One of my favorite movies. The movie takes place around the time I was born, but I can identify with the characters growing up in a small Texas town.
I haven't been to the movies in years, not since Titanic. (the movie, not the actual voyage) I love movies,though, and have a fairly large collection of DVDs, mostly being my favorite movies which I gleaned from the Wal Mart bargain bin. The majority of them are still in the wrappers, unopened and I'm saving them for a rainy day. Or when I don't have Internet. Or forget to pay the cable bill.
When I was a kid, my two older sisters and I used to go to the movies fairly often, nearly every Saturday. Our folks would drop us off there on a Saturday afternoon and go do Lord only knows what, but they'd be gone a long time and we'd not only watch the movie once, but sometimes sit through it a second time waiting on our parents. Even then, concession prices were outrageous so we'd smuggle candy in and use whatever money was left over from buying tickets to get soft drinks. We'd usually have a big carton of Whoppers malted milk balls, my oldest sister's favorite candy. My other sister still says my big sis would dole them out: "One for you, one for you and two for me....one for you, one for you, two for me." I don't remember it quite that way and I'm sure my sis gave me more than my share to keep me from fidgeting and whining. At that time, there were two theaters here in town, the La Vista Theater (recent photo) and the Capri Theatre.
The La Vista was an older movie house, but some seats were reclining and they also had a "crying room", a small soundproof room with a huge picture window so mothers could take cranky infants inside and not disturb the other patrons. I used to like to go in there sometimes just for the novelty of it. Some of their seats however were threadbare and crooked, the padding compressed by thousands of movie goer's butts over the decades. I can't remember when it closed, but the last time I was in there it was very run-down and dirty, the floor permanently sticky from thousands of gallons of spilled drinks, the once-beautiful art deco marquis in front showing its age.
The other theater, the Capri, was new, but lacked the style of the LaVista. The seats didn't recline, but at least they had padding. It's closed now as well, a victim of both a new multi-screen theater in the shopping center and the advent of home VCRs. I remember my folks speaking of La Nora Theatre with fondness, but that was before my time. According to what I read on the 'net, it burned down in 1960.
I don't recall my parents ever going to the theater with us, but I do remember all of us going to the drive-in. At one time there were two of them here in town, both long since gone. One of them had a playground right under the huge screen and I guess I was about six or seven and looking up and seeing the shower scene from Psycho, the knife ripping through the curtain, as large as a car from that perspective. I opted for baths for years after that.
Funny how things embarrass you when you're a kid. I absently mindedly scratched my butt once in the hallway at school and one of the other guys said "Hey, Mike....you goin' to the movies?" Puzzled, I shook my head. "Jes' wonderin'." he snickered. "You were pickin' yer seat." My face turned red with the howls of every kid in earshot. He didn't think it so funny when I poured vinegar into his chocolate milk later at lunch. I'm not sure what was more funny; the look on his face when he swallowed or watching it come out his nose. The lesson I learned best that day wasn't in reading or writing, but "don't get mad, get even."
I haven't been to a drive-in since I lived in Denton. A buddy and our girlfriends would load up and go, especially on the nights when it was "bumper sticker night"; if you had the bumper sticker on your vehicle of the radio station that sponsored the night, the entire carload got in for just a few dollars. The movies usually weren't all that good, but it was fun to get there early and watch the college kids drive in and unload eight or ten out of the car and sometimes several more out of the trunk. We usually went in my friend's El Camino, parking backwards in the space and sitting in lawn chairs in the back, drinking beer and enjoying the soft, warm North Texas nights more than we did the movie.
Thinking of how much fun it was to go to the movies when I was younger reminded me of a girl I went to school with. She was a couple of years younger than me, really cute, but...well, let's just say she wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree, ok? A classmate of mine took her to the movies one Saturday evening and told us about the date on the following Monday. She lived way out in the country, so he left early to pick her up as so to be able to get to the first showing of the movie he planned to take her to. She wasn't ready - I really don't think she was too good at telling time - and they got to the theater after the movie started.
They sat through the movie and the intermission after it was over. This was back when they didn't clear the theater after the showing (and that was why my sisters and I sat through two showings of a movie when we were kids) and there were local commercials, cartoons and coming attractions before the feature started. My friend and his date watched all of that, then watched the first of the movie that they had missed.
My classmate said several minutes of what they had seen had gone by and he was ready to go. He kept glancing over at the girl, but she was engrossed in the movie as if she had never seen it before. He waited a few more minutes, trying to be polite, thinking that she'd finally catch on that she had already seen that part of the movie, then leaned over to her and whispered:
"Where did we come in at?"
She looked at him like HE was the stupid one and with a mouth full of popcorn turned around and pointed:
"Right back there at that door!"
When I was a kid, my two older sisters and I used to go to the movies fairly often, nearly every Saturday. Our folks would drop us off there on a Saturday afternoon and go do Lord only knows what, but they'd be gone a long time and we'd not only watch the movie once, but sometimes sit through it a second time waiting on our parents. Even then, concession prices were outrageous so we'd smuggle candy in and use whatever money was left over from buying tickets to get soft drinks. We'd usually have a big carton of Whoppers malted milk balls, my oldest sister's favorite candy. My other sister still says my big sis would dole them out: "One for you, one for you and two for me....one for you, one for you, two for me." I don't remember it quite that way and I'm sure my sis gave me more than my share to keep me from fidgeting and whining. At that time, there were two theaters here in town, the La Vista Theater (recent photo) and the Capri Theatre.
