Cameo Cinema

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A typical (and forgettable!) double feature was playing at the Roxy in 1961: “Sail A Crooked Ship” with Robert Wagner and Dolores Hart and a dubbed into English Italian sword and sandal epic “The Minotaur”. There was one complete show each evening at 7:00 PM with a cartoon preceding the double feature. There was a matinee on Sunday only starting at 3:00 PM with two complete showings of the double feature. Two program changes a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays.

What surprised me about the Roxy in those years was that there were no intermissions between the double features. A seamless changeover was made right to the second feature. That was not uncommon in big city grind houses but extremely rare in most other theaters where even back then concession sales could help the bottom line as well as give audiences a chance to stretch and use the bathroom. Remember that there was no long end credits crawl back then either. I asked the owner (later St. Helena mayor) John Aquila about it one time and he said “It’s just our policy!”