Though moviegoers figured the price of the ticket was an open-access pass, many exhibitors (who wanted reliable crowd control) and filmmakers (who wanted a captive audience from opening credits to sign-off) disapproved. knew the Bette Davis vehicle Jezebel (1938) would be a hit when a reporter at Radio City Music Hall overheard the fidgety husband behind him say, in the middle of the picture, “This is where we came in,” and his wife reply, “Yes, but I want to see the rest of it again!” Variety even headlined a 1941 piece, “‘This Is Where We Came In’ Principle of Film Grind.” Of course, some moviegoers stayed put and double-dipped. Basically, the motion picture program was unspooled as an endless loop (newsreel/cartoon/short/feature film/repeat) that spectators merged into whenever they showed up. At this point, one moviegoer whispers to their partner, “This is where we came in,” and they exit the theater.Įncouraging the behavior was the “grind” policy by which movies were exhibited in most theaters at the time. In the usual formulation, a couple go to the movies, enter midway into the feature film, sit through to the end of the movie, watch the newsreel, cartoon, and comedy short at the top of the program, and then sit through the feature film until they recognize the scene they walked in on. The patterns of the ritual are conjured in a once common catchphrase now unknown to moviegoers of a certain age: “This is where we came in.” Throughout the classical Hollywood era, moviegoers dropped in on a film screening whenever they felt like it, heedless of the progress of the narrative. Of the many cinematic “firsts” credited to Psycho, the change it brought to the ritual of American moviegoing may be the most consequential.Ĭannes: Park Chan-wook Explains the Inspirations Behind 'Decision to Leave'
Nor can a re-release recapture the thrill of the gimmick linked to the screenings, a departure from convention as jarring as the jagged montage that dispatched its star in the first act: the request - actually, as Hitch said in the trailer, the demand - that exhibitors shut their doors to tardy moviegoers: “No one … BUT NO ONE … will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of PSYCHO.” One-sheet posters featured the auteur pointing to his watch as if admonishing students not to arrive late for class. It is billed as a “special event,” but it won’t replicate the special-event-ness of the original screenings in 1960, when couples in packed theaters screamed their lungs out and leaped into each other’s arms.
#CLASSIC GAY MOVIES HITCHCOCK SERIAL#
11-12, Turner Classic Movies, in partnership with Fathom Events, gave a theatrical re-release to Alfred Hitchcock‘s epochal serial killer film Psycho.