"This is where we came in..."

Like hell it ended with Psycho. My friends and I did this in the seventies, years after Psycho. I never did it with movies I actually wanted to see, but for summer crap we'd see out of boredom and walking past a theatre, like The Legend of Boggy Creek, yep, we'd just get our tickets, go in, start watching, sit through the closing credits, then the lights would go up, a second audience would shuffle in, the next round of trailers would start, then the movie and then we'd leave at the part we came in on. Or stick around and make fun of the movie some more.

By the way, I saw the title of this post and thought it was a reference to Pink Floyd's The Wall. You know, the album starts on side one with "... we came in" and then ends on side two with the exact same music until you faintly hear a voice say "... this is where" before abruptly stopping.

Dunno if you saw this over on Salon, but it takes up the issue of technology, viewing habits, and the changing nature of "the popular." I actually think the article's central thesis is ultimately flawed, but it's an interesting idea nevertheless.

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/03/22/10_year_time_capsule_memento_donnie_darko_muholland_drive

I'm only 34 and I remember this from my childhood -- although they were single features not doubles. I specifically remember one theatre where you walked in during the movie (hopefully near the end) and found a seat. During the credits, an employee with a megaphone would encourage people who had seen the complete movie to leave.

Born 1947. Yes, I remember 'this is where we came in', although I don't specifically remember it ending with 'Psycho.' More likely it ended with a whimper than with a bang.

Saturday afternoon double features: we went when our parents could take us. We did try to get there at specific times but more often than not - in a one car household - we were at the mercy of some other schedule (sister's bowling league, choir rehearsal, whatever) so we went when we could get the transportation.

The movie going habit was so strong because, well, look at how much time people sit and watch *nothing* on television, even today. In those pre-TV, or barely-beginning TV days, movies were the same thing, only better: bigger, louder, more well produced and written. If you had no TV, or if there were only crappy shows on, well, for a small price there were great (and not so-great) movies down at the movie theater. And there weren't 16 choices, there was one, maybe two if the theater had a competitor across town.

Ah, the 50's. I wouldn't go back on a bet.

I cannot say for certain if "Psycho" was some kind of turning point, but I can absolutely attest to what was a very common practice when I was a kid. We always went to the movies whenever we were good and ready to go, regardless of when either of the features might have started. My earliest recollection of this was "Lawrence of Arabia" which my dad dragged the whole family to see. Although I was only 6 years old, I can still remember sitting down in the darkened theater during the last scene of the first half, where Claude Rains utters some prophetic remark just before the screen goes blank for the intermission. It wasn't until I was much older that my dad began making an effort to see movies from the beginning. What a concept. I also remember seeing a double feature of "Bullitt" and "Bonnie & Clyde". My friends and I sat down just in time for the car chase in "Bullitt" and, when we got to the part "where we came in", we decided to watch the car chase again. Then we left.

I'd say that the rise of cable movie channels has also put the emphasis back on "This is where I came in..." You turn on the TV and flip around and, "Hey, Catch Me If You Can is on HBO," and you end up watching the second half. Just this past weekend, AMC had a Speed marathon, where they kept showing that movie over and over again. I turned on the TV, caught the last half hour or so, then kept watching as the movie started up again. Of course, I've seen Speed before, and it's not exactly a movie which requires a lot of brainpower. If there was something important coming on (say, on TCM), I'd probably DVR it. On Demand, Hulu and other such technologies do seem to be ending the TV version of "This is where I came in," but it's still there.

One thing I'm reminded of are the "count-down" clocks from that era (I think these were mostly a traditional from Drive-In movies...) where an animated segment would let you know exactly when the movie was about to start ("The show will begin in 2 minutes...", etc.) This would suggest there was some importance placed on getting to your seat (aka car) in time to see the movie from the beginning. But this may have come after Psycho.

Unless the LP is a collection of quiet, unassuming songs you're looking for "discrete".

My family used to do this way into the 70's. When my brother and I got older, we would refuse to "leave where we came in" and make them stay through the rest of the movie, because the movie finally made since seeing it all the way through. The last time my mom tried this with me was in 1985. It was the movie "The Emerald Forest" with Powers Booth.

