Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

One of the things that used to be cheap and fun was the movies

Nostalgia Alert: those under 45 years old may now click on the LCC reading room.

When I was a kid growing up in Windsor, Ontario, I never missed a Saturday afternoon matinee. The Tivoli Theater was just one block from my house, a duplex on Victoria Ave. There was hardly ever an adult in the audience during these Saturday flicks. The Tivoli at 2 p.m. was "kids only" zone.

Admission was ten cents, coke in a cup a nickel, popcorn a dime, and MacIntosh toffee a dime. MacIntosh toffee came in a cardboard box and if it didn't pull your fillings out, it would last halfway into the second feature.

They always showed two movies in those days plus four or five cartoons. Most of us only paid attention to the cartoons.

Mr. MaGoo and anything Warner Bros. was good. Walter Lantz's stuff, Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy, Droopy and Heckle and Jeckle was really lame.

You could really enjoy a Tarzan Movie starring Gordon Scott with his oiled muscles and immaculate pompadour, but the second feature always seemed to be a Disney clanger like "The Painted Desert" or one of those cheesy setup jobs where a bear cub breaks into the cabin and wrecks the joint. The Disney narrator always had such a creepy voice, like an effeminate Edward R. Murrow.

The real fun for us was popcorn box Frisbees and toffee box sirens.

At intervals throughout the show, flattened popcorn boxes would go whizzing low over the crowd from the back row then rise to strike the screen. You needed a good sidearm throw and a bit of origami experience to make this happen.

No talent was necessary to produce an ear-splitting air-raid siren from those empty toffee boxes. Uniformed ushers would sneak down the aisles to nab malefactors. If you were suddenly caught in mid-toffee-box-shriek by a blinding flashlight you knew that you were headed for the exits.

You weren't allowed in the balcony unless the lower seats were filled. Leaning over the rail of the balcony and spotting some nasty rival directly below was like winning the lottery, especially if you were in possession of a box of "Featherstone's Pastilles." These nasty-tasting hard candy confections were perfect for bombing the lower level.

The adult movies were shown after dinner, no kids allowed. They actually enforced the age rules in those days. If you were a kid there was no way to get in, unless, of course, you had the nefarious mind of Howard Weeks.

Howie was a chum of mine who brilliantly suggested that we hide under the seats after the kiddies show and pop up at 6:30 when the adult feature started. It was a great idea but the results were disappointing.

We sat through 101 minutes of Rally 'Round the Flag Boys starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It was supposedly pretty racy stuff for 1958 but to two 10-year-olds it was witheringly boring. Even Tuesday Weld's role as teen tease Comfort Goodbody failed to stir our prepubescent instincts.

I know it isn't fair to compare the old days to present movie going but I'm going to do it anyway.

If I take Ruth and Shorty to the Kipling Cinema to see Spielberg's A.I. we get one (lousy) movie plus a few trailers for $19.50.

If we each want a medium drink, some Milk Duds and "bag" of popcorn it's going to be more that the price of admission. I'm staring $50 in the face for a movie.

For nine family trips to the movies I can get a membership at Hooper Golf Club for the season. I'm not saying that Rudyard is ripping us off. That place changes hands more often than a health food restaurant. Someone is making big dough but it ain't Kipling.

You can blame physiotherapist Todd Miller of Putney for this column. He was working on a hamstring pull from the latest Fossil baseball game (third to home, scored, worth it) and mentioned the high cost of movies. Sometimes that's all it takes for an unsolicited geezer-blast from the past.