10.07.09 | John Skillin | Guest ContributorsPrint this Post
Guest contributor John Skillin writes:
As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I went to the movies almost every Saturday. In those pre-video, pre-cable days, neighborhood theaters offered "kiddie matinees," consisting of double- and triple-features of monsters and cheap science fiction. Admission was 35 cents. Most of the movies were pretty lame. I remember seeing "Frankenstein's Daughter," "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," and "Teenage Caveman" at about the same time, but never felt cheated. As long as there was a monster (no matter how poorly conceived), we were satisfied.
A big part of the experience in these cavernous movie palaces, with their high ceilings and richly carpeted lobbies, were the posters on display. The posters were usually 14" x 36" Inserts and were placed near the entrance to advertise next Saturday's program -- just in case anyone missed the previews of coming attractions on the big screen. How often I wished I could buy a poster and take it home, but the managers always refused my requests. ("Sorry son, those posters have to be returned," was the typical response.) The vibrant colors and dynamic graphic art on these posters were often far more spectacular than anything the movies themselves could possibly deliver!
Many years later I learned that one man was responsible for many of the best of these posters, the artist Reynold Brown. In 1994, PBS aired a fine documentary on Brown entitled, "The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters." More recently, Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung have written a book, Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures (Illustrated Press). They're all here -- "The Mole People," "The Incredible Shrinking Man," "Tarantula!," "Attack of the Puppet People," "Cult of the Cobra," "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," "Creature from the Black Lagoon" -- those very same images that drew me into the darkened theater fifty years ago. I still want to take them home.
For more information on horror, sci-fi, and other vintage movies, see John's blog at http://drive-inmemories.blogspot.com
How marvelously John Skillin draws us with him down Memory Lane! And that's where I want to be! Bravo!
My sentiments exactly John (Skillin). A nice and very concise view of days gone past or as "They" say "The good old days" In the 1950's as I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and the closest movie palaces were in Trenton, NJ my mother and I would venture across the Delaware River (the same place that George Washington crossed)and go to the city almost every Saturday. I was very lucky as my mom had a great taste for all those "scary" movies. We would end up more often than not at the RKO Capitol movie house for a great double bill of Sci-Fi, Action or Horror favorites of that week. I saw "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" in 3-D during one of our Saturday movie outings back in 1954 which I'll never forget. A five year old just doesn't forget an afternoon in a darkened cinema with the Gill monster's hands reaching out of the screen at him. And certainly yes a BIG part of those days was standing outside the cinema and looking in wonder at those great posters of the movies "Playing this week" or the visual announcement shown in the wonderful poster art of what we had in store the following week. Most certainly thanks to the great poster artists such as Reynold Brown and others that made my early movie going experience such a fantastic and well remembered time to this day. By the way since becoming an adult I hsvr made most of my living working in the entertainment business. I wonder if all those posters had anything to do with the road I choose to travel.
That's a wonderful story about seeing the "Creature" in 3-D at the age of five. I can imagine that would leave an indelible memory! A big scare for me was seeing Margaret Hamilton on the big screen when "The Wizard of Oz" was shown in theaters (before it was sold to television). Believe me, this a much more powerful experience for a child sitting in a darkened theater, with the wicked witch ten times larger than life, than it could ever be at home with the lights on.
Everybody old enough remembers the old movie theaters and how different they were from today. Sure, you didn't get the big choices of films you do today, but you generally had three or four theaters in your neighborhood with different features to pick form. Also the price was cheaper by far. I caught a lot of the classics on television, but I remember being frightened by the posters outside the local theaters as a kid: Curse of the Werewolf;
The Shadow of the Cat, Invasion of the Vampires, and The Devil's Own, many of which were suitable for causing night-mares or at least making an impressionable kid nervous about going out after dark. John Skillin did a great job at invoking the theaters of the time. However, he did leave out the scariest horror of them all. The free kiddie show some of the mall theaters showed just before school opened, so that mothers had a place to drop their kids as they shopped. The movie itself wasn't so scary (usually an old cartoon or kid's movie, although once they did show
Disney's Pinoccio), but the audience. You had to look out for bullies, brats who ran around hitting and harassing other kids, and noisy troublemakers who invariably got not merely themselves but all the kids sitting by them thrown out of the theater. Now that was something the smarter kids worried about, convincing your Mom on her return that it wasn't your fault you were waiting outside the theater!
That is, if you didn't have the black eye or Milky Way bar
stuck in your hair to prove something bad happened. Still, I miss those old days.
John Skillin's article brings me back to those days, when the movies were a treat, and those Horror and Science Fiction movies were my favorite. I also remember the posters outside the threater, and I would go home and try to copy them myself. Those were the "good old days"! Thanks John!
Reading these posts has brought back so many indelible memories. Regarding the power of poster art, in 1958 I was 11 years old waiting outside the Skouras Squire Theatre in Great Neck, NY to see The Blob. While waiting I kept staring at the images on the poster until I actually convinced myself that the picture might be too scary and I went home. Later that day my mother called and asked if I wanted to go to the movies...Yup, she took me to see The Blob. I didn't have the nerve to tell her I'd freaked out that afeternoon and went. I loved the movie and it is now a part of my private collection. As for the famous kiddie matinees, I remember going to a matinee of Pinocchio at the Playhouse Theatre, across the street from the aforementioned Squire. The regular feature was Tarantula and I hid in the theatre after the matinee so I could see it. It is also in my private collection. Going to the movies was once an all day affair: 2 Features, Newsreels, Cartoons, and endless Trailers...Heaven. The Playhouse and the Squire were the only venues in town and changed shows several times a week...Monday-Tuesday, Wednesday-Thursday and Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Oh those halcyon days.