# Have you ever done a movie Double Feature? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 25, 2014, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231 "2014-05-25T11:22:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/21 "2014-05-25T18:06:30Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Nitpick: a double feature is when they show two movies back to back on the same screen for one ticket price. > > Double features were still fairly common when I was young, especially Saturday matinees. You could stay all afternoon and watch each show twice if you wanted. They didn’t clear the house until between the matinees and evening showings. And they had cartoons before the first film, and sometimes in between the two! > [@Zeldar](#): > > Drive-ins have been mentioned, and the creature features tended to dominate that fare, but there were many times on up through high school when a few months after the first run theaters downtown had had a film for a week or two it might show up at the drive-ins (we had three that I can remember) that same year. There were also some neighborhood smaller theaters where they might appear before the drive-ins got them. But by the 60’s it was often that the best shot at a good movie was as part of a twin bill, even downtown. When I was a kid (early- to mid-seventies), we almost always saw movies exclusively at the drive-in. It was cheap, you could bring your own snacks, and my mom, a single mother with two children, could count on me falling asleep in the back of the car before the second feature really got going. The movies definitely weren’t creature-features; I remember seeing “Tora! Tora! Tora!” at the drive-in (and falling asleep before any action started - assuming there was eventually some action). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/22 "2014-05-25T21:04:40Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Every year we see a quintuple feature and a quadruple feature as part of the Best Picture wind-up. There’s a theatre in Rochester that shows all the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar each year when they’re announced. They use to do it all in one showing when it was just five nominees but now they split it into two showings. But you can buy one ticket for the whole event. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/23 "2014-05-25T21:05:10Z")
We’d go to the drive-in, but not in several years. I think at some point in my movie crazy phase I saw two movies in a day, but I don’t recall when. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/24 "2014-05-25T22:50:45Z")
Wife wanted to see _Star Trek I_ twice in a row. I slept through it the second time, but I nearly slept through it the first. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/25 "2014-05-25T22:51:19Z")
Sure. I couldn’t tell you the movies involved, or the precise years, but I saw several up until my teen years (80’s). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/26 "2014-05-25T23:29:15Z")
I go to a sci-fi movie marathon every year, from 8 PM Friday to 3 AM Sunday. But that’s different…it’s more like a lock-in (with no locks but with sleeping bags). It is in a regular theater, though. And there are concessions. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/27 "2014-05-25T23:52:04Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Maserschmidt writes: > > \> In college I saw a double feature of “Casablanca” and Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, > \> Sam”. > > I’ve seen this double feature several times. Those viewings are part of why I like both movies so much. Where did you see it, Maserschmidt? Were you at University of Texas at the same time I was? Anyway, I’ve seen multiple movies at the same theater on one day perhaps a couple dozen times. Why, that’s indeed where I saw it, sometime between 1982 and 1985, at that theater on the Drag whose name I’ve since forgotten. When were you there? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There’s a theatre in Rochester that shows all the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar each year when they’re announced. They use to do it all in one showing when it was just five nominees but now they split it into two showings. But you can buy one ticket for the whole event. Yes, that’s the AMC showcase we attend. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/28 "2014-05-25T23:58:46Z")
When I was in high school, we used to go to the drive-in basically every weekend and saw the double features. Later, in my first marriage, we went to the same drive-in at least once a month in the summer. The quality of the movie matters less in the drive-in! ETA: Just looked it up and they were doing a triple feature this weekend: Godzilla, Blended, and Neighbors. Too bad I don’t still live in the area! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/29 "2014-05-26T00:03:27Z")
Back when I was a kid and in high school you bought a ticket and stayed as long as you wanted - in fact you came in when you wanted. Double features I remember are Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days in May, (or it might have been Seven Days in May and Failsafe) and Patton/MASH. When I was in college we went to the Orson Welles in Cambridge to see WC Fields in “The Old Fashioned Way” and a similar WC Fields movie - and then “Night of the Living Dead” - which was ten times as scary when you were softened up by two comedies. And I saw 2001 twice in a row after it moved to regular theaters. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/30 "2014-05-26T03:24:59Z")
Maserschmidt, I was a grad student at the University of Texas from 1974 to 1977. I saw that double feature several times back then, but there’s one time I remember particularly well. It was a Saturday in February or March of 1975. In 1983 I started to write a novel which, although actually set in 1986, opened with a flashback to that day in 1975. I tried to express my feelings about a whole lot of issues in that flashback. I finished the novel but was never satisfied enough with it to try submitting it to any publisher. In any case, the day that I saw that double feature was very important to me. It may have been the theater on the Drag that you’re thinking about. It was a theater that didn’t do first-run films but rather older ones. I wonder if there’s someone there in Austin who’s such a fan of those two films that he/she makes sure that they do a double feature of them every year. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/31 "2014-05-26T03:41:12Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Maserschmidt, > > I was a grad student at the University of Texas from 1974 to 1977. I saw that double feature several times back then, but there’s one time I remember particularly well. It was a Saturday in February or March of 1975. In 1983 I started to write a novel which, although actually set in 1986, opened with a flashback to that day in 1975. I tried to express my feelings about a whole lot of issues in that flashback. I finished the novel but was never satisfied enough with it to try submitting it to any publisher. In any case, the day that I saw that double feature was very important to me. > > It may have been the theater on the Drag that you’re thinking about. It was a theater that didn’t do first-run films but rather older ones. I wonder if there’s someone there in Austin who’s such a fan of those two films that he/she makes sure that they do a double feature of them every year. I appreciate reading about your memory of those films, that feeling of time-and-place connection can be so strong. The double-bill was at the [Varsity](http://books.google.com/books?id=Ly4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=theater+austin+casablanca+play+it+again&source=bl&ots=6SNqRqho5-&sig=-7wd1FP44q2Dj-AU8kkCjGDv5Ag&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YraCU8zgD9HQsQSv-4CYBA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=theater%20austin%20casablanca%20play%20it%20again&f=false), right there across from campus, and it does appear it was a tradition. For me it was also the occasion of a second date with the girl I dated through most of college, but my memories of how that turned out aren’t so great. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/32 "2014-05-26T03:43:04Z")
If you mean 2 (or more) the same day, yes, almost every time I go to the movies. I saw 3 today and 3 yesterday. My max was 6 separate movies in one day (at 4 different theaters no less). If you mean 2 (or more) for the same price, quite often. Besides the occasional marathon (like Lord of the Rings) there’s a theater here that has double or triple features for $5 and I might go a few times a month. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/33 "2014-05-26T03:55:39Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > That is, see two movies in the theater on the same day? Hell, growing up we’d spend all day in the theater, scheduling movies so when one got out we could wander into another soon to start. > [@Quimby](#): > > Looking up at the times we realized it was about to start soon so we got tickets and went and saw that too. Multiple tickets? That’s an entirely different question. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/34 "2014-05-26T04:00:23Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > The greatest moviegoing experience of my life was a double feature back in the mid-80s at a second run theater in my small town in Indiana. Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo followed up with The Terminator. > > I hadn’t seen Terminator, didn’t know anything about it and had my mind blown. The genre clash probably did a lot to set that stage. My best double feature is a toss-up between _The Wrath of Kahn/The Road Warrior_, and _Aliens/Big Trouble in Little China_. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/35 "2014-05-26T04:08:52Z")
All the time. This past Saturday, the wife and I watched _Enemy_ and _Bad Neighbors_ back to back in the same cinema hall. (_Bad Neighbors_ is the new Seth Rogen film that seems to be called just _Neighbors_ elsewhere in the world. Dunno why they changed the name unless it was to avoid confusion with a certain popular TV series in Australia.) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/36 "2014-05-26T04:21:25Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I once went through a quintuple feature! > > It was July 4, 1974. A local theater showed all five of the original _Planet of the Apes_ movies in order. They even sold bananas in the lobby. I watched them all. My brother and I got to go to one like that, too. Probably that same summer as you, but in Pasadena We loved us some Apes! ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/37 "2014-05-26T04:33:08Z")
Movie double-bills were common until around the early 80s when VCRs became widespread. Often the second title would be an older movie that had passed out of first-run but had not yet been aired on network (and later cable) TV. However, since movies on cassette often came out four to six months after the film’s release, that all but eliminated the time period a movie could be used as a “B” title on a twin bill. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/38 "2014-05-26T14:04:58Z")
All the time in the early '70s. Multiplexes (2 - 8) theaters were around, but many suburbs had their own second-run single theaters somewhere in the town center. Aren’t most multiplexes today set up so you could easily do this while only paying once? Ie. they take your ticket near the center of building and then you go off into a wing with anywhere from 4 to 8 theaters? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/39 "2014-05-26T17:00:03Z")
> [@DonLogan](#): > > Aren’t most multiplexes today set up so you could easily do this while only paying once? Ie. they take your ticket near the center of building and then you go off into a wing with anywhere from 4 to 8 theaters? Seems like that in the theaters around here. In fact, on at least three occasions I’ve gone into theaters where the movie showing there didn’t match the movie I’d paid to see. Once, when I was 12-13, a buddy and I bought tickets for _Ghostbusters_ (rated PG) and instead saw _Revenge of the Nerds_ (rated R). Another, I snuck in to see the trailer for… some big movie that I was excited about, and then went to the theater for the movie I paid to see. And then once Mammahomie and I saw _Harry Potter and the Whatever Whatever_ and then snuck into another theater to see the re-release of _The Exorcist_. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231/40 "2014-05-26T19:23:15Z")
I saw double features at the drive-in fairly often - when I was quite young I saw “The Aristocats” and “Song of the South” as a double feature, for example. The last drivein double feature I saw was “Tron” and some other movie whose name escapes me. Since the nearest multiplex was 45 minutes away when I was a teenager, my friends and I would always see two movies when we went the trip - otherwise we would have spent the same amount of time in the car as in the movie… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-done-a-movie-double-feature/689231.md?page=3)