Great article! Being born in '81, I've always been used to seeing a movie from the beginning. I hate being late to a movie, even during previews! Living in NYC now, I'm amazed when you go to an evening screening and people just come in, chat, text and pretty much disregard any consideration for the people surrounding them. It seems like in this time it's best for the real movie-goer to see a film early in the day. I recommend seeing movies before Noon! You pretty much have the theater to yourself and you pay less. Unless you're seeing a serious film like Blue Valentine or The King's Speech (where you know the audience is really there for the film), don't bother with an evening trip to the movies...go bowling!

I too was born in 1957, and this casual attitude about "going to the show" was the rule in my house well into the late 1970s. On a Friday or Saturday evening, at the dinner table, the idea would be floated about going to see a movie. (Our town didn't have its own cinema at the time, so any chance to go was a huge treat for us kids.) My dad would consult the newspaper to see what was playing and where, and we'd all decide. At that point, we'd continue to eat dinner, then clean up after finishing, then let the dog out to take care of his business, then go to the bathroom, then water the house plants, then do whatever else my mom could think of doing... and then finally pile into the car to head off to the evening's entertainment.

What struck me as bizarre, even as a kid, was how we would leave "when we came in," within that minute, even if that point was close to the end of the film. The very last time this occurred with us as a family was in 1977. We all went to see The Spy Who Loved Me, and found our seats just as Roger Moore's 007 was disarming the atom bomb. Through the second go-around, that's exactly the point at which we left.

As goofy a memory as this is, it's still a happy one. I believe it was the last film we saw together as a family in a movie theater.

I'm a bit younger than you Jim, but I recall seeing an early episode of "Happy Days" which starts with the gang at the movies and leaving "where they came in". It struck me as odd so I asked my mother; she confirmed that it was something younger people/teenagers did in the '50s and it depended on the type of movie shown (i.e. comedies and horror films yes, serious dramas no).

Based on what you mention, the custom may have been an outgrowth of how "kiddy matinee" movies were treated by kids (i.e. not as something you watched closely, but something you slipped into and out of whenever your parents arrived to drop you off/pick you up). Similar types of films seen in young adulthood were likely treated in the same way.

There's a brief allusion to an earlier manner of moviegoing in "12 Angry Men," when a juror mentions that the defendant's alibi was that he had gone to the movies but that he couldn't remember what show he had seen. To the modern ear, this seems like an obvious sign that he was lying, one that even Henry Fonda couldn't have overcome. At the time, I suspect, it was fairly reasonable.

Rather than the DVD being programmable, I think the rise of movies on cable TV have had a far greater influence towards a "This is where we came in" mentality. While I don't see much in the way of people coming in late to movies - ticket policies don't encourage such behavior - I think it's contributed to the mentality that movies are something you kinda, sorta pay attention to while you eat, answer your phone, etc.

I was born in 1979 so I was too young to remember this. But I can sort of relate. Many times as a kid, I'd find a film on TV and start to watch it and find myself hooked. Many times, I'd go with it then if I cared enough, I'd find the film on VHS or on TV again and watch the beginning.

When I was a teen, I worked after school and usually came home to find my family half way through watching a film. I would sit and watch it with them then watch the beginning later.

The last time I let this happen, I remember clearly the film: Congo. I saw the second half first and I loved what I saw. I had no idea what was happening(though I think that actually made it better, strange as it may sound). Then I watched the beginning, and figured I should have seen it from the beginning.

From that point, I became a movie snob. No coming in late, period. It was also around that time that I decided that widescreen was the only way to go, and that I wouldn't watched edited, commercial filled presentations on T.V.

My point is that I decided as I grew up that I needed to set a standard for watching films. I think as a culture, we have done the same.

I remember going to a movie in the mid- to late-seventies with my grandparents one summer in Odessa, TX. I wish I could remember the film. We arrived at least a third of the way into it and then waited around for the next showing until the part where we came in. I remember thinking it was bizarre, especially sitting in the theater between showings, but my grandparents acted as if it were perfectly normal.

I picked up a DVD copy of "The Man Who Would Be King" from my local library and, unaware that it was an older DVD with half the movie on one side and half the movie on the other I slipped it into my player on the wrong side and started the movie from the middle. I thought "wow, they really start you off right in the middle of everything!" I didn't realize until the movie ended sooner than I expected and I hald to watch the first half after the second. Grumble.

