Lans Theatre

My older brother and sister worked at the Lans in the mid-50s; my brother was friends with the son of the owner, Roger Shearer. I did see a lot of Disney movies there, but I also such offerings as Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, and Dr. Strangelove. Things I most remember:
For years, the theater has a split-week billing schedule—family movies played Friday-Monday and more adult films played Tuesday-Thursday.
Summer Kiddie Matinees—Tuesday afternoons throughout the summer, the theater offered free shows for kids, which consisted of 26 cartoons (so they said; nobody ever counted) and a movie. It was sheer bedlam with popcorn and candy boxes flying about and hundreds of kids laughing, screaming, running and pretty much ignoring what was on the screen. Very similar to the scene in the movie theater in Gremlins. Ears would be rinnging for an hour after you left the theater. It was great fun.

My first job was working as an usher at the Lans from 1976 to 78. What a great experience. We did show a heck of a lot of Disneys, but we also showed some 3rd run classics like Jaws, The Sting, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Thursday nights were always a thrill ride because after the last show started for the night we had to go out and change the marquee. The ladder was barely tall enough to reach the top row of letters, and you had to pray for good weather because if the wind started blowing there was nothing to grab onto except lightbulbs. The terror factor went up during the winter months. We didn’t top our popcorn with the motor oil they use in theaters today, our butter came in plastic kegs. The stuff was solid until we floated the kegs in a bucket of hot water. Then we could pour it into the dispenser. It made the popcorn a little mushy, because of the water content in the butter, but it tasted oh-so good. There was no soda dispenser behind the candy counter but we did have a soda vending machine. My duties included keeping the machine full of syrup and cups. It cost a quarter for a cup of so-so soda. I learned a trick that used to puzzle the boss. Through hours of practice I figured out how to zing a penny into the coin slot to fool the machine into thinking it was getting a quarter. Soda for a penny! Woo hoo! Whenever the boss would empty out the coin bucket from the machine she used to blame all the pennies on those darned kids.

The Lans wasn’t the greatest theater in the world but it meant the world to me back then.