The Wednesday Night Drawing at the Palace Theatre
Movies, in the 1950s, are intended to be enjoyed for the moment and forgotten, not analyzed and psychoanalyzed. Life is simple; movies reflect that simplicity.
No matter what evening they choose, buying a ticket and refreshments follows the same sequence: the customers open the colored doors (sometimes lavender, other times pink) with the heavy chrome handle and stand in single file by a poster advertising a “Coming Attraction.” Sometimes Gregory Peck, sometimes John Wayne. They edge closer to the ticket booth where Vivian Hahn, Eddie’s white-haired wife, or Vera or Ernestine Bateman, her blue-haired friends, sell tickets – 14 cents for children or 44 cents for adults. Vivian is a short, very enthusiastic woman who talks to customers no matter how busy, no matter how long the line. Vivian says more in one day than her husband says in a month. He’s quiet.
Two steps away from the ticket booth is the popcorn stand, the kind with the round popper hanging from the top, requiring the operator to dump the hot popcorn into the bottom of the stand. Carefully the operator – generally a high school boy – scoops the delicious yellow-colored corn into a rectangular box, right and white, with lids on each end. Hot, buttery (who ever heard of cholesterol), the corn is worth $5 a box, but it sells for a dime.
With refreshments in hand, the customer’s next choice is deciding where to sit – on the main floor or in the balcony. Generally adults – both singles, young couples --and kids up to the age of 13 or 14 – sit on the main floor. The balcony is unofficially reserved for teenagers.
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