I saw Cloverfield that way in the theater some day I was seeing something else, because I didn't want to pay for it. That I don't regret. And - at least where I'm from - AMC theaters are great for walking into anything at any time.

Well, I´m Brazilian and was born in 1972. My father was (and still is)a film lover, and when he took me and my brothers to the movies we would go in in the middle of the film that was showing. I remember watching "The Sound of Music", "Singing in the Rain" and other american films this way. I particullarly didn´t like to do that, and later I would refuse to watch a film after its beginning.

Cable TV is something similar to the "this is where I came in" concept. It´s very rare to turn on the TV exactly at the film´s beginning.

But do you know what I miss? Being able to stay at the theater and watch (for free) the film for a second (or third!) time. Remember those days? Now the modern cineplexes don´t allow that.

I remember going to see Christopher Nolan's "Memento" a decade ago, and two women came strolling into the theater 20 minutes into the movie. Of all the movies you do NOT want to be late for, I'd say that one ranks right up there. I'd love to have heard their discussion in the car afterward...

Having been born in the 80s, this is unconscionable to me. If through some unforeseen circumstance I'm five to ten minutes late to a movie, I'll wait until the next showtime or see something else instead, because even the thought of not seeing the opening titles drives me crazy. So yes, I'm an Alvy Singer type, just like you - I'd rather sit through the Sorrow and the Pity for the fifth time than go into something new without starting from the beginning.

The only thing I have to offer is a story.

I made a stand on not going into a movie late in 2003 with some friends over Lost in Translation. We were going on opening weekend. The line was long and I knew we wouldn't be able to get in and find a seat before the film started. I got them to go to the next showing, which was two hours later. The result: two friends pissed that I made them wait two hours so that I could see a shot of Scarlett johansson's butt. They can say whatever they want, I'll still contend that that opening shot is necessary and totally worth the two hour wait.

I was born in 1945 so am familiar with the phenomenon. The main difference was the movies ran continuously. They usually started around 11AM and then there would be a newsreel, coming attractions, a short subject then the movie, followed by the newsreel and the whole process would start again. There were no intermissions or breaks. The one advantage to the system was if you loved a movie you could sit there and see it over and over for one admission price. I recall sitting through "The Great Escape" 3 times. There were some exceptions called RoadShows "Gone With The Wind", "Ben Hur", "Spartacus" first ran as roadshows at higher than usual pricing and limited showings; however, after the initial release it was re-released as a regular priced continuous showing movie. To those that say they can't imagine watching a movie starting in the middle, ask how many times you have done just that with a tv show or movie on tv. I recall all the hype about "Psycho" and no one admitted once the film had started, I also recall staying in my seat to watch the shower scene for a second time and no one ever complained. Somhow the movies of my memories seem more of a bargain than today's entertainments. One thing I do know though is I still love the movies single showing or not.

I was born in 1973, and I remember this happening as a kid (probably up until the mid-80's). It usually happened when we were really late. My most vivid memory of this was walking into Raiders of the Lost Ark just as the nasty Nazi guy has his face melted off--I ran screaming from the theater. We would also often watch one movie and when it was done, sneak into another theater to watch a different movie. Now as an adult, I don't like missing the previews before the movie, let alone the beginning. I also won't watch something on TV (that I haven't seen before) if I don't catch it from the beginning. I honestly think that movie theater policies have had more of an effect on ending this practice than anything else; many movie theaters won't let you in late to a showing, and they chase you out when the movie is done. as for music, many people don't even listen to complete songs anymore, just the part they like; then its on to the next song.

I traveled through South America a couple of years ago and in the ghostly city of Asuncion, Paraguay came upon an old cinema that showed a double feature and nothing else. There were no times indicated, just "This week's show". I remember seeing the second half of Windtalkers, all of The Gift, followed by the first half of Windtalkers, they simply alternated the films all day long.
The prints looked like they'd left the US years ago and had traveled from cinema to cinema all the way down to Paraguay. The acoustics in the theater were terrible, there were mosquitoes, hardly any audience, the cardboard ads in the lobby were from 1993... all that made for the most memorable cinema experience I've ever had. Never mind the films, it was all about the spirit. I was born in 1983, a multiplex kid used to pay 8€ per cinema visit - such a 1€ matinee double feature was something I had never even hoped to experience in earnest.
I'm sure there's plenty of places in the world where this tradition is still alive and kicking...

