Pre TV in Washington D.C.

Every time I go to the movies these days, I find myself paralyzed in front of the concessions. My feeble and admittedly geeze-ing brain refuses to take in the current rate of exchange of currency for sustenance. Five dollars for a soda ? And that yellow stuff that goes on the popcorn? Seriously. What is that?

Yes, things have technically improved since I was a kid, but back in the days of the movie palaces, going to see a film was an extraordinary experience. My parents, Bebe and George, remember paying 15 cents for a whole day of entertainment.

Here's a visual glimpse of Washington DC's movie scene from local film maker Jeff Krulik.

 In 1925 when Bebe was eight and her little brother Roger was four, they would free range to the Tivoli at 14th and Park Road every Sunday and spend the whole afternoon in the theater.

Her favorites were the Westerns because she “loved watching all those horses run around.” She says Tom Mix was popular, but personally she didn’t think he was all that cute.

She also has a hazy memory of walking with her dad from Mozart Place to the Ambassador Theater on 18th and Columbia Road to see Al Jolson in the first "talkie"in 1928.

George remembers the three theaters near him on H Street NE: The Princess, The Apollo and The Empire. They were smaller, plainer theaters, but he could walk to all of them. He caught all the great silent films with Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton and remembers the piano player creating the mood. He also was into Tom Mix and all those horses.

The Apollo from Library of Congress

When Bebe moved to the Broadmoor Apartments in Cleveland Parkin 1929, she hit the jack pot getting free passes to the Avalon Theater on Connecticut Avenue. Bebe and Roger would take a lunch, get on the streetcar (or strap on their roller skates) and spend the whole day on the theater, especially in the summer, when more houses were one of the few places in town with air conditioning.

Meanwhile George had moved uptown to Macomb Street in Cleveland Park in 1928. He offset the cost of  his "new" car, a used Model T,  by charging his sister Catherine and her friends Rose Papadeis and Julia Kekenes a quarter each to drive them downtown to the Earle on 13th Street which later became  the Warner Theater.

George and Rose on Macomb

Bigger venues like the Warner's might have had a live vaudeville show before the movie and charged a whopping 35 cents.

Bebe remembers seeing Cab Calloway at the Capitol which was around the corner from the Earle near 14th and F Street in the National Press building. In 1963, when the Capitol closed,  George’s buddy, Blackie Auger bought some of the theater's furnishings for his restaurant Blackie's House of Beef including wrought iron balustrades and a large painting of Cupid. According to his wife Lulu's memoir, when Blackie was sixteen, burning a hole in Cupid's belly button with a cigarette seemed like a good idea at the time. He bought the painting and hoped to make amends with his conscience by having it restored.

Bebe and George say the film that made the biggest impression on them was "Gone With the Wind." At that point, they were a very young married couple with two small children. Getting out to see a show was problematic. Sometimes they would steal away after the children were asleep which may have worked occasionally, but legend has it that my brother and sister woke up hungry once and decided to fix themselves grilled cheese sandwiches. In the toaster.