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.