I worked at Cinema x in the mid 1960’s. i was the janitor. The “X” was run by a husband and wife team who lived on Wilbraham mountain. In their spare time they would watch tv and time the commercials. I still don’t know why. i would get home from high school and bike up the the x. I loved going to work!
We ran movies you could not or would not see any place else. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with a very young Catherine Deneuve singing all the dialog. I still remember.
My two strongest memories of the “X” were, 1)the Batman serials. Someone put together all the Batman shorts that would run in movie theaters during world war II. Together they ran about six hours. They showed a very strong anti-Japanese/racist face of America. People would come to the show during the day and walk out confused. Then………the late show would start and all the college kids, AIC, Springfield college even UMass kids would show up and the place would rock. I can’t remember the comments from the seats but i vividly remember being on my knees laughing so hard i cried.2) i was working in the theater, vacuuming actually, when the machine stopped working. Since the vacuum was older than i was i figured just another breakdown. I went up to the lobby to call the boss when i heard much honking outside. I went to look and found that all the traffic lights were out, cool i thought. I went back inside the theater and then i noticed that the emergency lights were on, strange. I was a little slow but after a while i figured it out, so when someone asks me where i was during Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, i say i was at the “X” working.
I worked at Cinema x in the mid 1960’s. i was the janitor. The “X” was run by a husband and wife team who lived on Wilbraham mountain. In their spare time they would watch tv and time the commercials. I still don’t know why. i would get home from high school and bike up the the x. I loved going to work!
We ran movies you could not or would not see any place else. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with a very young Catherine Deneuve singing all the dialog. I still remember.
My two strongest memories of the “X” were, 1)the Batman serials. Someone put together all the Batman shorts that would run in movie theaters during world war II. Together they ran about six hours. They showed a very strong anti-Japanese/racist face of America. People would come to the show during the day and walk out confused. Then………the late show would start and all the college kids, AIC, Springfield college even UMass kids would show up and the place would rock. I can’t remember the comments from the seats but i vividly remember being on my knees laughing so hard i cried.2) i was working in the theater, vacuuming actually, when the machine stopped working. Since the vacuum was older than i was i figured just another breakdown. I went up to the lobby to call the boss when i heard much honking outside. I went to look and found that all the traffic lights were out, cool i thought. I went back inside the theater and then i noticed that the emergency lights were on, strange. I was a little slow but after a while i figured it out, so when someone asks me where i was during Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, i say i was at the “X” working.
Tom