie going experiences from a different time.

Hokeyboy

I really enjoyed reading that, because it really provided an entertaining glimpse into how the movie release model USED to be.

I was born in 1971, went to the movies a LOT all my life. What I remember more than anything is how LONG movies were in theaters. Before VCRs became commonplace, you only saw movies in one of 3 ways: first release, re-release, or the ABC Sunday Night Movie. Big movies stayed in theaters for MONTHS on end, and going to the theater was an event... especially before the rise of the "multiplex". I think I saw every Disney live-action movie in the 70s, especially when it was a double-feature with a classic animated movie. The night I saw a double-feature of "Unidentified Flying Oddball" and "The Jungle Book" -- at a Drive-Inn in the summer of 1979 -- was positively magical for me.

Moviegoing and appreciation was so simple then. No Internet, no real mass communication among us except the telephone (and LD calls were pricey dude), local TV (no cable, so it's 3-4 stations and PBS), newspapers, and magazines, so when you saw a trailer for an exciting new film... IT WAS AWESOME!! When you saw pictures of upcoming genre movies in STARLOG magazine, IT WAS AWESOME!! When you saw the posters in the "Coming Soon" area of your local theater, IT WAS AWESOME!! There were signficantly less films being released back then, but you looked forward to them so much more. They were events.

Growing up there was basically 3 theaters in my area (Dadeland, Riviera, Sunniland), each had 3 screens apiece. When a film premiered, it was an event. Over the summer, we'd see the BIG pictures many, many times. Many lazy summer afternoons were spent riding our bikes to the theater to go see STAR WARS, EMPIRE, or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK over and over again. Even with VCRs and multiplexes popping up in the 80s, moviegoing was still a major event.

The summer of 1982 will always be the perfect summer for my 11 year old self, where it seemed like there was always ANOTHER great movie to go see: Blade Runner, Tron, Rocky III, Firefox, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, Conan The Barbarian, The Thing, E.T., The Secret of Nimh, The Road Warrior, and even total (but wildly enjoyable -- to an 11 year old) crap like Grease 2, MegaForce, and SixPack. I even remember being dragged to "adult" movies like An Officer and A Gentleman and The World According To Garp, two movies I didn't care for (at 11) but grew to appreciate over time. I had to put up with those in order to convince my parents to take me to see Conan, The Thing, and Road Warrior.

The summer of 1982 was also when I first saw Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" -- in THEATRES -- and that changed movies for me FOREVER as well. There was also a rerelease of The Beatles "A HARD DAY'S NIGHT" in theatres that year, although I don't remember if that was summer or not. But for a young Beatles fan, that was life-changing.

Crap I've been rambling nostalgically for entirely too long. Back to work...

jeffbase34

I remember Road Warrior and Empire as my first big summer movie experiences. I was just so blown away by action. Road Warrior still holds up quite well and features stunts that still amaze me.

I believe the James Bond flicks, not Jaws, were the first summer movie blockbusters. People went nuts over James Bond immediately, and there was tons of merchandise and toys based on the films.

Mondo Kane

Thanks for sharing. Looks like a summer couldn't be complete without having a Western back in the day.

OldBoy

but, did movie studios think about movies put out in the summer the same way back then?

wasn't the "Summer Blockbuster" coined with 1975's "Jaws" and since then studios have been putting out their glossy, effects laden tentpoles in the summer and thus movies in the summer prior were just put out without any the notions that it would be the biggest box office for the respective studios?

Ash Ketchum

Yeah, it pretty much started with JAWS, which was the first major studio film of its kind to open wide across the country on the same day. And its overwhelming success established the model that's still being followed. Regarding how wide the intial release was, here's what IMDB has to say:
"The film was simultaneously shown in 490 theaters on its opening weekend, the first time for Hollywood, setting the standard for subsequent films. The film was originally booked in about 1000 theaters, but MCA executive Lew Wasserman wanted that cut back, saying he wanted lines at the box office."


One of the things I wanted to add to my original post is how frequently studios used the summer bookings in those years to roll out various reissues in the absence of high-profile new films. Older Disney films, both animated and live-action, often circulated during the summer, as did the first few James Bond movies, the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone Italian westerns, and a bunch of other action favorites that audiences liked to return to over and over (e.g. assorted John Wayne westerns and, later on, THE WILD BUNCH, BUTCH CASSIDY and VANISHING POINT). In the summer of 1971, I was working as a youth counselor at a summer program and we had to take a bunch of kids to the movies on a rainy day and we took them to a double bill of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954), a live-action Disney film, and RETURN OF THE SEVEN (1966), a western sequel. One film was 16 years old and the other was five years old.

Rad14

Ah you are taking me back!!
God they were great days weren't they?!!

I can remember seeing A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars more on a double bill!
Also Goldfinger and Thunderball on another!!

Those were the days....