I was watching the extended/restored DVD edition of Lawrence Of Arabia last night, which involves swapping discs halfway through- partly since the movie runs to something like 218 minutes long, and partly because there’s an Intermission and Part II begins with an Entr’acte, so it seems like a good place to “Break” the film.
Anyway, it got me thinking- a few other movies from the early '60s (including Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines) had Intermissions “Built into” the film, and even as a kid I remember seeing Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves with an Intermission in it (cinema-created, not built into the film, however). That would have been in 1991, and I recall it being the last time I saw an Intermission during a film at the cinema. (Not counting the break whilst they changed the reels between Kill Bill Volumes I & 2, of course)
Naturally Intermissions are a great way for Cinemas to make more money from Coke/Popcorn/Jaffa/“Candy” sales, but the break in the film (especially for your standard 90-120min feature film) would cause problems for many people, and ruin the “flow” of the film.
Anyway, to get to the point: Do any Cinemas still have Intermissions, and what was the last film to have an Intermission as an integral part (ie, pacing etc built around it, perhaps some light music, etc) of the film?
The last point (and only point, for that matter, given that I’m not that old) where I’ve ever seen an intermission at the cinema was when I saw the re-release of Gone with the Wind, but that’s rather a special case, because, of course, the original release dates back to when they used to do intermissions more as a matter of course.
When I saw Fellowship of the Ring at the on-campus theater, they had an intermission, but only because the whole thing wouldn’t fit on their smallish platter. Wouldn’t have been a bad idea to have an intermission, though… The book did, after all.
My guess is that multiplexes killed the intermission. Back in the Good Old Days, you had a single theater, so if you stopped the movie and people left they’d have nowhere else to go.
Multiplexes already have a problem with people sneaking into movies they didn’t pay for, or teens trying to get into R-rated movies, or people disturbing the crowd by coming in late. Adding intermissions to regular showings would increase all those problems and add more, with lots of people exiting a theater, milling around, standing in lines, finding one another, and trying to get back in while hundreds are looking for the nineteen other showings going on. Chaos ensues.
These problems could be controlled, but that would mean adding more staff, which is the one thing that multiplexes most hate to do. And intermissions would make long films even longer, further reducing the number of times a day they could be shown and driving profits even lower. Theater owners already hate three-hour films; adding fifteen or twenty minutes wouldn’t be worth the hassles involved even if it meant some extra concession revenue.
I think this is the key point; after the three hour epics of the Sixties and early Seventies, long movies were nixed by studios who were under pressure to provide blockbuster films with massive opening weekend grosses (Jaws, Star Wars, et cetera) which mandated maximizing showtimes per day. This marketing philosophy mutated into the “the public won’t tolerate a film that’s over two hours long.” :rolleyes: Remember when people were predicting that Titanic would be a massive flop (in a bad way) because nobody would sit still for a three hour film?
Anyway, now we have (some) epic movies back, but sans intermission. I guess you’ll just have to pee in your cup. :o
As a side note, when I go to revival showings at The Arclight Hollywood they’ll actually stop for the intermission on a film that has it. Other revival houses, however, seem to blast through it like it shouldn’t be there. Yet another reason I favor The Arclight. Now, if they’d only show Dr. Zhivago again.
The “art-house” theater here in Columbia has an intermission. It only holds 56 people and has couches and individual, random padded chairs as seating; they show indie movies mainly. They serve beer and “real” food too. I went there for the first time last night to see “Thank You For Smoking” (loved it, btw) and there was about a five minute intermission halfway through.
Does The Ten Commandments have an intermission? Of course, these days, the movie is interrupted every 10 minutes for commericals, but even so it’s still a three-hour movie. I ask because I’ve never seen it on DVD (or VHS), just ABC.
I wished the LOTR movies had intermissions. And I might have gone to see King Kong in the theatre (probably not, though) had it had an intermission.
All movies in India are 3 hours, and they all have intermissions. And here they keep squishing more and more people into tiny seats, so it is nice to stretch your legs in the middle.
“The Right Stuff” had an intermission when it shown in theaters. It comes right after the scene comparing the chimp and the astronaut in the centrifuge and asking which one would be first.
“Reds” had an intermission as well.
“The Ten Commandments” has a listed running time of 220 minutes, so it better have had an intermission.
Ah. Well, I have the same problem so I never bring drinks into movies. Ever. Otherwise you invariably have happen what happened to my ex-boyfriend in the middle of Apollo 13: Right at the moment they said “Houston, we have a problem”, the dummy had to go pee. Because he bought the super-duper mega uber giant cola. :smack:
ArcLight Hollywood’s 14 new auditoriums begin with a “black box” design aesthetic which favors undistracted viewing over opulence, and feature the best in sight and sound technology, allowing films to be presented as the filmmakers intend and creating an experience for movie lovers unlike any other. And auditorium comfort levels are unsurpassed. All cinema chairs are 3 inches wider than current megaplex standards, with 6 inches more legroom. Even the retractable armrests are “double-wide”. Anaamika, if you’re ever in Los Angeles, it would be my pleasure to treat you to a showing at Arclight Hollywood. Heck, you can even bring your boy…but I’ll sneakily make certain that his assigned seat is in another section.
Heh. Actually, I’m going to be in LA next month, but heavily chaperoned I’m afraid. Visiting with my aunts so I won’t be able to wander off…but it’s a date, for another time.
That’s probably why intermissions went away, you don’t have to have them anymore. I worked at a movie theatre from '83 to '87 or '88. When I started we had the old-fashioned reel system. The reels physically couldn’t hold more than about an and a half of film. Sometime in maybe '85 we got the platter system. This had the movie held horizontally on a platter and could hold a lot more film. (antoher advantage for the theater operator was that platters meant no more reqinding. You could start the movie from either the cinter of the platter or the outside.)
So my guess is that since movie theatre managers no longer need to change the reels and usually want to have as many showings as efficiently as possible, intermissions are no longer used.
