Do you remember going to the cinema in the 70s?

[Aparecium]

Dh and I have been trying to describe what going to the cinema was like when we were kids to our kids. Another universe, really!

Do you remember the screen showing a kaleidoscope of ice-creams at the end of the B-feature? I've been trying to find a video of it, but clearly not using the right search terms. Or maybe I imagine it?

I miss interval. It’s uncivilised not to have interval.

Loved the old movie houses - many of which are gone in my city now - sold for redevelopment.

I remember one theatre where an organist used to play before the start. The organist and the organ would rise up onto a stage area to the side of the screen.

Right up until the mid 80s a local cinema near me used to serve tea and coffee with scones and jam and cream on proper plates and cup, in the lounge area. And the lounge area was full of long big velvety covered couches - it all felt so luxurious. I remember seeing Terms of Endearment in that theatre, and when the Debra Whinger character died I sobbed my eyes out.

But I also remember the late 60s as a little kid - being at the movies, and everyone would stand st the start to the strains of ‘god save the queen’.

Ah yes! Great films and I've still got my badges.

“Frankie’s hotdogs. An hour from now you’ll wish you’d had one” 🌭

adverts for local take aways (badly made ones) smoking and getting up to mischief

I was a kid in the 70s and remember a lot of this.

But I was talking to my DDs (early 20s) about when I was in my mid teens going to see films like Risky Business .... there would always be a couple of lads having a fight in the aisle. The film would start and they'd just get up and sit down , so odd!

Oakwood Cinema in Leeds was like entering a fairytale! Velvet curtains, ushers, a working fountain half way up the stairs.
I was taken to see all the Disney Classics, The Railway Children, Mary Poppins… There was always “the Interest” normally a short wildlife film and choc ices at the interval. The choc ice fell apart in the dark and you couldn’t find the lost piece of chocolate on your clothes!
Sometimes you had to find a sympathetic adult to buy your ticket if it was PG under 12(?). I saw the censored version of Saturday Night Fever and had a party where we all wore our “blue jeans” did disco dancing and piled into 1 car to go to the cinema. The Island of Doctor Moreau.
For my generation the cinema was a regular taste of affordable luxury.

My local, small cinema that doubles up as an arts venue still plays the Pearl and Dean music! I can never resist singing along 😳

I was an usherette from 1977, absolutely loved it.
The cinema I worked in was also a theatre and we had live shows with huge name artists.
Best time of my life

We used to go and stay there all day, you'd watch B movie, main film, B movie again, main film again, maybe get a tiny little box of chocolate covered raisins as that was the cheapest thing to buy. Sometimes only one of us would pay to get in, then they'd open the side door to let the others sneak in. Fun times!

One of our local cinemas had double seats in the back row!!

We only got to go to our local community run cinema which only has 170 odd seats (I had to check that, it opened in 1978) and so the adverts really were shaky graphics inviting you to eat at local restaurants. No food or drink as far as I remember.
I now live in a town a long way from that, but which has a very similar volunteer run cinema, and you can buy icecreams before the film from a lady at the front. The adverts are better, but the experience is much the same.

You could smoke in the cinema in the late 90's I did as teen.

Intervals in the middle for Kia Ora and tiny tubs of ice cream.

I'd forgotten about being shown to your seat by torchlight!

Queuing in the rain and the "stress" of wondering if you'd get in.

The snogging seats. I remember those.

King Cone ice cream which was basically Cornetto

The ABC Minors (Saturday morning club at the ABC).
I can still remember the song 🤣

My sister and I were given 20p to go to the Saturday film club while our parents did the shopping. The standout bit for me was having enough change to buy a packet of Toffos or fruit gums. My sister liked Poppets, but to me they were a fleeting extravagance.

I liked being able to stay and watch the film all over again. Me and my friend Julie watched That'll Be The Day and Stardust over and over. We were crazy David Essex fans. I still feel nostalgic about those afternoons.

I don't recall cinemas being sticky underfoot, as they often are now. Not nearly so many soft drinks being taken into the auditorium, I suppose.

Me too. I must have seen That'll Be The Day seven or more times but not all on the same day. Stardust I think I watched perhaps five times.

Once I got off with a complete stranger sitting next to me. Try as I might I can't remember how our encounter ended but I never saw him again.

Yes, I always fell down the back of the tilting seats😁

Just one screen, with an upstairs and a downstairs, everyone watching the same thing at the same time. Queuing up to buy tickets; the deco glamour of the foyer with a swirly staircase to upstairs. Very swirly carpets. Half time girl with ice creams and cigarettes. And of course the smoking. And the light of the projector going through the air to the screen.

When I was at uni there was a cinema that showed (very very soft) porn - Naughty Scandinavian Housewives, What the Windowcleaner Did Next type of thing. It had DOUBLE SEATS! at the back, but mostly the customers wore brown Mackintoshes and sat alone towards the front with plenty of elbow room. Except for the giggling hoard of uni students slumming it.

And in the 80s too when it was a big deal.

Everything that everyone else has said from matinees, 2 features, the smell of popcorn and fags (and not some rank little monster crunching their way though tortillas and other stinky stuff), the usher with her ice-cream for the interval.

And not forgetting trying to sneak in to 15/18 films when you were underage!😊