Wow, the Melba Theatre was probably my favorite place on earth in the mid to late seventies. I remember the days when Saturday would be spent at the Melba. And I mean ALL DAY Saturday. Three features, starting at noon. It was really awesome for a preteen boy like myself with his hormones starting to flare up, because I could go see two Pam Grier movies, or two “Shaft” features, or any number of highly inappropriate movies for a boy my age, and we never got carded for Rated “R” movies. Stuff like Superfly, The Mack, Black Caesar, Mandingo, and on and on. Lots of nudity & sex scenes, plenty of violence, drugs, pimps & pushers, good old wholesome themes like that. Sometimes it was monster movies, sometimes it was Bruce Lee flicks. They would try to make the outing more family-friendly by inserting a more age-appropriate feature in between, like Swiss Family Robinson or Grizzly Adams. Those middle features turned out to be the social hour, as hundreds of rambunctious preteens passed the time before the real action to start again. Unless you were unfortunate enough to have had to bring your baby sister to the show – then you might actually have to watch Pippi Longstockings. Those sure were the days!
Wow, the Melba Theatre was probably my favorite place on earth in the mid to late seventies. I remember the days when Saturday would be spent at the Melba. And I mean ALL DAY Saturday. Three features, starting at noon. It was really awesome for a preteen boy like myself with his hormones starting to flare up, because I could go see two Pam Grier movies, or two “Shaft” features, or any number of highly inappropriate movies for a boy my age, and we never got carded for Rated “R” movies. Stuff like Superfly, The Mack, Black Caesar, Mandingo, and on and on. Lots of nudity & sex scenes, plenty of violence, drugs, pimps & pushers, good old wholesome themes like that. Sometimes it was monster movies, sometimes it was Bruce Lee flicks. They would try to make the outing more family-friendly by inserting a more age-appropriate feature in between, like Swiss Family Robinson or Grizzly Adams. Those middle features turned out to be the social hour, as hundreds of rambunctious preteens passed the time before the real action to start again. Unless you were unfortunate enough to have had to bring your baby sister to the show – then you might actually have to watch Pippi Longstockings. Those sure were the days!