My dad, who worked at the pharmacy a few doors down from the theater, had some sort of arrangement with the owner or the ticket-taker (God only knows) and we had a pass that got us in for free. I remember my brothers fighting over it on date night.
My aunt, who was an executive secretary for the company that owned all the "Art Movie" houses in Manhattan that showed foreign films in the Fifties and Sixties, used to get us passes. No one in my family ever paid for a movie--at least a foreign movie. We saw all the great Cinema Realismo films from Italy, the "New Wave" French movies, the "Angry Young Man" films from the UK, on the cuff. Lotta cheap dates for me.
I also remember going to Radio City Music Hall to see movies. There would be a floor show and then the film. I believe I saw My Fair Lady at the Easter Show, and couldn't get over how stunningly beautiful Audrey Hepburn was.
Going to Radio City was a major,
major big event in every New York kid's childhood. Parents would take you to see the Xmas tree in Rockefeller Center, maybe an hour or two around the ice rink--then the movie and Xmas show at Radio City. Rock Center is the pinnacle of New York Art Deco, and the Music Hall is the Taj Mahal. My favorite space in NYC.
