Going to the pictures

So, please tell me other people did this, as I'm getting strange looks at work.

How many people went to the cinema and saw the end of the film before the start? I.e. you went in whilst the film was playing, and watched it through, and left at the point you came in?

I'm sure I did this as late as the early 80's. Please tell me I'm not going mad. I'm surrounded by young 'uns at work who I've just confused. Even the old ones (only as old as 40) don't remember. Please tell me it's a thing.

Discuss

 

Sounds like you're just mental.

 

What was your last film - Titanic?

 

Yep, did this regularly back in the 70s. Wakefield ABC on Kirkgate and the Classic on Westgate before they turned it into an indoor skatepark (and then Casanova's/Rooftop Gardens!) The films just ran; you aimed to turn up for the start-time, but if you were early, you just went in anyway and caught the end of the previous showing.

 

Par for the course back in the 60's and 70's at the Odeon (now the Parkway). They'd take your money and you just wandered in and found a seat. Invariably the film you wanted to see was still playing. They didn't turf you out. Come to think of it I could have stayed in there all day but on the odd occasion I did leave when I got to the part of the film where I'd wandered in.

 

Thank you for confirming. I am still surprised this was a thing in the 80's, but there we have it

 

I certainly remember seeing the end of a film and then watching the whole thing but never leaving at the point I started watching.

 

When I lived in Darwen in Australia you could buy one ticket and stay as long as you felt like as films rolled on and security was non existent.

 

Yes I've done that. Best memories as a kid were the Saturday morning matinees. If it was a Cowboy when the baddie appeared everybody started booing. When the Sherrif and his posse came on the scene everybody cheered.
If you couldn't afford to go you used to wait outside for your mates. If they poured out with their coats fastened by the top button round their necks and fencing you knew the picture they had been watching was Zorro.
If they came out slapping their ar*e firing an imaginary gun shouting " you're dead" to a mate in front you knew it had been a Cowboy film.

 

Loved that - ABC Minors at Wakey. There was a song & they showed the words on screen with a bouncing dot so you could sing along...."we're minors of the ABC" Cartoon, some adventure serial, then a Children's Film Foundation movie to finish. They once had some fella up on the stage in front of the screen doing yo-yo tricks. If you got there early enough you'd sprint for the seats up in the circle & spend the entire morning lobbing stuff over the edge.

Fuck, here it is.......

 

Rode my "horse" home many a time from the Alhambra, back along Doncaster Road and home. Nothing unusual in that for a school boy who'd just watched a cowboy film.

Then again, I used to play on those hills above the canal, near Cundy Cross, going up and down the narrow paths between the ferns pretending I was driving a British Road Services lorry. May have made the brrrmm brrrmmmm sound - can't remember

 

Remember that MF. Bloke at ours did bird noises.! Usher was an old guy called Harry Barton. There was a kid sprawled over three seats with a pained look on his face. Harry shone his torch on him and asked him his name.
He then asked " where you from". Kid groaned and pointed upwards and said "balcony". Absolute quality…