Tag: 1950s

Boomers Tossed the Party Line

In telephone parlance, a party line was one phone line shared by multiple households. According to Bell Telephone history, the practice of sharing a line started in the late 19th century. At that point, the telephone was not yet in every home, and a party line was an economical way to introduce new users to phone service. It became the predominant package for home use. Into the early 20th century, the telephone was thought of primarily as a tool for emergencies and the spread of pertinent family information (which usually meant bad news). Consequently, each phone call lasted no more than a few minutes.

As early as 1899, Ma Bell sought to make the party line undesirable so people would opt for the more expensive single, or “private,” line. Bell would place up to 20 houses on a single line to purposely complicate a consumer’s use of the phone. By the 1920s, people were moving off the party line, but the Depression put a crimp in Bell’s big picture. By the time the country’s economy was recovering, World War II came along. Many people, whether through tradition, inertia or family economics, kept their party line — much to the chagrin of Bell Telephone.

After the war and into the early boomer years, the use of the phone grew from an emergency tool to one of increasing social communication. Women were required to return to their homes after “manning” the factories while the men were at war, and now, at home and having babies, they used the phone to “reach out and touch” family and friends (as the telephone commercials used to say). When phone call times increased in duration, the frustration factor grew for party line users. It would seem that no matter when you wanted to use the phone, another person on the party line had beat you to it. Some neighbors used the direct link as an opportunity to eavesdrop on another neighbor’s conversation, while others were flummoxed by its inconvenience.

The 1959 Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie, Pillow Talk, portrayed scenes of a one-on-one confrontation between neighbors in New York City who were sharing a party line. Of course, the party line in the movie was used as a plot vehicle to get the two characters together. In real life, party lines in New York had all but disappeared after 1930.

The Rock Hudson character in Pillow Talk was a real ladies’ man, while Doris Day’s character was more of a homebody, career woman.

In the Midwest of Mister Boomer’s youth, party lines comprised about half of all telephone lines until the mid-60s. Mister B’s family had a party line connected to at least three or four other households. Often times, merely picking up the phone meant you were in the middle of someone else’s conversation. By picking up your receiver, a click could be heard by the actively speaking parties. That would prompt a terse, “We’re on the phone!” comment that would require you to instantly hang up for the sake of phone etiquette.

Mister B’s mother was constantly exasperated by the perpetual chatter on the phone every time she wanted to make a call. He recalls his mother yelling into the phone, “You’ve been on the phone over fifteen minutes! Give someone else a chance!” or, in periods of extreme frustration, “This is an emergency! Will you please get off the phone!”

Around 1962, she had had enough, and petitioned Mister B’s father to get a private line. That time period coincided with Bell moving people away from the two-letter phone number prefix to one of all numbers. Mister B’s house received their private line and new phone number that enabled direct dialing to and from anywhere in the world, though they kept the dial and didn’t upgrade to a push-button model. Phone numbers then consisted of a three-digit area code and three-digit exchange, followed by an addition four-digit personal number (see Boomers Dialed Up Some History).

As the Bell System introduced push-button phones around 1963, touch-tone dialing was replacing the older pulse dialing of a rotary dial phone. This technology conveniently required a private line, so it became another way Bell could move people off the party line and into a higher monthly payment bracket. Most households had dropped the party line option by the 1970s.

Do you have family memories of a party line, boomers?

Please note: This is an updated version of a post first published by Mister Boomer on July 31, 2011.

Boomers Said, “Make Mine a Double”

Many boomers recall that in their early movie-going days, theaters presented two movies for the price of one — a double feature. During the intermission between films, there was usually a couple of cartoons along with coming attractions tossed into the mix, too. While some theaters began to discontinue this practice in the 1960s, others continued into the seventies, and it was a staple of drive-in theaters throughout the boomer years.

The idea of showing two movies for the price of one began long before the boomer age. It was, in fact, an invention of the Hollywood studios during the Great Depression. Since so many people did not have extra money for movie-going, the concept was to entice people into the theaters by telling them they were getting two movies for the price of one. Up until that time, an evening at the movies consisted of one film, live acts and comedians, newsreels and shorts.

Unfortunately for theater owners, however, the studios dictated what movies could be shown as double features since they sold them as a package. If a theater wanted movie A, they would also have to take movie B. Therefore, the introduction of the double feature was also the dawn of the B movie. Like the B side of a 45 RPM record, the second movie feature was often of lesser quality, with little or no star power, and definitely made with a smaller budget.

