Life at the Plex

9/24/2014

You show up, search the posting of ten titles and stand in line to buy your ticket. You grab some popcorn or nonpareils — something to have in hand as the movie begins — you’re flying through the lobby looking for the door that says “Anna Karenina.” Years and years of movie going have trained you not to be late.

In 1976, there were dozens of doors at the St. George Theater and other movie theaters, but the doors all led to a single screen. There was a curtain above that screen, and ushers too, amenities you’ve learned to live without since the days of the single screen movie theater. Quickly you take a seat, peel off your coat and hat. What’s the rush? The lights aren’t dimmed yet. But something’s on the screen.

Remember “Selected Short Subjects?” Cartoons? What’s up on the screen is tricked out to look like a movie, but it’s really Coca Cola. You’re a captive audience, you can’t scan through it or go to the fridge. You could go out and come in again, pay for more popcorn — you’ve eaten most of it already, and “Coming Attractions” haven’t even started yet.

What is it about product advertising at the movies that seems so wrong? Movies are not television. They’re suspended reality, and the moviegoer in you is ready to surrender to the dream. Short subjects, like foreplay, served a purpose. They lubricated the imagination. If a movie is any good, the filmmaker Hollis Frampton used to say, it should make you forget your toothache, the balance in your checkbook, a love just lost. Short subjects got you ready to do that.

How can I suspend my disbelief, while a dopey couple collide in front of a polished steel fridge from Sears? Note to self: Next time, bring something to read and noise-cancelling headphones. Buy extra popcorn. Here comes the first trailer — well it’s about time.

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Victoria Hallerman is a poet and writer, the author of the upcoming memoir, Starts Wednesday: A Day in the Life of a Movie Palace, based on her experience as a movie palace manager of the St. George Theatre, Staten Island, 1976. As she prepares her book manuscript for publication, she shares early aspects of theater management, including the pleasures and pain of entrepreneurship. This blog is for anyone who enjoys old movie theaters, especially for those who love the palaces as they once were. And a salute to those passionate activists who continue to save and revive the old houses, including the St. George Theatre itself. This blog is updated every Wednesday, the day film always arrived to start the movie theater week.

Dean Thompson

9/24/2014 03:10:27 pm

Theatre, Multiple Definitions

When I was a kid growing up in the 50's and 60's…a small midwestern suburb called Deer Park…the very word theatre I found had multiple meanings. Of course, it meant movies. The Deer Park Theatre was the center of our lives for most of my time growing up, all the way through high school.

This theatre was not a movie palace; it was a suburban one-screen, probably sat three of four hundred and, as late as the early 60's, actually changed films twice a week. There was the much anticipated first or second run feature for the week which started on Wednesday and ran through Saturday night. Then, beginning with the Sunday matinee, there was a generally tired double feature which usually did not hold much anticipation for my boy-dominated group of friends…something with Spencer Tracy, Patricia O'Neal or Carey Grant…romantic comedies or late film noir which I now treasure from Netflix or AMC.

We wanted the good stuff…"Creature From the Black Lagoon," "Mighty Joe Young," and an occasional Western. Throughout grade school and into junior high, we gathered weekly to watch the likes of John Wayne and Audie Murphy refight and win our fathers' war; "Flying Leathernecks," "To Hell and Back" and "D-Day: The Sixth of June." Of course, we all knew the Nazis and their fiendishly depicted Japanese allies had lost the war before we were ever born, but Friday nights and Saturday afternoons in the Deer Park Theatre afforded us icing for the history lessons we consumed, both at school and around the dinner table.

I can still see the sign hanging in a slightly crooked angle in the street side box office; "Adults 75 cents, Children under twelve 35 cents." The word "under" was emphasized by two or three hand scrawled ball point pen lines beneath it to make sure management received that 40 cent surcharge from me, at least, as 1957 eased into 1958.

However, Theatre also meant, well, Theatre…the baseball team. "Theatre is playing on diamond three, 2 o'clock Saturday." someone would say and we would all usually be there…oddly enough often causing the Saturday matinee to lose ticket sales. Like many small businesses in our neighborhood, the Deer Park Theatre sponsored, beginning about 1955, a knothole baseball team. Many businesses sponsored a team, sometimes two or three, every year and so did the Theatre. However, for reasons none of us ever fully understood, the Deer Park Theatre always sponsored the same group of boys each and every year; through various Little Leagues, Babe Ruth baseball and finally, American Legion ball, as the same group of the very best players from three or four school systems in the area, dominated at every level.

Theatre won local and city championships on a regular basis, went to State finals two or three times but never quite made it to the vaunted Little League World Series in Pennsylvania. However, as a Legion team sponsored in collaboration with the local AL Post but financed by ticket and popcorn sales, Theatre went much higher. I recall they won the State title and word has it, they went on to the Regionals and even played a game or two in Yankee Stadium.

But, by then, the Deer Park Theatre was no longer the center of my world. Movies were Saturday night dates or Film Festivals at the University I attended. Of course, the talented boys on the Theatre squad became men, scattered and the Deer Park Theatre never sponsored another team.

Sometime after I graduated college in the late 60's, the Deer Park Theatre ceased to exist as well. Too small to twin and without it's own parking lot, the building became first a furniture store and then a home heating supply company. I don't know what it is today or if the building still stands, and I don't want to know. Therefore, the word theatre will always have two meanings and I regret no longer having to make the choice between standing behind the backstop on diamond three or gathering on line to watch "War of the Worlds."

Robin Locke Monda link

9/25/2014 06:03:35 am

I thought that Joe Wright's Anna Karenina was amazing! Tom Stoppard did the script adaptation—and the costumes and staging! I'm very impressed with how the movie incorporated theatrical staging. Jacqueline Durran was the costume designer. Kudos! A wonderful movie-going experience, really.

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