Pining for smoking cartoons at movies
ROBERT GARDNER
I notice that there is something called the Newport Beach Film
Festival taking place. Something like 300 films are being shown over
the course of 10 days which, by my basic math, averages out to 30
films a day for enthusiasts. Since the average film is at least an
hour, it would seem impossible to make one’s daily quota, but perhaps
cartoons are included in the total, which might make it achievable.
Cartoons were once a vital part of the movie-going experience. You
settled into your seat with the confection of your choice. I never
got popcorn, because with my crooked teeth I’d have to floss
mid-movie, and I don’t know that the people around me would have
appreciated it, so I went with candy, usually Lifesavers, which could
be made to last for the whole movie.
In those days, the balcony was designated as the smoking section.
Since nearly everyone in the balcony smoked, except the children
accompanying their smoking parents, there was always a heavy haze up
there. The light from the projector would illuminate the rising
smoke, and it was quite a pretty sight albeit, as we now know, a
little hard on the lungs.
Anyway, there you were with your cigarette or candy, the lights
went down, and on came the cartoon. There were the old standards like
“Tom and Jerry,” then newer ones like “Mr. Magoo” and “The
Roadrunner.” After the cartoon there would be a preview, and then two
movies. The double feature was the norm because, except for “Gone
With the Wind,” and a few other spectaculars, the average film ran 90
minutes or less. The two movies gave you a full evening’s
entertainment.
I was always a fan of the western. I am grateful to the Newport
Beach library for having an excellent video collection of old
westerns, although it can be disconcerting to see one of those old
films that I remember as such a classic and finding it less than I
remembered. However, most of the time the film holds up.
“Stagecoach,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “Red River” I enjoy them
with each viewing.
Movie-going today is a different experience. There is still a
candy counter, but there are no more convenient little tubes of
Lifesavers. Instead, you’re expected to buy a box large enough to
provide for every Halloween trick-or-treater on the block. Once you
go into the theater, there’s no scurrying up to the balcony with your
cigarette, because for the most part, there aren’t balconies, and
even where they have them, they are adamantly nonsmoking as is every
other part of the theater.
So you sink into your seat with your giant container of candy,
knowing that if there is an earthquake or some other mishap, you have
sustenance for a week or so. The lights dim, and instead of a
cartoon, you get commercials. Then, instead of a single preview, you
get a dozen, and unlike that nice video I bring home from the
library, I can’t fast forward through them. Finally, though, the
movie starts. You know it has started not because of what you see on
the screen but because of what you hear. At some point, the theater
industry decided we were all deaf. The last movie I saw in a theater
was “Pearl Harbor,” and if I wasn’t hard of hearing before I went in,
I certainly was when I came out.
Of course, there’s no double feature, because today’s movies run a
minimum of two hours and usually longer. Or maybe they just seem
longer, what with the suitcase of candy pinning you to your seat and
your ears being pummeled by the soundtrack. Anyway, I don’t get to
the theater anymore, so I’ll miss the film fest, but that doesn’t
mean I have to miss the films. I’ll just wait for all 300 to come out
on video, and then I’ll work my way through them if I live long
enough.
* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.
His column runs Tuesdays.
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