8mm Forum: In 1960-70, did a film come to public in one session or more?

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Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 02, 2012, 01:56 PM:

I grew up in 1980s so a movie would come once in a session and would never been in any public screening (except for special screening) because it would have been realased on VHS/LD/DVD.

But what about in 1960/70?, could a film released and screened to public (e.g) in 1972, then getting re-screened in 1974?

cheers,

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 02, 2012, 03:20 PM:

As I remember it, films had a first run and often (months) later showings in independent local theaters at reduced prices (and scratchy prints too...)

Later on they'd show up on network TV on weekend nights and gradually migrate towards local channels and late nights.

They occasionally reappeared in theaters, but this was exceptional.

I often think how home video has changed how feature films are made. Back then you saw a movie and saw it again maybe two years later. Now they have to slip in all sorts of background detail that will only really make sense (or matter at all) to the viewer on second and third showings, maybe only days later.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on October 02, 2012, 04:17 PM:

Here in the UK Winbert, films had their first run, but returned
sometimes years later, for instance, "The Ten Commandments"
I first saw as a child with my parents around 1959 or so,then saw
it again as a school outing,when it returned about '67 when it
had a two week run.Lots of films returned over the years, Sunday
nights were mainly for Horrors or adult features.I remember when
myself and two school mates attended a packed "Gaiety Cinema"
to view the original "King Kong". The first horror films I ever saw
in the cinema were "Son of Frankenstein" & "Tarantula" which
were shown over three days, and that was '65.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 03, 2012, 10:42 AM:

Hi Steve & Hugh, thanks.

Seems in UK they did a lot of re-run. Do they still do that now? Not like "Titanic" because of the anniversary, but more just usual re-run.

thanks

Posted by Patrick Walsh (Member # 637) on October 03, 2012, 03:40 PM:

Here in NZ prior to the vhs days, movies where re-run all the time, DIsney used to re-run the children's titles every 5 years as a new lot of kids where born so then they would be able to enjoy some of the classics, just looking at some cinema ads from the early 1980s and I see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on in one cinema at reduced admission prices, The vhs killed all those sessions, I re-ran The Wizard Of Oz last school holidays and it did rather poor, which is a shame as the 35mm print is amazing! and to be able to watch it on the giant screen as well!

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on October 03, 2012, 05:20 PM:

I was also going to add that in the UK Disney was always rescreening films every school holidays. In the UK certaintly you couldnt buy full versions of their classics on VHS until the late 1980's so the only way to see them fully was at the cinema and their classic animations were never on TV at the time (only a few clips at christmas in the annual show called disneytime).

Disney has always been highly proctetive of their classic films. Even whan they released them on VHS many were only on sale for 3 months and then withdrawn.

Graham S

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on October 03, 2012, 06:28 PM:

One of the things we had in the UK Winbert that might have been
different to overseas, was the "Continuous Programme",where the
first film was shown, film "A", then film "B", then film "A" again.
If you wished, you could sit through the entire performance
which would start at 5.30 pm and end at 10.00 pm for about
two shillings, which would equate to 40 cents then.We did have a lot of re runs,but in those days we only had two TV channels which
would later in the 60's become three, with the additional BBC 2.
There was generally a gap of seven years between a films release date and a TV showing,remember there were no video
recorders as such then, so viewing a film in the cinema was
still treated as an event.Schools had special outings for pupils
to view films such as "Fantasia", and in my home town were quite popular,watching film was preferable to school work!
Looking back,I think attending the cinema was a far and away
better experience than now, even with the additional comfort,
the atmosphere was different and people far more appreciative.
Do they still do re- runs of films, sadly no, these days it's one
circuit then consigned to limbo or dvd release.Times have
changed, things have moved on, and audiences have become
"more sophisticated",so the old films that were trotted out in
the past, are never screened again.

[ October 04, 2012, 03:54 AM: Message edited by: Hugh Thompson Scott ]

Posted by Joe McAllister (Member # 825) on October 04, 2012, 03:52 AM:

The pattern of film distribution in London into the late '70's was that films would have a first run in the West End, which is the central area,followed by the "General Release". This meant that the films were shown in local cinemas in Greater London in what was known as the clock pattern or circuit. London was divided into quarters and the films would show one week in North East then North West then South West finally South East. The prints were couriered from one cinema area to the other to cut down on the number needed. The prints would then pass to different areas of the country.
Sometimes the West End run would only be a matter of weeks but some films ran in one cinema as long as they were making money. "South Pacific" Sound of Music" "Cleopatra" and "My Fair Lady" are titles I remember running in the West End for years at a time before hitting the circuits.
Successful films could then be re-issued either alone or in Double Bills and go around the circuits again as a full release or as a Sunday programme. There were also many revival or repertory cinemas which usually showed double bills so popular films could be seen somewhere in London years after their first runs. There was a chain of cinemas called the Classics which showed nothing but re-runs up until the '70's when it started showing Adult and Independent productions as first runs. It was still possible to see things like the Universal Horror cycle in these cinemas until the late '60's when they began to appear on TV for the first time.
Several specialist cinemas survived in London into the '90's showing revivals, notably The Electric and the Scala. Even today the British Film Institute releases "restored" versions of classic films which get a small release in select cinemas.
Disney of course had a policy of re-issuing their films every 7 years or so to new generations. They also had their own cinemas in the West End to showcase their films. Studios one and two in Oxford street were their home into the '70's when they relocated to the Odeon St Martins lane, both now gone. Cartoons had a good shelf life and in the days of the "Full Supporting Program" Disney Warner and MGM cartoons would be shown alongside the main picture. This basically stopped when the Thatcher Govt repealed a scheme known as the Eady Levy which basically was a tax on cinema tickets that was returned to film producers, shorts benefitted from the scheme disproportionately so were included to benefit from the levy.
In the sixties the distributors decided to have fewer cinemas with more screens and embarked on a programme of closing some cinemas and twinning or tripling others. When originally conceived one of the screens in each cinema was to be for re-issues etc but this was never really implemented. There were also some cinemas that showed revivals of the big format films. The Odeon Marble Arch which had a particularly large screen held a festival once a year for some time when it was possible to see 70mm prints as they were originally intended. This and some other examples were mainly due to the enthusiasm of the cinema managers and have disappeared now.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 04, 2012, 06:35 AM:

Winbert. About 1973 we were making home video recordings with the Philips N1500 VCR which had a tuner built in it. From the outset you could only get 30 minute tapes, later 45 and later still 60 minutes at about £20 each.

It was some years before cinema releases made it onto TV in the 70's once they had done the cinemas so this is where cine came in handy pleased to report.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on October 04, 2012, 08:33 AM:

It is important to note that our cinema chains were also being
allowed to be bought up by the Cannon Group run by the pair
who caused untold harm to the UK cinemas, Golan/Globus, who
after going bust,caused all the purchased stock to fall into
American hands, and so we have the situation now where the
managers only show up to the minute releases.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on October 04, 2012, 02:15 PM:

One thing I appreciated - that was still happening in the UK in the early 1980s - was that a while after films were released, you would have double bills of films with similar appeal, so great value if you had limited income. Two such bills I recall seeing were 'The Lady Vanishes' and 'The 39 Steps' (the late 1970s versions) and 'That'll be the Day' and the sequel 'Stardust'. Other films I first saw on double bills included 'Alien', 'The Fog' and 'The Entity'.

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on October 16, 2012, 01:25 PM:

Remember visit to ABC in Barnsley to see The Italian Job and Kes double bill, while I was at school. 1969 I think 1st year at PGS. This was a beautiful cinema even as a school kid the lobby had a wow factor for me. Sadly knocked down in the 80's to make way for a supermarket, which was its self knocked in 2011 for a supermarket! Silly but true.

The town where I live still has its own small cinema 'Penistone Paramount' This used to run double bills in the 70's Some I remember Confessions Of A Window Cleaner & The Take, I think almost every week when the programme changed it was a double bill. Unless it was an 'Epic' Wish I had kept the monthly newsletters. It was a big thrill to get into an X cert film while still a school.

They had a good run of re-releases in the 70's lots of war films Guns Of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Ice Station Zebra, Lawrence Of Arabia, Kelly's Heroes, but just a full supporting programme & intermission.

The only problem the screen which was properly only 4x3 when it went into cinemascope the masking just made less hight same width. A major upgrade in the late 90's the screen increased almost to the full width of the cinema. The first film I saw Robin Hood: Prince Of Thief's. The screen was a vast improvement, they also installed surround sound. Sadly they 'improved' this year, now you don't go to see a film, but a video!

My local only open in the evening and had one showing. The Odeon in Barnsley opened early I used to go and watch the same film twice, they also had double bills though. Seem to remember Bond double bill Goldfinger & On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This was one they 'twined'.