I want to come out in full support of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

When I was a child my family used to see movies all the time like this, out of sequence. I remember my mom in particular, probably because she took my brother and I to see films more frequently than my dad did, saying,almost every time we showed up late to a movie, "We'll just see what we missed."

If I could go back in time I'd remind her that this ridiculous practice of showing up halfway into a movie and watching the first half later is as absurd as picking up a novel, turning to page 76 and reading, telling yourself, "I'll just go back and read the first 75 pages after I finish it".

No need for further confirmation at this point, but yes, it was commonplace in the Fifties to simply "go to the movies" and walk in at whatever point you happened to get there. I still recall the exact moment when my friend Ray Eckles and I entered the Regent Theatre where Bend of the River was playing (Jimmy Stewart and Arthur Kennedy were just slipping away from the wagon train to go fight the Indians in the dark). But when we got to the "This is where we came in" point, we did what we almost always did: sat right there and watched the rest of the movie over again. Doing this from week to week -- but especially with a really good film -- I began to be more aware of how many details were planted throughout a movie, unobtrusively, with the idea that they would bear fruit, take on or reinforce significance, before the film ended. In short, it was early training in form, structure, and meaning for a film critic, though at age 8 I had no more awareness of film critics than I did that Bend of the River was un film d'Anthony Mann.
I must say, though, that it didn't take long for me to realize it would be much more satisfying to plan to arrive at the theater in time to see the movie from the beginning. The Bend of the River experience would have been in 1952; two years later I'd be warning Ray -- who was always late -- that if he didn't show up at the box office by the time the anxiously awaited 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was set to start, the rest of us would go inside without him. He didn't and we did.
But again, the going-in-in-the-middle experience did afford a weird kind of perspective that could be very useful. I remembered this long-abandoned practice in 1962 as I prepared to go see The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for the fourth time during its first-run engagement in my college town. The parts of the movie I loved most were all in the first three-quarters of the picture; the final section, post-shooting of Valance, was in a different key: bleak, rhetorical, weirdly desiccated. So I decided the save the parts I loved for last, and arrived just in time to see Valance get his. The experiment was a colossal success. The final movement of the film, encompassing the bombast of the political convention and the almost theatrical late revelation of what had really happened that fateful night in Shinbone, took on the bitter power John Ford meant it to have; and then rewatching the run-up to it was more heartbreaking than ever. And yeah, I still stayed through to the end. Again.

"When you see the ending prior to the beginning, you do not gain from the introductory set up of the plot and the characters."

Hey! Total newbie here, just discovered this forum, and I like it... very much.

So who am I to be critical?

We'll see. Let's just take that quote at the top. I'm sympathetic, totally. Never would miss the start of a movie, or a play, or a symphony concert. Never, although I admit to cutting it short sometimes... being made to stand in the back... But, two things:

1) Once upon a time I took Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics. (Is that still around?) She taught that plot is far from the biggest deal in reading a book, at the time something of a revelation for me, and that being relieved of whatever suspense was involved would give the reader a better grasp of the essentials. To that end she recommended that one look ahead into the text at several points, see who's still around, maybe read a couple of paragraphs, then go to the end. Find out who done it!

Noooooooo!!!

The rest of it however I still practice.

2) Is there not enjoyment of the second, the third time through a great novel, a fine movie? How can that be... if you already know the outcome? Where's the gain?

Just saying.

I sometimes use a modern twist on this concept with my Directv DVR. I frequently leave Directv tuned to Turner Classic Movies while I watch a DVD using another input to my TV. When the DVD ends, I click back to TCM and check what is on. Many times I have watched for a while, decided the film interests me, then "rewound" the DVR to watch the whole thing from the beginning.

I don't even like to miss the trailers.

I also don't even like to watch TV shows unless I've seen them from episode 1 of season 1, which thanks to the internet and DVD is now possible even if I don't discover a show until well into its run. The practice of discovering a TV show partway into its run and then trying to catch what you've missed in reruns is one that the kids of today will find odd and antiquated too.

Being born in 1980, I'd don't recall ever observing this behavior; however, reading other people's comments (specifically, how they noted it continuing into the 70s) makes me wonder if the "blockbuster" era factored in somehow.

