OK, classic film lovers, do you remember when...
1. Classic movies were on local TV stations all the time under umbrella titles such as: The Big Movie, The Morning Matinee, The 4:30 Movie, The Sunday Afternoon Movie, Million Dollar Movie, Night Owl Theatre, and The Big Action Movie (I watched that one on Channel 2 in Greensboro, NC).
2. AMC actually showed classic movies and TNT was the TCM of cable TV (before TCM existed).
3. You could stay to watch a theatrical movie as many times as you wanted; no one booted you out of the theater.
4. Drive-in theaters were plentiful and admission for a carload was $5.00 or less. You had to use the portable speakers, too--none of that fancy FM radio stuff.
5. A kid under age 12 could see a theatrical film for 35¢.
6. You could watch family-friendly movies (e.g., Friendly Persuasion) around the holidays on thesyndicated SFM Holiday Network. (It featured the same theme music as Monday Night Football.)
| An RCA VideoDisc player. |
8. The broadcast networks featured "world television premieres" of theatrical films as part of their regular schedules. In the 1960s, you might see anything from Vertigo to The Day the Earth Stood Still on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. Later, the networks spotlighted movies released theatrically within the last one to three years.
9. There was no theatrical movie rating system, so even a 10-year-old could see Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. In the U.S., films such as Bonnie and Clyde only carried the warning: "Suggested for mature audiences." (Obviously, my parents considered me mature for my age.)
10. There were bars that showed classic movies. My wife and I saw movies such as Goldfinger and The Fearless Vampire Killers at the Video Saloon in Bloomington, IN, in the early 1980s.
11. Local TV stations gave away money during the "Dialing for Dollars" movie. If you were in the phone directory, that meant you could be a winner--along with thousands of other people. Of course, every time the host made a phone call, it was another interruption to the movie.
