kobe27 wrote:
"he took me to the theater without even asking me (or my mom), or telling anyone where we were going!"

HAH!  That's exactly what my Dad did with BATMAN (1966).  It was so odd, he took us to our favorite drive-in (the one with the kiddie rides including a train ride that went around the movie screen) without telling us, and he usually told us where we were going or what we were going to see.  He just wanted it to be a surprise.

The only OTHER time he ever pulled a surprise like this, but it was quite different, was the ONLY time he ever took us to Philly to see a movie-- and it was something I never heard of until we got to the theatre:  2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  We saw the lobby cards displayed outside (something you didn't have in suburban NJ theatres), bought our tickets in advance, and then went to City Hall to take the elevator to the observation platform at the top, just below the HUGE statue of William Penn.  The problem was... his WATCHED stopped, and by the time he noticed, and we hurried back, we walked in about 5-10 minutes in.  At first, I thought it was a "nature" film, the kind of short subject they often ran before features back then.  But the more I looked at it, the more it occured to me... this CAN'T be a nature film... what the HELL is it???  And then you had the JUMP!!! to "The Blue Danube".

I can never remember the namne of the place, but it was apparently the only theatre in Philly set up for C I N E R A M A.  Wiiiiiiiiiiiiide curved screen, projection booth in the middle of the theatre, set above the main floor.  But Dad insisted that dad it "wasn't real Cinerama".  I forgot all about this until a few months ago, when I ran across a description online.  Sure enough, he was right.  Instead of 3 projectors and 3 images meeting, it was ONE projector putting out a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide image.

Most strange, that was the only movie theatre I was ever in where they sold tickets with the seat letter & row number on them.  But during intermission, when we went to the lobby, an usher told us, the place was SO empty, it was okay to sit wherever we wanted.  So we moved up to about the 8th row. If I recall rightly, just about even with the far edges of the curved screen!

Most amusing that day... halfway thru the "Star-Gate" sequence, 75% of what little audience there was WALKED OUT!  They couldn't take it, and never saw the last part of the movie.

I saw it again about a year later in our favorite "2nd-run" theatre, then stayed for the first 45 minutes AGAIN (leaving at the end of the "Moon" sequence).

During the 70's, I believe I saw it on 3 MORE reissues, each about 2 years between.  All 3 times, in the Moorestown Plaza, then the biggest place in the area.  They had STEREO SOUND a decade before George Lucas made it a priority.

Then ABC ran it on a Sunday night, and that was the end of that...

Last Edited By: profh0011 Aug 26 11 3:04 PM. Edited 1 times.