I never experianced it, but one of my English friends remembered seeing films in England in the late 60’s/ early 70’s, where the films were shown continously (I’m sure there’s a word for it).
He could walk in and sit down in the middle of a film, then, if he wanted, watch it 2 or 3 times without being thrown out.
I’ve read that rotations were more normal (Newsreel, B, A, newsreel, B, A), so I’m not sure if that is what he was describing. He was tellimg me about it in 1975
I wanted to experience Sensurround so badly, but it wouldn’t work on me, for some reason. Went to see, “Midway,” but the bombs explosions sounded like someone crinkling cellophane; I couldn’t feel it between the ears. Poop!
I forgot about the newspaper thing. If the paper had gotten thrown out (yes thrown out, not recycled) there was no way of knowing the movie times. No Fandango, no Movie Fone. You just had to show up and see what was playing.
When I was a kid, we could call the theater to get movie times. They would have a recording that announced which movies were playing and at which times.
I actually saw Rocky Horror first run. No shenanigans then.
I also saw a weird double feature in the late 60s – Marat/Sade and Le Roi de Coeur.
Kramer – “Why don’t you just tell me what you want to see?”
When I was a kid, our folks could call the theatre to get movie times. A person would tell them which movies were playing at which times, and of the two, which one was best.
When I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, we didn’t care what time the movies were starting. We would just go whenever and waltz in in the middle of the picture. But since they didn’t clear the theater after showings we would stay there all afternoon through multiple showings of both films so we would see the whole thing. Since we mostly went to see monster movies the continuity didn’t matter too much. It took me some time to realize you were supposed to go to the theater at a certain time and that there might be a way to find out when a movie started.
Movies usually played for one week only at each theater, so you had to see it then or wait until it showed up on TV in maybe three or four years.
But some movies were events. I remember my aunt taking me to see The Ten Commandments at the spectacular Loew’s Paradise on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. (It must have been a re-release since it originally came out in 1956 and I was older than 5 when I saw it.)
Oh, nevermind. 
NOOO!!! One of my older cousins worked at an A&P in Baltimore County in the mid-to-late '70’s and always told us to never get a pickle out of the pickle barrel…
Chunnel…
Where I lived in West Philly, there were three movie theaters within four blocks of where I lived and they all had one screen and showed the movies that had left downtown. The downtown movies were first run and more expensive. Then there were the Saturday matinees, geared to kids. For one dime, you got to see at least one cartoon, one serialized short that always ended in a cliffhanger, a newsreel and a feature film. Of course, we came every Saturday to see the serial. By the late 50s, two of them had closed and the third was an art theater. I recall one double bill with Phantom of the Opera and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari the same night.
Honestly, I do not recall people smoking in the theaters. Maybe they did. But despite what people say about smoking everywhere, there were places it was banned. The trolleys, buses and subways for example. Smoking was allowed on trains and planes, at least in sections. But I smoked in college classrooms both as a student and as a teacher. Seems strange today.
I was in Philly for the last gasp of the movie palaces, on Chestnut St I think, where features stayed for weeks. Previews but never adverts (they were showing commercials in German cinemas at the time but at least they were clever ones). Then there was a great second-run theatre, Cinema 19 where you could see TWO movies for $1, both recent movies, not drek. The price kept creeping up but it was still a fantastic bargain. They shows changed weekly but I never bothered to check the newspaper, I would just go and see them no matter what it was. It was a good learning experience not to rely on critics or reviews because there were plenty of films I might have debated over whether to see and they turned out to be perfectly enjoyable. Also I discovered if you only see the top rated films, then that’s your frame of reference and you tend to be much more critical. But if you see a wide range of films, good and bad, then you appreciate the good ones SO much more.
Bangkok and CM have taken the movie palace concept to an extreme level. They have private VVIP rooms with love seats. The lobbies look like night clubs. There are dozens of monitors showing previews at full volume. It’s a little hard to find the correct ticket line. A regular seat is cheap enough ($3) and you have to chose it looking at the chart and then an usher guides you to it. Previews, commercials, then you have to stand up for the King Song.
Sensurround required special equipment. When I saw Earthquake, it was in Sensurround; and yes, you knew it. The theatre shook when the earthquake and aftershocks hit. I also saw Midway in Sensurround, and it was not very good, Sensurround-wise.
My ex-wife was an audiologist, and I once asked her about this, especially with regard to these two movies. Apparently, the human ear can hear frequencies above a certain threshold; below that, and the human body only feels sonic vibrations. In other words, the “sound” is felt, but not heard.
Sensurround took advantage of this quirk of human physiology. It produced bass notes so low, at frequencies that humans could not hear, and at such a volume, that you thought you were experiencing the earthquake too. That’s why “Earthquake” worked and “Midway” didn’t: because it’s hard to believe the earth is shaking when you’re watching an aerial dogfight.
The most striking difference for me is the increased movie track volume with today’s movies. It seems that many studios believe that by increasing the volume enhances the viewer’s experience. The American Hearing Research Foundation believes this increase in volume can lead to hearing loss. I agree.
If you wanted to find out about a movie, you either checked the showtimes in your newspaper, or called the theater. There were double-features, of course. Some movies had ‘Overtures’ at the beginning, and ‘Undertures’ during the intermission (if the film was of any above average length). They would play music composed specifically for that purpose. It allowed you to visit the concession area or grab a smoke (I never smoked, but it was much more common back then).
I remember my parents bringing me to a drive-in. You’d get there while it was still light, and there were rides for the kids. There was a double-feature – first movie was one of the Matt Helm films, second was Lawrence of Arabia. My parents put blankets in the back seat, hoping that my little brother and I would fall asleep during Matt Helm. But I was wide awake for Lawrence of Arabia. Those tiny speakers that you hooked on your window didn’t have the best sound quality, but I was still blown away. To this day, I can still vividly remember seeing LAwrence of Arabia in all its glory from the backseat of my parents car.
Also, many films had short features (usually a couple of cartoons) before the movie (even non-family films), in case the adults didn’t want to spring for a babysitter.
Multiplexes were already starting to appear by the '70s
When I was a kid in the 1980s somebody reopened a local small-town movie theater from the 1960s or so to use as a second-run dollar theater. Everything about it–the seats, the screen, the projectors–was pretty run down, but I managed to get my mother to take me there much more often than to other movie theaters since that one was maybe only 5 miles away from home while the next closest ones were 15 or 20 miles away in cities. It had a single screen and yes (as mentioned above) had curtains that drew across it when not in use. I don’t remember if the screen was larger than at a multiplex, but it probably wasn’t. When I was in middle school, the English classes read The Neverending Story as an assigned book, and when the movie came out the, the whole year of students walked around 2 miles that theater to watch the movie. That theater closed down again by some time in the 1990s–too bad, it’d still make a nice little theater if it could be repaired/upgraded a bit (and the nearest movie theaters are back to being 15 or 20 miles away.)
(Curious if I could find old references to the theater during it’s heyday, I did find a photo taken in front of it in a local history book. The two interesting posters in the background peg the photo to 1968.)
I first saw RHPS in October 1977, no one was dressed up, but a few people were shouting out lines. We saw it as a part of a late night double feature picture show, with Phantom of the Paradise. I’d gone to see the latter movie, and I and my friends had NO idea what RHPS was about. We were blown away.
Ah, King of Hearts, what a marvelous flick. Never did get around to seeing Marat/Sade though. 
Loose-leaf notebook paper measured 11 by 7 inches and had five holes.
This may be how things are done in california, jobcase, but here at the Straight Dope Message Board, we post in the correct thread (try this one). Go and sin no more. 
