Next time you buy your $1.50 ticket to Radio City Music Hall, think of the dear dead days of our youth (some of us) when two seats for the latest Theda Bara romance cost five cents, and if you were lucky you could get away with paying the two-cent half of the deal. Nathan Halper and Benjamin Mandelker offer here a composite memoir of the golden age of the movies.
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One paid two cents. The other had to pay three. The whole thing became a contest. Each would swear he didn’t have it. We would quibble; we would haggle. We would stand by our neighborhood movie’s entrance, like a pair of rival barkers, hollering to all who passed, “I got two. Who got three? I got two. Who got three?”
Of course, any time we fell into some real money—a dime!—we preferred to walk up to 14th Street where there was a movie and a vaudeville show combined. Best of all we liked Tuesdays when they had Amateur Night, and we went hoping that the performers would be bad so we could yell, “Give ’em the hook!” And as the long wooden hook came out of the wings, caught the performer round the waist, and dragged him off the stage, we would whistle, stomp, and hiss in an ecstasy of glee.
But as a rule we lacked the price. So it was the neighborhood movie for us, where the price was two for five, hence the agonizing struggle: “I got two. Who got three?”
Since neither of us liked to miss any moment of the program, one or the other would have to give in and produce the crucial penny. Yet, until the last split second, each would keep on trying: each one looking stubbornly ready to go on forever—when most ready to surrender.
But I realized that even if I won I really lost, because it always meant sacrificing some of the show. Then inside the kids would have to tell me what had happened and was going to happen. So instead—I paid the penny. And then could tell other kids myself. I would haggle. I would quibble. But as soon as I could see that my partner was prepared for a test of endurance, I would show I was a sport. I would treat him. After which—I’d remind him. And remind him.
A better system was to make a combine. We would each contribute three cents. This put six cents in the kitty; a jit for the admissions and a penny left for candy.
Candy—we would study the showcase. All its colors: textures: shapes. Trays of jelly beans, gaily tinted like balloons. Trays of lemon, lime, and cherry drops, in those rich yet sober shades, like the jars of colored water in the drugstore window. There was licorice—black shoelaces. Chocolate pennies with white sprinkles. Green or red peppermint suckers—with diagonal stripes of white. Also kisses wrapped in silver. Hunks of jagged peanut brittle. Little nuts in red-brown membranes. Taffies. “Carmels.” Uneven squares of fudge; you could always see the mark of the long knife that had cut them. Candy corns; cocoanut bon-bons. Little sugar cushions with a stuffing made of jam. Crunchy sponges full of air holes. Foxy Grandpas. Nigger-babies (these days, they are called chocolate babies). Tiny yellowpink bananas. Rows of shoe buttons in alignment on a ticker-tape of paper, the kind of paper they print the Nation or the New Re-public on.
The reddish eyes of the old guy behind the counter would shift as ours shifted. We would scratch our chin. Till—having taken counsel—we would give him the decision. “Half o’ dese, a quarter o’ dose. . . . An’ a quarter o’. . . dem!”
Sometimes we laid the extra penny on the car tracks on Delancey Street—so that, being flattened, it might do service as a nickel in the candy boxes on the backs of the alternate seats.
The nickel candy didn’t taste as good. But—on the other hand—it was worth a nickel.
There was one more fine point. If the first thing that I said was, “Hey! Let’s make a combine!” the other kid might think I was weak. Or that I was being tricky. It was wise to take it easy. I would bargain; I would bluster. I would show him I was selfish; I was stubborn; I was spiteful. He would feel the proper respect for my strength of character!
Then—only then—did I say, “Let’s make a combine.”
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They were tiny places, with little air, stuffy, sweaty. Even we—who, like the sparrows, used to chirp amidst the off al-wrinkled our disdainful nostrils. We always called them “dumps.”
The owners also knew it. Any time he found a moment, a man went down the aisle squirting out of some sort of Flit gun a cheap perfume that smelled even worse than the original smell.
Yet in spite of our scorn we stayed just as long as we could manage. Nowadays, when it is hard to sit through a picture even once, it is not easy to recall that we liked to see them two or even three times. This naturally brought us into conflict with the owners, who desired a rather more rapid turnover. At the end of the main feature there would be an intermission during which they would attempt to put out the repeaters. This required some discretion. The performance was continuous, and a patron might have come in just before the intermission; they had to devise a method for dividing sheep from goats.