Posted by Ken Finch (Member # 2768) on October 18, 2012, 01:14 PM:

Oh what nostalgia, Joe really hit the nail on the head regarding the London screening schedules. Living in South East London, we were always the last to see the latest releases. As another point of interest for our friends across the ponds, most of the U.K. towns from the early thirties to the late 50,s were served by 3 main cinema circuits,Gaumont,Odeon,A.B.C. and if you were lucky a 4th Granada. Odeon tended to show Paramount,
Rank,R.K.O. Disney and British Paramount news or Universal News. Gaumont similar but G.B. productions and Gaumont British News until absorbed into the Odeon Chain. The A.B.C. had Associated British productions, M.G.M. Monogram and other "poverty row" B productions, also Republic and Warner Brothers, Pathe releases and Pathe News. Granada varied as did the other smaller circuits and independents. All also appeared to have Universal Productions at various times. The big 4 would run re issues on Sundays. The others would often have a popular re issue as already mentioned. Going to the cinema was quite like going to a theatre in many ways until colour TV came and the decline began. From the late 30s for many years the ticket prises were 1s, 1/9d, 2/3d and 3/6d. in old money!!!! for aproximately 4 hours of entertaimnet!!! Ken Finch.

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on October 20, 2012, 03:14 PM:

None of you mentioned back in the double bill days the city cinemas with the cinema organ in between them.
Gaumont had a Wurlitzer and the ABC Ritz had a Compton, the Odeon surprisingly had no organ.
(Odeon and Gaumont were both owned by Ranks.)

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on October 20, 2012, 03:58 PM:

Although they don't play it during films. The cinema I mentioned Penistone Paramount have one here's a link to the next time its played Compton Paramount Theatre Organ.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on October 20, 2012, 04:25 PM:

I'm afraid David,there's a good reason I never mentioned the
cinema organ, and that's because we didn't have one,we were
modern kiddies and had records instead.There were some good
points in having the cinemas down our coast owned by the same
family.

Posted by Jonathan Trevithick (Member # 3066) on October 20, 2012, 05:15 PM:

My haunts were usually the ABC and Odeon in Cardiff during the 1980s. I miss the days when you could stay and watch the film again if you wanted. Saying that, I can't name many films i'd want to rewatch immediately these days.

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on October 21, 2012, 05:12 AM:

I grew up in South Carolina in the 1970s, and even in that semi-rural locale at that late date, there were occasional reissues of older movies. From time to time, local cinemas would also have what we might think of as “one-off” repertory screenings.

I specifically remember Columbia Pictures mounting a huge reissue campaign in 1978 or '79 for a double bill of Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. There were television ads in near-constant rotation during hours when children and young people were thought to be watching. I begged and begged my mother to take us, but those films were just not her cup of tea, so we missed it.

(Five years later, when Blackhawk liquidated Columbia 8mm's inventory, I got all the Harryhausen I could handle in Super 8mm. All's well that ends well.)

Perhaps a year or two prior, we went to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the late, lamented White Horse Drive-In. In the interest of “equal time for opposing views,” I suppose, the theater management had booked George Pal’s 1953 classic War of the Worlds as the second feature. While my mother quite enjoyed Spielberg’s story of peaceful aliens, she only endured about five minutes of the Pal film before ordering my dad to start the car. I remember my brother and I watching sadly through our rear windshield as those first three idiots carrying the truce flag got vaporized by the Martians. We were miserable the rest of the week.

Later, when The Shining hit the Cedar Lane Drive-In, its companion feature was The Exorcist from the same studio, Warner Bros. I have no idea if this was just creative booking on the part of drive-in management, or if it represented the specific intent of Warner Bros. to provide an appropriate second feature for their then-recent horror hit. What I do know is that my dear mother made up for some of her past inadequacies by taking us to see the double feature four nights in one week!

I should take a moment to say here that, as an adult, I am appalled that my mother would take us to see such vulgar and horrific films at such a tender age... and at the same time quite grateful and delighted that she did so. [Wink]

Posted by Joe McAllister (Member # 825) on October 25, 2012, 02:13 PM:

In London there were several circuits. As well as the Rank Gaumont and ABC chains there were also the Granada and Essoldo's and some smaller chains of independent cinemas in small groups Like the Cameo's Rex's Classics and others. In my local area there were in fact two Rank cinemas two ABC's one Gaumont and three independant screens. Seven of them would be showing new releases and the repertory cinema had three programmes of double bills a week. So a choice of ten programmes a week not counting the saturday morning pictures and Sunday re issues. What was the flea pit repertory remains from my youth now part of a chain of small cinemas and a multiplex with ten screens has been added. So a gain of three screens but only a fraction of the number of seats and much les choice of programming.

[ November 04, 2012, 05:56 AM: Message edited by: Joe McAllister ]

Posted by David Park (Member # 123) on October 25, 2012, 02:52 PM:

Yes I remember Essoldo it started when 26th Century Fox pulled cinemascope films out of Odeon and Gaumonts.

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