The La Vista was an older movie house, but some seats were reclining and they also had a "crying room", a small soundproof room with a huge picture window so mothers could take cranky infants inside and not disturb the other patrons. I used to like to go in there sometimes just for the novelty of it. Some of their seats however were threadbare and crooked, the padding compressed by thousands of movie goer's butts over the decades. I can't remember when it closed, but the last time I was in there it was very run-down and dirty, the floor permanently sticky from thousands of gallons of spilled drinks, the once-beautiful art deco marquis in front showing its age.
The other theater, the Capri, was new, but lacked the style of the LaVista. The seats didn't recline, but at least they had padding. It's closed now as well, a victim of both a new multi-screen theater in the shopping center and the advent of home VCRs. I remember my folks speaking of La Nora Theatre with fondness, but that was before my time. According to what I read on the 'net, it burned down in 1960.
I don't recall my parents ever going to the theater with us, but I do remember all of us going to the drive-in. At one time there were two of them here in town, both long since gone. One of them had a playground right under the huge screen and I guess I was about six or seven and looking up and seeing the shower scene from Psycho, the knife ripping through the curtain, as large as a car from that perspective. I opted for baths for years after that.
Funny how things embarrass you when you're a kid. I absently mindedly scratched my butt once in the hallway at school and one of the other guys said "Hey, Mike....you goin' to the movies?" Puzzled, I shook my head. "Jes' wonderin'." he snickered. "You were pickin' yer seat." My face turned red with the howls of every kid in earshot. He didn't think it so funny when I poured vinegar into his chocolate milk later at lunch. I'm not sure what was more funny; the look on his face when he swallowed or watching it come out his nose. The lesson I learned best that day wasn't in reading or writing, but "don't get mad, get even."
I haven't been to a drive-in since I lived in Denton. A buddy and our girlfriends would load up and go, especially on the nights when it was "bumper sticker night"; if you had the bumper sticker on your vehicle of the radio station that sponsored the night, the entire carload got in for just a few dollars. The movies usually weren't all that good, but it was fun to get there early and watch the college kids drive in and unload eight or ten out of the car and sometimes several more out of the trunk. We usually went in my friend's El Camino, parking backwards in the space and sitting in lawn chairs in the back, drinking beer and enjoying the soft, warm North Texas nights more than we did the movie.
Thinking of how much fun it was to go to the movies when I was younger reminded me of a girl I went to school with. She was a couple of years younger than me, really cute, but...well, let's just say she wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree, ok? A classmate of mine took her to the movies one Saturday evening and told us about the date on the following Monday. She lived way out in the country, so he left early to pick her up as so to be able to get to the first showing of the movie he planned to take her to. She wasn't ready - I really don't think she was too good at telling time - and they got to the theater after the movie started.
They sat through the movie and the intermission after it was over. This was back when they didn't clear the theater after the showing (and that was why my sisters and I sat through two showings of a movie when we were kids) and there were local commercials, cartoons and coming attractions before the feature started. My friend and his date watched all of that, then watched the first of the movie that they had missed.
My classmate said several minutes of what they had seen had gone by and he was ready to go. He kept glancing over at the girl, but she was engrossed in the movie as if she had never seen it before. He waited a few more minutes, trying to be polite, thinking that she'd finally catch on that she had already seen that part of the movie, then leaned over to her and whispered:
"Where did we come in at?"
She looked at him like HE was the stupid one and with a mouth full of popcorn turned around and pointed:
"Right back there at that door!"
4 comments:
Great post. I hadn't thought about that movie in ages. Jeff Bridges was so young and I had to look up The other male lead. He looked so maddening familiar but I would never have come up with his name without IMDb.
When i moved to Vermont there was a great old theater called the Latchis. It was decked out art deco style with an elaborate lobby and marquis. Inside the hall more Greek revival with columns and balconies,painted constellations on the silk covered ceiling, Greek gods and goddesses on display, elaborate murals and architectural touches. I used to walk downtown and buy a ticket early just so I could sit inside and look at all the splendor.
Thanks for prompting that trip down memory lane. I'll have to use Google and see if the old Latchis is still there.
This year for the first time in years I went to a couple of movies. Godo's boss gets tickets to give to extra good jobs done and sometimes they give the tickets to Valerie. We saw Batman, Twilight, and Magic Mike. We went to the movies w/o Alex! I'm not really fond of going out. When I was a kid they had movies downtown and one of My sisters would take Me. I still have bad dreams of one with the people being chased in a sled with horses by wolfs. they threw a baby to the wolfs to get away.
TLPS was one of the movies that elle and I watched during a Texas movie marathon we had when she was here during winter. (We stayed home most of the time because the wind chill 'bout did her in. The other two times she was here in August and enjoyed it even though it was so hot the streets were melting.)
She loved the movie and I enjoyed it too, even though I've seen it a dozen times.
Randy Quaid was good in his role, too, along w/ Ben Johnson and of course, Cybill Shepherd. Her diving board scene was quite controversial back then.
The book is really good, too, by Larry McMurtry. In fact, we also saw another movie based on one of his books, "Hud", which was mostly filmed in nearby Claude.
Carol, I did a quick search for that movie, but I drew a blank. I first thought of "Doctor Zhivago", but the Wiki entry doesn't say anything about that particular scene, at least not from my quick skim of the article. It's maddening when I can't think of something like that or find anything about it. Internet search engines are great to reference stuff, but the right keywords have to be input.
There was a movie I remember seeing that made the same sort of impact on me, gave me some bad dreams. It was a sci-fi flick and at the end, the others had to leave one guy behind, I guess because they couldn't lift off w/out him. The last scene was him in a cave, waving at the rocket ship as it left...I remember he only had a few hours worth of oxygen.
It would most likely Mike be from the "50's and be some kind of horror movie. They weren't that fussy back in the day what they'd show kids. I just think of the baby being thrown to the wolfs so the rest could get away.
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