The solution was the late-check.
The ticket-chopper in the movies still tears a stub off as you enter. Though your seats are not reserved, he sticks this check into your fist. You shove it in your pocket and forget all about it till you find it two weeks later, when you throw it in the wastebasket. Since the chopper could have put it there to start with, the process seems quite futile. Yet the stub used to have its function. At the intermission, they would put the straggly lights on, and the man—the same man who shot the Flit gun; probably the owner’s cousin—would come prowling to collect it. If you did not have this late-check, he would thumb you to the exit.
The trouble was you never really knew the exact time of intermission since all kinds of extraneous factors could affect the length of the movie. You could never guess how long it would take to change reels. Or the film would break or burn, and they had to fix it. So you stood there by the exit, asking all who left the movie if late-checks had been collected. Once they had been, you entered, and saw Performance One. The next intermission, you still had your late check, so you could see Performance Two.
When it came to Performance Three, that was when you had to hide. There was just a single aisle; seats ran from it to the wall. If you sat in the last seat, you were not disturbed by people tripping on your books and skates; you could sprawl; you could lean head and shoulders against the wall. And you were farthest from the bouncer. In the dim, faded light, you could get under the seat and squeeze down to the floor, and nine times out of ten he would pass you by. If you did not have a wall seat, you would hide out in the toilet. (It was the same later on, in the army: when the top kick came around to hand out details, the wise soldier tried to be in the latrine.)
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We usually went on Fridays. Monday to Thursday, once out of school we would stamp into the house, smear a slab of bread with chicken fat, and then—unless it was a day for a fiddle or piano lesson—run out on the street to get a half-hour’s play before going off to Hebrew school. On Friday, Hebrew school was closed, so we had time to look at movies.
Sometimes we tried sneaking in. Though this didn’t make much sense. If you are going to take a chance, why not do it on 14th Street? Why not in the ten-cent movie? It is big: has a balcony: you can sit there eating peanuts and dropping the shells into the orchestra. Yet strange places made us shy. The two-for-fives were home. We knew the lay of the land. Back alley: side door: the unlocked window into the men’s room. Any time he caught us, our old friend the factotum—holding on to an ear: we could not even squirm—would parade us to the exit, where a swift boot in the pants put us back on the street. There was little profit to it. But we sometimes felt the need of showing we were not scared!
A penny here, a penny there. I would run down to the corner for a cigar for Uncle Sol. Another penny. So usually I had the price of a ticket to the movies. But before I touched it, I would always try to get the three pennies from my Ma. And by an odd coincidence, the best time to get this money happened to be Friday.
I would hang around the house. As a rule, I stayed away when the women got busy; they would always find a chore. But on Friday they had so much to do, it was fairly safe to loiter.
They bought the carp and the chicken undressed. A bushel-basket near the door held the innards, feathers, scales. The kitchen smelled of singeing. Also onions, pepper, salt, and the raw fish being chopped. They had already washed the floor; it was covered with Jewish newspapers. A sweet wine was being poured from the dusty gallon jug into a cut-glass bottle. Sister would grate the horse-radish. Aunt was ironing the good tablecloth. Grandma was scrounging last week’s wax out of our tallest candlesticks with a big black hairpin. Ma was kneading yellow dough on the flour-dusted bread board, shaping it, braiding it into a plump-muscled challah.
Go! Get out! You’re underfoot! Here is money—for the movies! Spongecake is in the oven. Go! Go! Before you make it fall!
So we’d hurry off—to get a maximum number of minutes before the sacred evening came and the magic silver screen became profane.
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Sometimes we could just go up brazenly and buy the tickets ourselves. Other times, when the cops were getting strict, the owners refused to sell admission to anyone under sixteen. So we stood there, begging—”Mister . . . take me in?” “Lady, please take me in?”—till we got some adult to lead us past the ticket-chopper—a pied piper followed by twenty-thirty brats, twentythirty tickets dangling like a string of sausages.
It was a wise thing to bring one’s own personal taker-inner.
