A Ramble with Hal

Movie Theaters In The Same Boat As 1931

“Start the friggin’ movie,” I shouted at the movie screen.

It was ten minutes after the posted start time and advertising still filled the theater, one of fourteen at the suburban shopping center multiplex. On my way home from the valley, I was staying overnight at a nearby hotel and as a special treat had eagerly looked forward to seeing “The Boys in the Boat” on the big screen. Based on Daniel James Brown’s page-turning book, the movie recounts the story of the University of Washington’s rowing team that beat the Nazis for a gold medal in the 1936 Summer Olympics.

A few minutes later, the screen went blank, and I braced myself for previews of coming attractions. I dread these loud, obnoxious clichés that tease movies I’ll never watch. The trailers have a similar rhythm, starting quiet, with sound and images languid at first, and then the cuts get shorter, more violent and the music louder and louder, and the mish-mash finally ends with three explosive, percussive DUH DUH DUHs—a repetition from one trailer to the next that’s oddly laughable for lack of originality. These bombastic trailers, in fact, are what have kept me out of the big suburban theaters for a number of years previous to the pandemic. But the movie trailers didn’t start—first came even more product advertising—and then, finally, the previews.

After two that contained a boring amount of mayhem that further assaulted my ears, I yelled once more at the screen, “Oh for God’s Sake, start the film!” My plea fell on deaf ears. More previews flashed their fetid scenes. I now did what I always do when, mad as hell, I can’t take it any longer: I closed my eyes and covered my ears. Usually, on getting seated at the movies, right away I stuff bits of torn napkins into my ears. But today, that was out of the question, for I that afternoon my ears had endured their first assault, so to speak, from a doctor’s examination and treatment. They were tender, and I should have known better than to go to a multiplex theater that, let’s face it, shows absolutely no respect for its (dwindling) audiences.

As the trailers droned on twenty minutes past the start time, I stood up, shook my fist at the screen, and cried out, “Start the movie! Start the movie!”

Reader, let’s be clear: I don’t recommend this course of action. People who yell in a theater risk arrest or landing as a defendant in a landmark lawsuit. And while I certainly wasn’t yelling “fire”—and some clever attorney might argue that my shouts were clearly free speech—this night I had absolutely no fear of being tossed out, detained or even disturbing my fellow moviegoers. That’s because there weren’t any! I solely occupied this 200-hundred-plus cineplex marvel: Me, myself and I—all alone until just before the movie finally started, when three other guests showed up. I wonder if they timed their arrival to avoid the painful nonsense.

Empty theaters are pretty much the state of affairs these days for suburban movieplexes. Numerous news articles since the pandemic ended mull the lack of patrons. One report in particular is noteworthy. I quote from the March 17, 2023, Hollywood Reporter story by Thomas Doherty March: “Can movie theaters survive? It’s the most enduring question in Hollywood. Box office is down, a cash crunch has hit pocketbooks and a new media rival has exhibitors worried. Sounds a lot like the 1930s, when Great Depression-era customers were running away from venues.”

Interesting coincidence for my little essay here: The Great Depression—when radio was the media newcomer on the block and stealing audiences is the same time frame as the movie “The Boys in the Boat.” Continuing on about the theater experience some ninety years ago, The Hollywood Reporter article notes, “Audiences were willing to endure commercials on the radio but despised being bombarded by ads after paying admission. They booed, hissed and catcalled. Screen advertising may be a source of revenue to the theater, but it is a dangerous one, Fox Film told its managers in 1931. ‘Cheap screen advertising’ offended theater patrons, who will ‘wisely choose to voice their disapproval by staying away from your theater.’ ”

History repeats itself! I’m not alone in my anguished outcries of disapproval at all that advertising—and, furthermore, choosing to stay away. So maybe the assaultive experience is also keeping away other modern audiences or perhaps that certain segment of the public—senior citizens—who have two resources at their disposal vital for movie-going: time and money.

I paid eight dollars to see “The Boys in the Boat.” Twenty-five minutes after the posted start time—and when my senses had been so overwhelmed by the annoying ads and trailers that I was physically exhausted—the film finally began.

Could we besieged audience be given just one showing where the movie starts when it says it will? I’d pay extra for that—and I wouldn’t be alone.

A native Californian, H.A. Silliman grew up in the Gold County and currently lives in the northern outback. He is author of Where Two Rivers Meet anthology, which also appears in this newspaper. © 2024 H.A. Silliman.