# Going to the movies...1950



## Pappy (May 22, 2016)

The following blog, is one I put into my hometown forum. 




1950
Well, we have taken back enough bottles to pay our way into Smalleys theater. It will cost us 14 cents for a great double feature. The main show is "Frontier Pony Express" starring Roy Rogers and the second show is an Abbott and Costello movie Called Africa Screams. If we wanted we could sit through a second showing, but the popcorn and candy was pretty well gone by then. I can remember coming out of the theater and being blinded by the sunlight. On the way home we would discuss what we had just seen and tried to imitate the actors. Ah yes, good times...simple times.....


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## Ameriscot (May 22, 2016)

14 cents, eh?!  Can't remember what it cost the first time I went to a cinema.  But I didn't go in 1950 as I wasn't born until 2 years later.


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## jujube (May 22, 2016)

I think it was about 35 cents when I started going somewhere around 1955.  Tiny little neighborhood theatre with a floor seemingly covered in superglue (you'd lose a shoe if you weren't careful).  It had a glassed-in "cry room" for mothers with babies.  We'd sneak up into the balcony to see the teenagers necking but we'd never sit up there.  You'd get cartoons, a newsreel, maybe a serial, then the main feature and the secondary feature.  You got your money's worth, all right.  My mother always made us wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt because she was sure we'd catch "something" from the ratty seats.


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## Guitarist (May 22, 2016)

I remember 50 cents for a feature film at the big downtown picture palaces.  50 cents for a cartoon and a full-length movie.  And if you came in halfway through you stayed to see the beginning and up to where you came in.  Or longer, if your mother didn't have to get home to start supper. 

I went to the beach last summer with a friend and we saw three movies.  He was in turn a pirate, James Bond, and Tom Cruise.


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## NancyNGA (May 22, 2016)

For kids when I first went: 20 cents.  But we lived in the suburbs.  Couldn't get anyone to drive us to the theater and pick us up.  Too much trouble.  One Thanksgiving reunion/dinner the relatives dumped us kids at a theater, probably to get us out of their hair for a few hours.


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## Pappy (May 22, 2016)

Ameriscot said:


> 14 cents, eh?!  Can't remember what it cost the first time I went to a cinema.  But I didn't go in 1950 as I wasn't born until 2 years later.



We had two theaters in our little town back then. Smalleys was 14 cents and the Colonia was 16 cents.


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## Ameriscot (May 22, 2016)

The first movies I remember going to see were 'The 13 Ghosts' at a cinema with my cousins, and Hayley Mills movies at the drive-in on the navy base with mom and siblings while dad was working.


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## Lon (May 22, 2016)

14 CENTS for a Double Feature?  Incredible!!!   While in High School in 1950 I had a job working as a Doorman (Ticket Taker) at the Piedmont Theatre in Piedmont, California. A single feature with newsreel & cartoon was 80 cents to 90 cents depending on seating preference.


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## Falcon (May 22, 2016)

While in high school I got a week end job as an usher in Detroit's Fox theater on Woodward Ave.

In those days if it was a GOOD movie playing, the box office posted a sign that read, "SRO", which meant  *Standing Room Only*

Believe it or not, some folks would actually PAY to get in and stand in the side aisles until seats were vacated.

One thing; I got to see/hear all the big bands that played there; Glenn Miller, Harry James, Benny Goodman etc.


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## Pappy (May 22, 2016)

Lon said:


> 14 CENTS for a Double Feature?  Incredible!!!   While in High School in 1950 I had a job working as a Doorman (Ticket Taker) at the Piedmont Theatre in Piedmont, California. A single feature with newsreel & cartoon was 80 cents to 90 cents depending on seating preference.



Actually, Lon. It was 1947 for me. Didn't want to sound any older than I already am. :sentimental:


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## AuntieV (May 22, 2016)

I remember going with $.25 tickets for kids. We were given $.50  so we could buy a large drink $.15 and a large bag of pop corn $.10. The little kids sat down front and the big kids sat towards the back. First was the news real. Then a black & white movie. Then we would have a cartoon and teaser for the next weeks feature before the main  color feature.


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## Guitarist (May 22, 2016)

Falcon said:


> While in high school I got a week end job as an usher in Detroit's Fox theater on Woodward Ave.
> 
> In those days if it was a GOOD movie playing, the box office posted a sign that read, "SRO", which meant  *Standing Room Only*
> 
> ...



That must have been wonderful.


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## Butterfly (May 28, 2016)

We used to pay 10 cents for kids under 12 and 15 cents for those over 12 on Saturdays for cartoons, a movie, newsreel, etc., and a serial.  Sometimes we'd watch the movie twice.  We'd walk there and back.  It was great fun.


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## Sassycakes (Jun 9, 2016)

We had a Movie theater not far from our house. My older sister would go every Saturday afternoon with her friends for  their matinees. One Saturday she had to babysit me and she talked our Mother into letting her take me. She regretted it and so did I . The movie was "The House of Wax". I was soo scared I sat on her lap the whole time and I ruined the movie for her because one of her friends was a boy she had a crush on, Come to think of it my sister and I never went to the movies together again. Maybe I'll ask her tomorrow if she wants to go to the movies with me now.


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## IKE (Jun 10, 2016)

I recall being dropped off at the movie theater some weekends by my mom or stepdad, it was almost always a cowboy double feature.......later in life I learned it was so they could have some 'alone' time. 

To save money mom would pop my corn at home and I'd take it with me......I always showed up at the movie with a butter stained brown paper sack full of homemade pop corn.


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## HazyDavey (Jun 10, 2016)

Saturday afternoons my folks would drop my brother and I off at the movie theater in our small town. I can't remember the cost, but we would get a cartoon, the first movie, a short intermission, then the second movie.

One time the folks dropped us off and told us a pirate movie was playing. Well, the pirate movie was, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. I can still remember the first time seeing that one-eyed Cyclops coming out of that cave..


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## Butterfly (Jun 11, 2016)

Lon said:


> 14 CENTS for a Double Feature?  Incredible!!!   While in High School in 1950 I had a job working as a Doorman (Ticket Taker) at the Piedmont Theatre in Piedmont, California. A single feature with newsreel & cartoon was 80 cents to 90 cents depending on seating preference.



The cheap prices for kids were only on Saturday afternoons -- I think as a service for parents who wanted some peace and quiet.  I don't know what the regular prices were because I only ever went on Saturday afternoons.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Jun 11, 2016)

We had two movie theaters in the next town over. The one theater was absolutely beautiful. Very ornate and the ladies room had a huge sitting area that you went through to get to the bathrooms themselves. Many over stuffed chairs, coffee table, large sofa, and a big chandelier. I guess for the intermissions that many movies had back then. They also had an organ that they played before and during intermissions. Usually in the evening when they had a double feature.When I finally was allowed to go to the movies by myself it cost about fifty cents.I was also given a little extra for candy,which to me was just as important as the movie. So many choices! Do I blow it all on ice cream bon bons, butter on the pop corn? One of the first movies I remember standing in line to see on a Saturday afternoon was Darby O Gill and the Little people.


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