Like I said, I wasn't around to see the impact of Jaws and Star Wars, but I've always had the feeling it was (and is) exagerrated. But I think it could have had an influence.

When I was a kid back in 1973 my parents went to see "Don't Look Now."

They returned home ranting: 1)Either the newspapers printed the wrong start times for the movie because surely they had walked in during the middle of it or 2)The projectionist mixed up the reels and showed the movie in the wrong order.

When I finally saw the film years later, I realized that my parents simply couldn't intellectually grasp Nicolas Roeg's innovative and inventive (for 1973) structure, which, for many people of my folks' generation, was disorienting and akin to "walking in the middle of something that already started."

Not to mention the fact that Roeg was experimenting with the idea of the "flash forward" a mind-bending concept that was perceived as an annoyance for the folks weaned on linear story-telling.

My parents hated the majority of movies that came out between "Midnight Cowboy" and "Jaws."

Another troubling film for them was Sam Peckinpah's relatively mainstream film "The Getaway," in which my mother complained, "I don't understand why they showed Steve McQueen and that actress jumping into a creek before it happened! We keep walking into the middle of these movies!"

I missed the openings of many movies in my early 20s when I used to stay out late, come home and watch whatever movie I could find on TV. The best was discovering Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law," turning on the TV at the point where Tom Waits and John Lurie are in jail, the camera dollying past all the prison cells and stopping at their cell. At first I didn't know what I was watching. I thought it was a documentary. I hadn't seen anything like it before, and I was hooked. I saw the entire movie a couple years later and loved it, but I'm not sure I would have been as intrigued if I'd viewed it from the start the first time.

I, too, remember the phenomenon, and the associated phrase. It ended when theaters essentially outlawed it, by emptying the room at the end of each showing. It was probably brought about by the advent of movies people wanted to see over and over again -- I'm thinking "Star Wars" was probably the big catalyst.

A few weeks ago on another message board, someone posted old ads for Star Wars, and we noticed that the start times for the showings were only two hours and 15 minutes apart. That would only leave 14 minutes of transit time between showings in some awfully large theaters. I figured this was for the convenience of people who arrived in the middle, so they wouldn't have to wait long for the movie to start again. I would guess the practice started to end soon after this. With the arrival of the blockbuster picture and near-sellouts, managers expect to sell so many tickets that they have to clear everyone out at the end.

Totally my childhood memory (Mid 1950s). We just never knew what time the movies started because theater owners just used the cut & paste ads for the newspapers - the studio supplied the copy and graphics with blank space at the bottom for the theatre name to be inserted. And no two theaters started their day at the same time. And everything was non-stop, especially on Saturdays: cartoon, cartoon, cartoon, newsreel, cartoon, cartoon, cartoon (with the best Road Runner and Bugs Bunny saved for last) and then feature, then more of the same and 2nd feature. It was an all morning-afternoon affair. It was a revolution when theaters began publishing starting times. What a great idea! And then they really killed the experience by hustling everybody out the door after the feature showed!

As others have noted: this seems bizarre compared to the movie business today, but compared to sitting in front of the TV for a few hours, it suddenly makes sense.

Kind of makes me wish I had been around...the idea of not having a big discussion about which movie to see sounds incredibly relaxing.

I'm definitely not young enough to have seen Psycho in the theaters (born in 1980), but I grew up in the(a?) heyday of Sunday movies on TV. I've seen Spielberg's "Duel" about 4 times, but never from the beginning. That's a move that you can watch this way, because no matter where you come in, it's creepy, and the premise is obvious in every scene.

Heya, I don't know if somebody in the comments said something like this already, but I had heard of Hitchcock's campaign and this was my previous understanding of it: The ads for Psycho made it look like Janet Leigh was the star even though she got killed off in the first third (or so, can't remember exactly), so that campaign warning people from coming in after Psycho started was just to prevent people from coming in after she died and wondering where she was.

I had a friend who collected 8mm versions of movies and once he showed me a twenty minute version of Psycho. These abbreviated versions of films were made before "owning" a movie was commonplace and the 8mm versions served as a highlight reel of the most exciting scenes. It was a very interesting way to view a Hitchcock film since it completely undermined any sense of suspense.

