Friday Night Video

So, what will it be tonight? You would think with so many weeks having gone by where I haven’t written anything, that I would have a pretty good backlog going. But it doesn’t really work that way with me. Most of what I put down here is pretty much spur of the moment- which should be pretty obvious.

The family watched an old movie over the holiday called “Remember the Night” and I was going to write a little about it here, but I couldn’t find a clip of it that I was happy with. Maybe another time.

Instead, I’ll go a completely different direction and post something from my childhood. I know, this is shocking.

I have a feeling I’ve written about this before, but I don’t have the energy or inclination to search back through this blog to find it. So I apologize in advance if you've read something like this before- but somehow, I think that’s pretty unlikely.

I think every movie holds something different for different people. Maybe it’s the movie itself, or maybe it’s where it was seen or who it was seen with. Sometimes the differences might be subtle, sometimes they might be profound. This clip relates to an early Saturday afternoon from my preteen years in the early sixties. I think I must have been maybe nine or ten years old. I can’t tell you much about that particular day, other than it was raining- raining hard, as I remember. My brother and I, along with the rest of the family, had been trapped indoors for I don’t know how long, but I have the sense that it may have been for quite a while.

Nowadays, kids might go to an indoor gym or rock climbing on a rainy day. Back then, we had the Paramount Theater. Dad decided to treat my brother and I to a matinee at the Paramount. He told us they were showing “a western”. Back then, matinees were usually horror movies left over from the fifties, but it wasn’t unheard of for the occasional western to get thrown into the mix.

Anyway, I don’t remember Dad waiting to see if we wanted to go or not. Before I knew what was happening, the Rambler was screeching up to the curb under the big marquee. My brother and I barely had the chance to climb out of the station wagon before Dad screeched away and disappeared into the pouring rain. I’m not even sure we had time to close the car door.

Steve and I worked our way through the wet mob outside and into the theater- along with what seemed like a thousand other boys about our ages. First, we made our way to the refreshment counter- where we stocked up on popcorn, jawbreakers, fireballs and Jujy Fruits, then we made our way into the theater where we “settled” into our seats.

I remember the theater being complete havoc before the movie started. This was back in the day when movie theaters had only one huge screen, and most theaters, like the Paramount, had a balcony as well. From the balcony, jawbreakers and popcorn rained down on those of us below, and the noise level was something you might expect at a football game- only louder. Finally, the room lights dimmed and the rain of snack food abated slightly while a cartoon flickered on the giant screen in front.

This lull lasted for maybe ten minutes until the main feature started. Then, a deeper hush fell over the mob which lasted about thirty seconds or so while the movie began. This was followed by growing murmurs of confusion and the confusion grew into hostility, before things went completely out of control- and it only got worse from there.

Here, my friend, are some clips from "The Western” that me, my brother, and probably every other little boy there, had been promised on this rainy Saturday afternoon.



I don’t remember for sure, but I think this was the time that they actually stopped the movie, turned up the lights, and the manager came out and yelled at us- just like at school. But it was pretty much the definition of empty threats. What was this guy going to do- take names? Call our parents? Assuming any of us would be foolish enough to give him our real names, and assuming that he was going to take the time to call the homes of hundreds of kids, this also assumed that our parents would actually agree to come and get us. None of this was likely. He knew it, and we knew it.

So, once something vaguely resembling “quiet” finally came over the theater- at least enough for him to pretend that his anger actually had some effect on us- the disgusted manager stomped back up the aisle and back through the double doors. The lights dimmed once again, and the movie, as well as all of the havoc, picked up right where it left off- barely missing a beat.

I never felt bad for that guy. As far as I was concerned, it was his own fault. Who in their right mind shows a movie like this for a Saturday matinee? You know you’re going to be trapped indoors with a bunch of young kids- most likely all boys (did girls ever go to Saturday matinees?). And you know it’s going to last for probably a couple of hours. And you know, through nobody’s fault but your own, that these kids are going to be all hopped up on soda and candy. So, you’ve packed the cannon with this volatile mix and now you light the fuse with a movie like this? What did he expect would happen? That manager should have been out there thanking us for not burning the place to the ground.

Like I said, movies mean something different to different people. I know Mom likes musicals. I’m pretty sure she likes this one. But I’m also pretty sure that when she thinks of this one, she’s not thinking about getting hit in the head with jawbreakers or having buckets of popcorn dumped on her. A part of me thinks that that's kind of too bad. This, I think, is one of those movies that’s better when you see it in a theater.