"One adult, one child for Airplane 2."

We recently realized that all of the movie theaters of our youth, the ones attended on a regular basis by us and our father, are all long gone, torn down or reconfigured into some other kind of building. Northpark I and II, demolished. United Artists' Walnut Hill 6, now a pool hall. The General Cinema's Valley View, now a radio recording studio. Prestonwood 5, demolished. Northtown 6, reconfigured into something else.

Not that any of these were untouchable jewels. Back then, there was no such thing as stadium seating so the most you could hope for was a gentle sloping hill. And forget about aisles on the sides - most of those old theaters ran the aisle right down the middle, using up valuable audience real estate. THX sound systems were cutting-edge technology, the sort of thing you can now buy for your living room. As for fancy visuals, the big tentpole releases might come out in 70mm "at select theaters," as they say. Concessions were the big three: candy, popcorn, soda.

Thanks to the strange website Cinema Treasures, we stumbled upon the below movie ad newspaper clippings. Fascinating stuff if you're nostalgic 1980s nerds like us.

First, here's the Dallas AMC theaters. Judging by the movies, this is the late December 1982. Back then, movies played for a long, long time. Annie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and E.T. were all summer 1982 releases. We can't imagine a scenario today where a summer movie was still playing at Christmas time. Note the Peter Pan re-release. The home video era was only then starting to dawn - Disney's practice was to re-release its catalog of films every few years to take advantage of the new generation of kids.

The AMC Northtown 6 - no more than 10 minutes away from our ancestral home - plays a special role in Cheese Fry history. That's where we first saw Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. The theaters were small and boxy, stuck in a back corner of a rather lame 1970s mall anchored by a Woolworth's of all things and boasting those little pay booths were you could watch an old Woody Woodpecker cartoon for 25 cents. It's also the last theater that we can remember seeing the old-style skinny horizontal coming attraction movie posters.

Click on the image for a closer look.

And now here's a similar clipping for General Cinema theaters. This also looks to be late December 1982, though note the summer holdover An Officer and a Gentleman. Note also the lack of a PG-13 rating, which was still two years away.

The Valley View theaters were unusual in that they were downstairs. You'd buy your popcorn on the mall level, then walk down some (probably shag-carpeted) stairs to get to the auditoriums below. This was the mall the Cheese Fry grew up with, anchored by Sanger-Harris and Sears. It's in foreclosure now. You can't go home again, people.

Click on the image for a closer look.

Tweet