I actually tried this a few times some years ago, inspired equally by this bit of history (which I don't remember firsthand) and Breton's habit of wandering in during screenings and leaving once he'd figured out the plot. Which must have meant he spent a lot of money on very little, because it rarely takes more than three or four scenes to sort that out however medias your in res. Periodically I have nothing but bad faith in my own perceptions and prejudices, and try to challenge or change them by mixing up my typical viewing experiences (crowds/empty matinees; reading up on spoilers beforehand/going in blind; a period of seeing only the most popular films/catching only critical favorites).

I found it a pleasurable way to shake up more routine entertainments. Bad romantic comedies, especially, became almost wistful as the union you'd just seen consummated looped around to tentatively begin anew before crashing on seeming insurmountable shores right about the time I'd get up and leave. And action films were even more gleamingly nihilistic without the false progression imposed by stalking down the big bad.

For what it's worth, starting at the beginning is unquestionably better, even for dreck. But the fresh perspective on how movies work, as an experience, was rather invigorating: they became instantly more casual and disposable but also more mysterious, and more overpowering to submit to. One cliche I never got was movie theaters as a church; this hits home much more forcibly when you open the doors to hear voices already booming, and have to find a seat (rows away from blocking the views of other patrons, natch) using only what light reflects from a bus skidding through a curve, bullets ricocheting off its shell, towering forty feet above you. Amen.

I never tried it with a straight drama or arthouse film, presumably due to my own cowardice. And now I'm curious.

I hadn't heard about this until just recently. Martin Scorsese has been writing a column for DirectTV where he shares his favorite movies, especially ones that he thinks deserve more recognition. It is called "The Scorsese Selection". I'm going to post this in Ebert's blog(and at The Crop Duster blog, too).

Just when I think I've seen just about all the "must-see" movies out there, there comes along something like this -- with hundreds of titles I've never heard of. Films I have watched so far that Scorsese recommends are "Murder by Contract," "Strangers When We Meet," "Day of the Outlaw," "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "Portrait of Jennie." Tonight I have Anthony Mann's "Reign of Terror" (aka "The Black Book") and Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt" for my viewing pleasure. Check it out!

P.S. All the films mentioned above are great... Irving Lerner's "Murder by Contract" is one of the most influential movies for Scorsese. Has some great b/w photography of LA in the late '50's. I lived in LA, and also love "Strangers When We Meet" which was directed by Richard Quine and stars Kirk D and Kim Novak. It's a melodrama played straighter than a Sirk film, but still on that level. Really captures the feeling of living in LA. Many of the Brentwood/West LA locations I know so well, having moved there in '76. It was released in '60. Those places had changed in appearance in the years since (the Brentwood Village gas station on Barrington is still the same). But still it really reminds me of that LA feeling(I live back in Portland, Ore).

Andre De Toth's "Day of the Outlaw" is fabulous -- and I think ahead of its time. Maybe one of the first "modern westerns," more so than Arthur Penn's "The Left-Handed Gun." I saw De Toth's "Crime Wave" and loved it, then watched some of his westerns (hoping they would be on the level of Boetticher's Ranown films), but thought they are fairly standard. However, "Day of the Outlaw" is a whole other story. My admiration for De Toth was reborn (and also after seeing his "Play Dirty" with Michael Caine). Maybe it was when he was not so much under the studios' thumb that De Toth could really put his stamp on films (unlike with the westerns I saw, "The Indian Fighter," "Man in the Saddle," and "Springfield Rifle," although that one has some things about it that make it special.)

The practice of "go when you want, leave when you get the point where you came in" was definitely the order of the day for movies "way back when." I was born in 1955 so my movie-going experience started in the sixties. When my mother would take us to movies, she would just drop us off and pick us up when we called her. Sometimes I would complain about missing the beginning, she would tell us that it didn't matter. You could always stay to see the beginning. She had done it all her life and considered it normal.

To be honest, most movies made before, oh let's say, the eighties were always truly organic in that the part always contained the whole. After a very short time (let's say less than five minutes), you pretty much knew who was who, what they were doing, and what the possible endings might be--and what the possible beginnings might have been. Most films were expected to be seen that way and were constructed to make up for it. Obviously some movies were meant to be seen from beginning to end, but I think the difference was whether you were "going to THE movies" or "going to A movie."

