Did anyone go to Saturday matinees in the 50's?

Gaer

Gaer

"Angel whisperer"
Location
New Mexico U.S.A.
I used to walk up to the theater every Saturday afternoon with a pocket full of Morgan silver dollars, to watch Audie Murphy, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh,or Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum. Jerry Lewis. I remember I HATED silver dollars because they were SO HEAVY! Couldn't leave them home because my brother would steal them.
I'd buy a Milky Way candy bar every Saturday for 15 cents,I think.
Anyone identify with this?
 

I loved going to the Saturday afternoon movies ,except for the first time I went. My older sister was going and my Mom insisted my sister take me. The movie was "The House of Wax". It scared the heck out of me. I was only 5yrs old at the time,so maybe that's why I got soo scared.
 
I loved going to matinees as a kid in the 50’s to early sixties; they usually showed two movies then, together with cartoons, previews, and maybe a newsreel. Compare that to what little you get today at an exorbitant price! In the summer, a movie theater was also one of the few places that was air conditioned, and offered you an escape from the sweltering heat...
 

I went to the Sat movies with my buddies in the late 40's and early 50's. The theater was about a block away and featured all my cowboy heros. One little problem is that my main buddy (Lyle) and I tended to fall asleep and our mothers would have to come get us. I was in the first and second grade at that point. I was a Gene Audrey guy, Lyle liked Roy Rogers.
We both converted to the Lone Ranger when he came along. He was more fascinating I suppose.
 
Fyrefox said:
I loved going to matinees as a kid in the 50’s to early sixties; they usually showed two movies then, together with cartoons, previews, and maybe a newsreel. Compare that to what little you get today at an exorbitant price! In the summer, a movie theater was also one of the few places that was air conditioned, and offered you an escape from the sweltering heat...
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Wasn't the price only 50 cents or 75 cents?
 
Pecos said:
I went to the Sat movies with my buddies in the late 40's and early 50's. The theater was about a block away and featured all my cowboy heros. One little problem is that my main buddy (Lyle) and I tended to fall asleep and our mothers would have to come get us. I was in the first and second grade at that point. I was a Gene Audrey guy, Lyle liked Roy Rogers.
We both converted to the Lone Ranger when he came along. He was more fascinating I suppose.
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Hey Pecos, I shook hands with both Roy Rogers and Gene Autry when I was only 5 years old! They were both in Miles City, Mt for the Fourth of July parade and Wild Horse auction!
 
On her good days, Mom would give us 43 cents in nickels and pennies.
Get on the bus, for 5cents, at 9 A.M. ride downtown, get a haircut for 15 cents, it was indeed a trainee barber college, what did we care, we were 9 or 10 years old.

Okay, we had to save a nickel for the bus ride home, leaving us 18 cents for the movies.


the ticket cost 9 cents (the movies were oaters, cowboys riding around shooting in the air...the plot was a good guy and a bad guy.
You could tell who the bad guy was as he would 'lurk' around, observing the good guy. Also, two cartoons and a continued
serial, hot damn!

Now the dilemma, we had enough to go to a second movie if and only if we did not buy a candy bar?

Brother and I could count our money, squeeze it, count again... As I recall, we would go to the second theather about
half the time, and eat a candy bar half the time.

Popcorn was a dime, out of our price range.
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Post 10
Addendum, Gaer says bad guys wore black hats and the good
guys wore white hats-True, I forgot about that.
 
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My girlfriends and I would always go to the movies on Saturday. Part of the fun was deciding on the candy we would buy. We could blow it all on the chocolate covered ice cream bon bons or pop corn which would last the whole show and should we spend extra for buttered? Such decisions we had.
 
[Ruth n Jersey, post:
My girlfriends and I would always go to the movies on Saturday. We could blow it all on the chocolate covered ice cream bon bons or pop corn which would last the whole show and should we spend extra for buttered? Such decisions we had.
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One question, did you squeeze your money hoping it would
magically increase?
 
I remember the soda machines at the movies. You put in your dime, made your selection and then the paper cup would come down, then the ice and then the two streams of liquid (one carbonated water and one syrup). Only......sometimes the ice would drop and then the liquid and ONLY THEN would the cup fall. OR, you only got carbonated water but no syrup. So then, you had to go see the crabby old lady at the concession stand to get your dime back and she never believed you, even when you showed her your perfectly dry cup.

Plus, our theater didn't let you take your drink into the theater, only your popcorn or candy. So, you had to stand out in the lobby and drink. Bummer.

Bonomo's Turkish Taffy was the cheapest thing to buy and it lasted all the way through the two movies, the cartoons, and the newsreel. I think it was responsible for at least 50% of the dentists in America getting a new Cadillac every other year.

Ever get kicked out of a theater? My friend and I did. We were sitting in the first row of the balcony and decided it would be fun to spit partly chewed jujubes down on our friends below. We got caught.