On a Sunday afternoon—Sunday was a time for play; but sometimes there was an argument; you refused to play with the kids or they would not play with you—on a Sunday afternoon, that was when you got your Grandma. She would never go on Friday. But she felt a little bored any time there was no work. So, unknotting her handkerchief, Grandma would count out her pennies. Then—both the selfsame size—you would march off to the movies.
Though she had been fifteen years in America, I not only read her the subtitles; I was forced to translate them. Even so, she did not get the plot or who was which one’s husband. I had to try to make things clear. And the kids around us, seeing that it was a Grandma, joined in, correcting me and interrupting one another; there was a regular forum on each doubtful point, stopping only when it was time to explain a new one.
But on a Saturday in summer, there was little time for waiting. Sunlight seemed to last forever, leaving only the tiniest nub of evening. The moment Poppa’s prayer crossed the line into the weekday, we would hurry, so as not to miss the picture. That was when an older sister used to double as a grownup.
Nowadays it wouldn’t work. Women wear the same kind of clothing from the time they are twelve till, God willing, a hundred and twenty years. But in those days you could tell a woman from a girl by her clothes. So sister would put her hair up, get into Aunt’s high heels, and, festooned in Grandma’s fur-piece, the one with eyes and little fox claws, she would attempt to play the lady. Below the waist, she walked as fast as a person possibly could. But above it, she was stiff-backed, she was dignified and gracious. And I did some acting too. My feet were also in a hurry, yet I wore the somber face I associated with being good. I would show her great respect. I did not screech, did not fight. It was hot, but I didn’t suck even a single piece of ice. I behaved a whole lot better than I ever did with Ma.
Sister spoke to the cashier in her most cultured voice. She didn’t really look sixteen. But she never failed to fool a cashier willing to be fooled.
If we usually played on Sundays, it doesn’t mean we preferred one-a-cat to seeing pictures. It’s just that we were gambling that maybe in the evening we’d be able to maneuver some grownup into taking us. If a parent wouldn’t take you, you would turn to other prospects: an uncle, or a fellow who was calling on an aunt. You would bring a glass of water, you would talk about the picture. Sometimes desire was so strong you couldn’t speak, and then, your eyes hanging on the prospect’s face, you would try telepathy. . . .
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Pa and his friend Margolis used to walk up to 14th Street. Pa would sleep through the moving picture. Then, as soon as it was over, Margolis used to wake him and go to sleep himself.
Once in every while, Pa would take the family, herding us carefully into a long row in the highest balcony.
He was puzzled when the man with a bow tie and straw hat made his rapid jokes to the lady with blonde hair. But jugglers and acrobats brought him to a gentle simmer. Ma sat with pursed lips, gazing upon her brood as if to command us never to try these tricks ourselves. The jokes bothered her even more than they did Pa. She didn’t understand them either, but she felt that if she did, they would turn out to be off-color.
Pa stayed awake at the movies only if it was Charlie Chaplin or—sometimes—Douglas Fairbanks. Ma thought Charlie Chaplin coarse, but she did like Douglas Fairbanks; she said his smile was nice. Ma had some other pets, too. She would speak about their smiles. Or—her own eyes glowing—their passionate eyes.
We liked any actor. We liked some more than others, but we liked them all.
William S. Hart was William S. Hart. But Ben Turpin was Ben Turpentine. Mary Pickford was Mary Pig’s Feet, Mary Pitchfork, Mary Pickle-Puss. There was Rudolph Vaselino. There was also Tittie Barrels—Theda Bara.
Every picture was a window into realms beyond our own. If we liked a country, we would borrow its local customs: twirling clotheslines, shooting cap pistols from the hip, fencing up and down the stairs; leaping gracefully from the stoop with widespread legs and arms: landing on our toes: and resuming the fencing.
Ma was always saying we would be corner-boys. In Hebrew school and in regular school they were always finding fault with us. Our streets were full of insult. Anywhere we turned our hearts, there were new and old reproaches. There were also self-reproaches.
So it was a relief to see a movie about a crook. Nice to learn that a Lone Wolf or a Boston Blackie was a good guy underneath.
Any movie brought additions to our growing store of knowledge. We got to know about Maxim silencers. We learned of Yellow Tickets.