I still prefer to see things from the beginning, but I have to admit that many movies don't make much difference. I saw many movies that way. It didn't make a difference. Later on in life, I didn't go to the movies; I'd see them on weekend afternoons or the late show on television. I'd turn channels, find something interesting and be absorbed. A few years later, I'd turn on the TV and finally see the beginning. Or not. Example: I've seen the last 15-20 minutes of the Maltese Falcon about seven or eight times. I've never been able to catch the beginning. However, the power and effect of the film are present in every one of those final 20 minutes, and I don't feel like my enjoyment of it is diminished. (Admittedly, seeing it from the beginning would be a great experience, but I don't think I will have lost anything knowing how the last 15 minutes go.)

I could point out many similar examples. However, I do want to mention my recent experience with Inception. Due to a sequence of annoying events, we arrived a little after the movie started. Fortunately, missing the first five minutes didn't seem to hurt much. The movie doesn't really start to explain what's going on until about five-ten minutes later so I was still able to understand and enjoy it. What's more, during my (quite extensive) post-analysis, I suddenly realized that I may have only missed about 15 seconds, not five minutes. I suspect that this movie is intended to be seen starting in the middle, whether you see it from the beginning or not.

I work on and off at a theatre which largely caters to an older demographic, and on a fairly rare occasion we'll still encounter this (mostly it just involves people getting mixed up about the show time). Since we're a one-screen theatre which usually has tiny, tiny audiences, it's pretty easy to keep track of who came in late, and accommodate them. Besides, one more customer is one more customer, and we need all we can get.

I don't know the beginning, end or orgins of walking in and out whenever, but theaters used to be designed to accomadate this behavior. If you have an old (pre-60's) single screen theatre around you that hasn't been severely remodelled, you will most likely see an open ledge, maybe curtained, along the back wall of the auditorium. This was so people could watch the movie while waiting for a seat to open up.

Needless to say, it contributed lots of noise and light to the viewing experience and not all theatres had them. But I have worked in enough and visited plenty to know it was a not uncommon feature.

Wow, Jim. I'm only 4 years older than you are, but suddenly I feel positively prehistoric.

I looked at the title of your blog entry and knew IMMEDIATELY what it referred to. Growing up in the Detroit metro area, with its profusion of movie theaters, I must have seen 100 or more films this way as a child and/or young man.

By my teen years, when I was allowed to got to the theater by myself, my dad always knew if I had truly enjoyed a film simply by how long I spent in the theater. If I came in 1/2 way through a movie, then stayed to watch it in its entirety the 2nd time around, rather than just until the "This is where I came in" moment, he understood that I must have found something that grabbed me. But that was a bit later.

When I was younger my mom took me to a lot of movies. She tried to do the same for my three younger brothers, but they didn't evince the interest I did, much less the passion, so I became her movie-going companion for many years.

Mom loved all kinds of movies, and she seldom gave much thought to the "appropriateness" of any particular film for someone my age. She knew that if she was interested in a particular movie it was likely I would be, too. Because of this I saw many films in the 50's and 60's that at the time were considered too intense -too mature- for young viewers.

We didn't always agree about the worth of films we saw. I remember in particular that I really enjoyed "Ship of Fools" (based on the Katherine Anne Porter novel I hadn't yet read), while mom found it overwrought. Mom loved "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", while I thought it made its poor, trapped characters into caricatures; I felt it insulted those it intended to honor. (I have since changed my opinion. That's what age -often referred to as "experience"- can do to you.)

But my mom is the one who burned that phrase into my brain. "This is where we came in" meant one thing: She had no interest in watching the rest of the movie again, so we were on our way out the door. We saw many mediocre, some poor, and of course more than a few truly terrible movies. The theater experience those days always ended on the same note of utter finality:

"This is where we came in."

And that's when we went out.

Just to pile on with my own experience of this phenomenon, I was born in 1976 and (as you know and others have said) entering the movie late was certainly not the common practice during the '80s. However, it was far more common for people to sneak into several additional movies after paying for the first back then (lighter security, I'd guess) and I remember doing this with my mom, my siblings, and my friends. This meant that we'd often sneak into a movie partway through and then end up sitting there for the next show so we could see what we missed. Sometimes, we'd actually plan well enough in advance to make sure the timing worked out so the second movie would be starting after the first ended.