Let's take a peep at how our forefathers watched movies in the past...
Even though this may not be the most impressive cinematographic device for movie-watching, we still could not wait to look at how it worked.
By Callistus, trainee teacher at NIE
Back story
Would you pay five cents to watch about one minute of a television programme? Or twenty cents to watch five minutes of it? Well, that’s what children in the 1950s to early 1970s did. Cinema on Wheels, as it was aptly called, was one means of cheap but good entertainment. The theatre was a specially constructed box where a projector would project on to one wall in the box. On the other three sides, there would be peep holes covered by little ‘curtains’.
When children made payment, the curtains would be lifted and they would immerse themselves in programmes featuring their favourite heroes or cartoon characters like Popeye, Tarzan or Donald Duck.
These programmes they watched may have been brief, but they brought a lot of joy and cheer to the children of the fiftes and sixties.