A husband often left a wife. But, in time, he’d return, asking her to forgive him. With that martyr-face which our mothers and teachers also had at their disposal, she would look off to one side, saying, “Forgive-but never forget!”
If a woman left her husband, that was only the first step. You would see her drinking wine. Then you saw her smoking. As she sank lower and lower, the cigarette-holder got longer. Finally, she would jump out of a third-story window.
“Love” was a joke, vamps were objects of derision. A sure way to get a laugh was to ape the hips and arms, eyes and mouth-all in motion—when one tried to lure a hero. Yet our jeers concealed a half-worried fascination. Some day, we knew, this mushy stuff would get us too. Meanwhile, we had secret crushes. Alice Joyce, Blanche Sweet, Constance Talmadge, Dorothy Dalton—all the way to Zasu Pitts.
News got introduced by a silent Pathé rooster. Woodrow Wilson had big teeth. Teddy Rooz-velt even bigger. There were reels from Zion: people doing arts and crafts, picking fruit, keeping bees.
There were early tries at color, and two different kinds of talkies—voices on a scratchy record, or our pal the bouncer reading the male and female voices through a hoarse megaphone.
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We were more than watchers. We were part of every scene. We were dancers reflecting every movement with movements of our own.
We would hiss the villain. In a helmet (like the Kaiser), or a sash and a sombrero, he always purred at the heroine. After which, he’d lock the door. We would cringe as he came near. Then along came Dusty Farnum! We bounced up and down on the horse. With the tension of our own bodies, we would get him to the house, rush him up the stairs. With our muscles, we would help him break the door. In righteous anger, we gathered in his fist.
Many read the titles. Others used to read the lips. The repeaters told the story—often breaking their recital with a laugh in anticipation of a prat-fall coming later.
All who weren’t talking would hiss, “Ssh!”
Now a picture was not centered. Now a scene was upside down. Someone crossed the dusty beam that came out of the machine. “Down in front! DOWN in front!”
Someone stood up—blocking you. “Your father a glazier?”
The stuffy room got silent. The piano made the only sound. But you knew one should not cry. So you blinked: poked your knuckles into the bones around the eye socket: tried to think about something else. . . . Till it was safe to look again, till you had to blink again, poke again, walking the delicious tightrope, shaving the ambivalent edge of the almost-but-not-quite! All through Humoresque. All through Over the Hill to the Voorhouse. And, in Broken Blossoms, no use to blink—the tears came like a summer shower. Ah!
Or we laughed in a wonderland of skidding autos, Keystone cops, dynamite, Limburger cheese, pies, runaway lions. We rocked on the unpadded seats. Heads flapped on shaking shoulders. Only our eyes were steady, fixed on the screen!
There were also the serials. Iron Man, Hidden Hand, Crimson Stain, The Voice on the Wire—the villain’s disguise gave the serial its name. Week after week we tried to identify him, every week noticing something to make us change our mind, arguing back and forth. Before we were halfway through, we had considered every member of the cast as a candidate. And in the final episode, when the old rascal got unmasked, we would find that—sure enough—it was someone we had suspected.
The heroine was in a car that hurtled into an abyss, and here the episode would end. We had to wait a week before we saw what happened next! Seven days of wondering and discussion. Each of us fought many battles. With mind sharpened by the study of the Talmud and tongue sharpened by a life of arguments, each defended his own solution and attacked the theories of others. Then at last we would see the new chapter. The heroine was in a car. It hurtled into an abyss. But they would insert a shot they had omitted last time: a second before the critical moment, she had stepped out of a door.
At the end of this new chapter, we would see the hero fall into a vat of vitriol. And we would sit on the curb, trying to guess how he might escape, knowing all the time that we would be cheated. One week later, we would learn that instead of the hero falling, it was only the hero’s overcoat! But it did not, did not matter.
We knew we would be cheated. But we lived on shifting planes. One plane on which we knew the score. One—on which we felt. And, third, the plane of our sidewalk discussions: an abstract world, a Platonic world, where an ideal heroine fell into an ideal chasm, the essence of a hero into the essence of a vat!
Though we did not know it, we were a bunch of little high-brows, seeing shows that are now given at the Museum of Modern Art.
Oh, we liked them all!
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