Last night I went to the movies to see, “Monument Men” a good movie with some of my favorite actors. It has been a while since I attended the movies as I call them – or a movie theater.
The prices just shocked me - $11.50 for a ticket x 2 = $23.00
Popcorn and a coke $12.50 that is a total of $35.50 to see a movie for two people!! That is ridiculous!
Then – they say Showtime is 7:35, which leads us to sit through: 30 minutes of movie previews! Seriously – the movie actually started at 8:05.
To show my age, I remember as a kid, going to the Victory Theater in Spring Hill on Saturdays – usually (2) movies – earliest memories are the classic King Kong versus Godzilla, Dracula and Frankenstein, spaghetti westerns – Clint Eastwood movies, “For a Fistful of Dollars” and those types of movies. The first “Batman” movie, early James Bond, “Thunderball”, “Up The Down Staircase” and other classics movies.
The cost was 35 cents for those movies PLUS a character “Uncle Willie” from the local TV station, WCHS would entertain us between the movies. He had a big jug of coins and if he drew your number from a ticket they gave us, you could reach your hand into that big jar and keep all the money you could hold in one hand!!
The Saturday movies were cheap babysitting for me!! 75 cents and I could get some candy, popcorn and cokes from the concession stand. I remember those walks home with my friends and cousins after the movies.
If Frankenstein and Dracula got into a fight, who would win? The classic King Kong versus Godzilla – who won – I do not remember but loved the movies!
When we moved to St. Albans there was the Alban Theater on Main Street. Good movies, True Grit, The Sting and those classics through the years. Mom, Jerry and I went to see “True Grit” with John Wayne and Glenn Campbell.”The Odd Couple” and I remember in high school,”The Exorcists” in high school with David Lewis, Cindy McClanahan and other friends on a Saturday.
When I cam home, I have a friend from Australia at the house who told me movies there are $18.00 a ticket and you can sit in the real big nice comfortable chairs, VIP for $40.00 a ticket! WOW – that would be over $100.00 by time you buy those seats and snacks!
From 35 cents to 11.50 a ticket over the years – wow! Good memories and last night was the yearly trip to the “movies” – thank goodness it was a good movie!