Memories of Movie Preshows

June 17, 2024 6:23 PM

I’m working on a project that deals with preshows in movie theaters. I’m interested in unusual ones (and common ones) you can remember from when you were younger (ideally back to the sixties and seventies, but I’ll take more recent examples as well). I’m pretty solid on trailers, so I’m looking for any other material (advertising, PSA’s, whatever) shown before a film in theaters. Thanks in advance.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI to Media & Arts (20 answers total)

Might be worth shooting a message to the folks that run the 99W Drive-in, they’ve been family owned for 70 years and have a pretty deep selection of vintage ads/PSA’s/interstitials, and I suspect they’d be interested in chatting about them.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 6:32 PM on June 17 [1 favorite]

Let’s all go to the lobby inbetween double features.

A live organist on the Mighty Wurlitzer, a holdover from the silent movie days in bigger cities.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 6:50 PM on June 17 [1 favorite]

Will Rogers charity commercial on the screen then the ushers walked through the audience with donation cups. I remember this from early-mid 80s (?).
posted by Liquidwolf at 6:55 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]

The Internet Archive has a great collection of old newsreels.
posted by chbrooks at 7:04 PM on June 17

John Waters "No Smoking" PSA (Landmark Theatres, 1982)
posted by perhapses at 7:25 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]

Chilly dilly! The YouTube channel has a few more videos that might work for you as well.
posted by ashbury at 7:57 PM on June 17 [1 favorite]

I was a child in the 60s and my memory is that there were always a few cartoons before the movie started. I specifically remember short Pink Panther cartoons and Chilly Willy.
posted by FencingGal at 8:49 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]

It wasn't exactly a "pre-show", but...

I was in San Jose for the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back at one of the really big movie theaters. Everyone had been standing in line for a while, so when the doors opened the management let everyone take their seats, even though the film wouldn't begin for another hour.

While we were waiting, a guy came out to clean the screen. It was quite a performance, climbing to the top of a tall ladder manhandling an extended "broom" even taller than the ladder. The screen had been treated with something earlier, so cleaner guy was just brushing the residue off the screen. It took a good twenty minutes.

At the end, cleaner guy climbed down to the applause of the waiting crowd. Cleaner guy took a bow, collected his ladder and broom, and exited stage right.
posted by SPrintF at 9:05 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]

I watched 'Who framed Roger Rabbit' at the cinema and there was a pre-mini-animated movie made by the same studio, screened just before the main movie. Possibly 5-10 minutes long.

I remember one family left after it, thinking that was the whole movie done!
posted by many-things at 1:42 AM on June 18 [1 favorite]

I went to see "Help!" at a theater in Boston in around 1965. Before the feature, a band called "Thee Argo" played a set, and the stage lighting for their set was the movie (Help!) projected on them, out of focus.
posted by JimN2TAW at 5:37 AM on June 18

When I saw the first Lord of the Rings movie (in southwestern Ontario, Canada, I guess that was 2001?), the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism did a show beforehand. They staged maybe three or four separate duels between guys wearing homemade chainmail and using various (resin/polymer) weapons like swords, axes. Pretty badass.
posted by number9dream at 6:54 AM on June 18

Disney used to like to show some of their documentary/educational stuff before they showed the "good" cartoon or live action movie you'd actually come to see. The last one I remember seeing was The Blue Men of Morocco somewhere around 1973.

And then there's the locally filmed 80s PSA that was the subject of this post.
posted by JanetLand at 7:01 AM on June 18 [1 favorite]

Two specific cartoons before the feature which I recall (this would be in DC):

1959: before "Sleeping Beauty" Disney showed their Grand Canyon short, almost a half-hour long which my mother recalled unfavorably for years thereafter, due to its many minutes of churning brown water. It's even one of the bonus features on the DVD.

1969: Before "Yellow Submarine" they showed the latest Pink Panther cartoon, Psychedelic Pink.

But advertising, except for other films? Not in American cinemas, not until the 90s. Even then, their encroachment was very gradual. Starting with slide shows of local businesses; then, of course; cars were the first true commercials I recall before the feature. I remember attending a movie in London in 1977 and being shocked at the actual adverts (for alcohol IIRC) shown before the movie.
posted by Rash at 9:09 AM on June 18

Sssssssssssssssssick!

A decades-old ad for litter prevention still runs prior to showings at the Byrd Theater in Richmond, VA.
posted by emelenjr at 9:15 AM on June 18

I seem to remember before one of the early Pixar movies, Toy Story?, there was a short film featuring the Luxo lamp used in the logo.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:29 AM on June 18 [1 favorite]

Missed the edit window, it was with Toy Story 2 (1999).
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:34 AM on June 18

My local cinema is part of a small chain operated by SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival. In addition to an annual film festival, SIFF operates now 6 screens around town, and runs little festivals and programs throughout the year in addition to first-run and revival movies.

They have a playlist of some of their reels, here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYnR9vjfv9HMqojnRxYlwJeeTwYTyjII1

Aside from their annual festival producing a new ad or 5 each year, they have something that's definitely an artifact of the modern age: a Land Acknowledgment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VOVRUlwcKQ

And this is a playlist of their trailers for their annual festival, all of which depict scenes from recent and classic films in interesting ways. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8S6Rw7Vy6mabUqZromQ_j__fnmqkqBh6
posted by Sunburnt at 4:19 PM on June 18

In 1961 in a newsreel before a movie in Vienna, Austria, they did a thing on how you could turn 1961 upside down and it would still read 1961, and I still remember that. I vaguely remember that there were always newsreels in European movie theaters in the 1950s and early 1960s before television became more widespread there but I don't remember any others specifically. US movie theaters had cartoons, which was more fun.
posted by mareli at 7:47 PM on June 18

Interstate Theaters is the one I remember from my childhood. This was the preview to the previews.
posted by Daily Alice at 3:43 AM on June 19

I seem to remember before one of the early Pixar movies, Toy Story?, there was a short film

Don't all the Pixar movies start with a short? I remember the night&day one they showed before "Up" and it being way more pleasant than the feature.
posted by Rash at 8:05 AM on June 20