Our little neighborhood theater was pretty grungy and my mother was convinced that we were in grave danger of catching head lice and/or ringworm from the seats. She made us wear long sleeved tops and long pants, no matter how hot it was outside and threatened us with long-time home detention if we even thought about resting our heads against the back of the seat.
 
Television did not arrive in Australia until 1957 so Sat'dy arvo at the pictures was a regular event when I was a child. We had three local theatres to pick from and for one shilling (12 pennies) we could have a double feature plus newsreels at two of them and at the third, which catered for the juvenile trade there was a smattering of cartoons, serials and an adventure film. In school holidays this theatre ran a cartoon carnival and the line to buy a ticket went for about 100 yards down the block. They packed us in by sitting us in the isles upstairs.

As teens we would actually book seats in the front row upstairs, known as The Lounge and we watched a lot of musicals and British war films like The Dam Busters and Battle of the River Plate. For my thirteenth birthday I invited my girlfriends to a screening of Carousel at a theatre in the city. In the middle of a really sad moment towards the end of the story we all started to giggle uncontrollably and received many dirty looks.
 
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No!

During our Chrismas break, my older brother did take my sister and me to see Babes in Toyland and Swiss Family Robinson in this old movie palace.

I still remember walking into the lobby it was quite an experience for a little country mouse.

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NO I was only being born in the 50's... but in the later 60's we would often go to the Saturday morning matinees... one week we'd go to the municple swimming baths and the other to the Odeon

9 times out of 10 we didn't have the money to pay to get in, so one or 2 people would pay and then open the emergency doors inside to allow us to come in sneakily...

I saw The Love Bug, and Chitty -chitty bang .. and they had the repilica cars outside on the forecourt, and I really thought they were the real cars from the film ... :D
 
hollydolly said:
NO I was only being born in the 50's... but in the later 60's we would often go to the Saturday morning matinees... one week we'd go to the municple swimming baths and the other to the Odeon

9 times out of 10 we didn't have the money to pay to get in, so one or 2 people would pay and then open the emergency doors inside to allow us to come in sneakily...

I saw The Love Bug, and Chitty -chitty bang .. and they had the repilica cars outside on the forecourt, and I really thought they were the real cars from the film ... :D
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For myself, the movie fare which appealed were the monster movies and aliens. Matinee child admission prices were less than a dollar, and for another 35 cents or so you could get enough hot buttered popcorn to get you well into the movie. It was made salty so you’d buy a drink as well. Then you’d watch wide-eyed and enthralled as some rubbery dinosaur was reactivated by radioactive waste to threaten civilization! So what if the theater floors were usually sticky...Look, Godzilla! 😮

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Gaer said:
I used to walk up to the theater every Saturday afternoon with a pocket full of Morgan silver dollars, to watch Audie Murphy, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh,or Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum. Jerry Lewis. I remember I HATED silver dollars because they were SO HEAVY! Couldn't leave them home because my brother would steal them.
I'd buy a Milky Way candy bar every Saturday for 15 cents,I think.
Anyone identify with this?"
Click to expand...
Dang, I remember when you could get a Coke, hotdog, and fries for a quarter. The only movies that I saw back in the day were "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story." I only got to see movies when my mother shipped me off to her friends.
 
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Fyrefox said:
For myself, the movie fare which appealed were the monster movies and aliens. Matinee child admission prices were less than a dollar, and for another 35 cents or so you could get enough hot buttered popcorn to get you well into the movie. It was made salty so you’d buy a drink as well. Then you’d watch wide-eyed and enthralled as some rubbery dinosaur was reactivated by radioactive waste to threaten civilization! So what if the theater floors were usually sticky...Look, Godzilla! 😮

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a dollar?...wow !! it cost us 6d ( 6 pennies) on Saturday morning matinees.... we got a main feature film and several cartoon films for that...


Eventually when I was newly married with a baby, I started work as an Usherette in the evenings at a triple screen Odeon... 2,000 seater in West London
 
Aunt Bea, that certainly is an impressive palace! Looks like a European tourist attraction.

I remember the Saturday matinees having serials, which were continuing stories always ending on a cliffhanger; come back next week to see what happens. TV series do the same thing now.
 
Sunny said:
Aunt Bea, that certainly is an impressive palace! Looks like a European tourist attraction.

I remember the Saturday matinees having serials, which were continuing stories always ending on a cliffhanger; come back next week to see what happens. TV series do the same thing now.
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It's still going strong.

A few years ago they remodeled the area behind the movie screen to modernize it for stage performances but the public side of the theater hasn't changed much since it was built.

The upstairs balcony lobby area is available for weddings, business meetings, etc...

It was definitely an inexpensive fantasy/escape for the great unwashed of the 20s and 30s.

https://landmarktheatre.org/about/history/

rent.jpg
 
The Pastime Theater was a few blocks away on Main Street. My mother gave me 15 cents, 12 for admission, and 3 for candy bought across the street. Serials were Rocket Man, Three Stooges and more. No AC then, only fans on a hot day. Always sat on the left side half way down. Wasn't supposed to go during lent so sat in the middle where God couldn't find me.
 

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