In 1948 a landmark court case was brought against Paramount Pictures, challenging the way Hollywood studios controlled which theaters would show what movies. Studios often reserved their own films to be shown exclusively in the theaters that they owned outright or in which they were in partnership. That meant that studios, in addition to having all the actors and staff on contract necessary for making films, also wrote, produced, directed, distributed and showed their own films. By 1945 the studios owned 17 percent of the theaters in the country, which accounted for 45 percent of their film rental revenue. A group of independent theater owners decided to challenge the Hollywood studios for the practice and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the studios were in violation of U.S. antitrust laws, thus marking the beginning of the end of the Hollywood studio system.

Theater owners continued to show two movies for the price of one in the 1950s. Whether they felt patrons expected a double feature, or it was an incentive to make more people go to the movies, because of the court ruling they could pick and choose what movies they would show on a double bill. The result was the B movie was elevated to high art with the first-run science fiction thrillers we all know and love, along with films of the horror genre and re-runs of classic monster movies.

Mister Boomer recalls attending many double features in his early days. Sometimes the whole family would take in a double feature. Those family outings often meant going to the drive-in to see Disney films like Bambi, Dumbo, Pinocchio and Snow White, though Mister B can’t recall which of them were the A or B film. By the time Mister B reached the age of nine, he would go to Saturday matinees with his siblings and neighborhood friends.

Drive-in theaters offered double features and often had a children’s playground situated up by the base of the screen. Families could attend with the kids, and let them play until sunset, when the movies would get underway. Half-way through, there would be a reminder such as this trailer that the concession stand was open for business. Can you guess who sponsored this groovy clip?

The one theater in Mister B’s city (there was a drive-in theater in the next town over) was about a mile-and-a-half walk via the neighborhood shortcut. This shortcut that all the kids would take entailed walking the railroad tracks across town. The tracks cut a diagonal path across the gridded streets, shortening the route. It also bypassed the busiest intersections with overpasses, so there was no break in the stride due to waiting for traffic signals. Instead, a leisurely, uninterrupted stroll was the order of the day, where rocks could be tossed, sticks picked up and stories traded. The kids only had to stop if a train was coming. Inevitably, someone would lean down and place their ear to the track in order to ascertain if a train was on the way. When one was visible, someone in the neighborhood group would usually want to set a penny on the track while the remaining travelers waited a safe distance away. Once the train passed, a hot, squished Lincoln was always worth a chuckle.

A typical movie matinee Saturday went like this: Mister B’s father would give him and his siblings 75 cents each. At around noon, anybody in the neighborhood that was going that day would gather and the group would get underway. A few blocks down, right before the area where the railroad tracks were readily accessible, there was a convenience store that sold penny candy. The group would enter the store and, one by one, told the counter person what they wanted. Mister Boomer and his siblings would allot 25 cents for candy, reserving the other 50 cents for the price of admission. Mister B allowed himself one large candy purchase, like a Snickers bar, Chunky, Mallo Cup, Turkish Taffy or Almond Joy, and the rest was divided among candies that gave him the maximum amount for the least cost. Root beer barrels, candy dots on paper, licorice whips, caramels with a white swirl in them and any candy that gave more than one quick bite for a penny was selected and dropped into a small paper bag. By the time each member of the group had finished, they all held a brown paper lunch bag brimming with candy. It would offer quick sustenance for the track trek ahead, with enough left over to carry them well into the double feature.

Arriving at the “show,” as Mister B’s mother used to call it, what was on the bill was never a consideration. The kids would go inside with the hordes of other children out on a Saturday. Once the lights went down and the flickering of the projector could be heard, Mister B was hooked. Pictures he saw in those outings included some old-time classics like Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), The Wolf Man (1941) and The Mummy (1932), along with more contemporary fare like House of Wax (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), I was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), The Blob (1958), Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and The Screaming Skull (1958).

This clip is a classic that a good portion of Mister Boomer readers are going to remember! Goobers and Red Hots, anyone?

In Mister B’s neighborhood, the double feature was alive and well throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. Whether at the neighborhood theater or drive-in, the double feature was an inherent part of the boomer movie experience. What memories do double features bring to mind for you?

Please Note: This is an updated, edited version of a post first published by Mister Boomer on May 8, 2011.