The Movie Theater

 When my sister and I were young, our mother would take us to visit with her parents in Brunswick, ME. Back then, I didn't know that two person incomes were not the norm. My mother and father both worked, my father's mother was working, and both of my mother's parents had jobs.

Thankfully, one of the jobs my Grandmother Soucie had was as ticket taker at the Brunswick Cumberland Theater. This meant that my mother could take my sister and I to see matinees from the balcony for free..

I remember the Cumberland as a beautiful place, a true movie palace. I remember the placards for now playing and coming attractions hung about the lavish entrance, the chrome steel of the ticket machine, the florescence of the lights around the concession stand....

Back at home, my family had the choice of two theaters, one in Franklin, and one in Milford, MA. The Milford Cinema was like the one in Brunswick, with it's own balcony. But, always seemed a bit shabbier, for some reason. The Franklin Cinema, I don't remember a balcony. But, it was a large amphitheater with plenty of seats...

Of course, during the summers, our family would round us up, my sister and I in sleepwear, and we'd go to the Drive In. There was the Drive In on the VFW Parkway in W. Roxbury, near the MDC skating rink (now a High School). In Natick, there was a Tri-view drive In, where the Sam's Club and Cloverleaf Mall is today. When we went to visit with my father's family on the south shore, there was the Fairhaven Drive In, and the Wareham Drive In ( it has since occurred to me that, at the same time I had been playing on the play sets there, the future Geena Davis might have also been playing...). Closer to home, there were Drive Ins at Bellingham, and Mendon. The Drive In experience is sort of like tail gating, except that back then, no one brought their own grills, and you had those clunky speakers to hang on the windows of your vehicle...

I don't recall which theater it was that I got to go to solo, but I recall that the movie was "Diamonds Are Forever" .
A bit later, things changed....
 The Movie Multiplex began to creep in.. In Milford, a three screen theater opened in the strip mall on rte 109. In Framingham, a multiplex opened both at Shopper's World, and the Loew's Big Box Multiplex opened across Rte 9. Eventually the old Milford theater re-purposed it's balcony as a second (much smaller) screen room.
Soon after, they tore down the Milford Theater for a parking lot.. A New, larger Multiplex opened in Franklin, with 4 screens and more seating. Then the dinky little Milford multiplex was emptied out and sold as a store front.
The Bellingham Drive In closed, the Natick was long gone, and the Mendon Drive In was showing R and X adult films...

This brings us to the 80s, and the time I was in Orlando, FL while in the Navy. Just outside the Naval Base was a theater of a type I had never seen before: The Century 21 Theater. They didn't show first run films, but they did show second runs, and cult films. And instead of the traditional theater seating, there were couches and coffee tables. You could order food and drink from your seats. If you wanted a pizza, they ordered it from across the street (Twins Pizza). I saw films like The Man Who Fell to Earth and Flesh Gordon there...
Later, when I was stationed in New London, Conn., the base there had it's own old style movie theater. I saw Naussica of the Valley of the Wind for the first time, there..
By the time I returned home, the Franklin theater had divided it's space into three screens, The Fairhaven and Wareham Drive Ins were gone..

What's left, now? The Mendon Drive In no longer shows adult only films, but shows new releases, and has two screens. The Franklin multiplex is now a steakhouse, being supplanted by a new Multiplex in Bellingham, w/ more screens and stadium seating. The Natick Loews is long gone, turned into a shopping plaza . There's a multiplex between what was Shopper's World and the Natick Mall. If I want the old time theater experience, I suppose I could make a pilgrimage to the Coolidge Corner theater..