Whenever I feel sad not seeing today’s kids playing outside on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I remind myself how I’d spent many sunny Saturday afternoons in a dark, “fan-cooled” movie house back in the 1930’s, watching two feature films, a cartoon, a newsreel and the latest chapter of an adventure serial.
That was during the Depression when money was scarce and a kid’s 10-cent admission price was significant. (It was also the price of a loaf of bread.) But we were resourceful, we knew where generous uncles and empty Coke bottles with their two-cent returnable rewards, were to be found. .
The latest adventure serial chapter was always a big draw for us boys. We’d impatiently sit through a BORING full length love story movie until the final kissing scene (Ugh!) It was enough to make a red-blooded American boy upchuck his Jujuebees.
The management was smart enough to include a Tom Mix or Buck Jones adventure with plenty of horseback chases and six-gun shoot-outs. We kids never noticed that the villains Tom and Buck shot last Saturday were back rustling cows and robbing banks a week later, minus their mustaches.
My little pal Henry always sat in the front row, somehow believing that made him part of the cast and he might get a chance to participate in the action. During one Jungle Jim Adventure episode a ferocious lion seemed to leap out at the audience. We all ducked and Henry hit the deck hard, scratching his knee and spilling his candy. He told his mother later he’d been clawed by a lion that ate his Milk Duds.
Eventually, one Saturday, we got to see again, the final scene of the previous Flash Gordon episode that had not only satisfied our blood lust, but left us almost convinced that Flash, our hero, had perished. But, down deep, we knew he’d survived. That was only Chapter Four when Flash’s rocket ship was bombarded by the Death Ray Cannon blasts of Ming, the evil Emperor of the Planet Mongo.
It helped that the closing promo invited us to return next Saturday to see chapter five, entitled “Flash Gordon’s Revenge”. Of course, we just had to find enough empty Coke bottles and uncles in order to return. You don’t get a measly flesh wound from a Death Ray Cannon.
Most adults knew enough to avoid Saturday matinees where the hyper young audience would be a high-decibel problem. My mother once talked my father into breaking the rule so she could see the romantic film. Dad complained constantly about the noise and distractions of the young hyper audience.
“Look at that wild boy down there now!” he said. “He’s actually jumping over the seats!”.
“That’s our son, Gene,” Mom replied. Wasn’t that a graceful leap?”
:
Imagine That 