Another time I walked in on two teenagers that were doing the horizontal lambada in an aisle while their friend contently watched the film.

Joshua Waaland
 

Such was the case at a drive-in in Ottawa, Ontario about 14 years ago.

The assistant manageress had received complaints about someone playing their van stereo excessivley loud. Since the show hadn't started yet, and the usher was busy down front, the projectionist volunteered to go and talk to the guy in the van.

He got stabbed to death for his efforts.
 

Also, there was the one time somebody took a huge dump on the floor. I don't envy ushers, sometimes.
 

(It must be a Pennsylvania thing.)
 

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Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Harrisonburg 14

 

Let's see... The entire football team came to our theater to see, "All the Right Moves." During and after the film, all of them did doody in the same toilet. It looked like something out of "Dogma." We seriously consitered closing the theater, we were so grossed out...

I had to stop, "Pulp Fiction" for a guy who had a heart attack. It was during the needle scene. He was in the center of a row of seats. The owners got a little cheap, and put the seat rows really close together, so the EMS guys could not get a stretcher in; they could hardly get in themselves. It was really creepy: the EMS guys were zapping him with the de-fib while he's sitting up in his seat with his shirt ripped open. He died en route.

I had to stop, "Hoffa" for a guy who had an LSD flashback. He jumped up on the stage, and started to shout nonsense things: "Woody Allen's pregnent and the FBI knows. He's been there, I know....." Some idiot in the front row says; "Let's get out of here, he may have a gun." (There are 500 people in the theater.) Mr. Wackoo says; "A gun? You want to see my gun...?" He unzips his fly and pulls his thingy out and waves it around. Cops grab him, we give out about 500 passes, nothing really bad happens..

A patron waiting on line (outside) has a heart attack. I forget the film, but it was really busy, with a 'ticket holder' line and a 'ticket buyer' line, and several double-parked cars dropping off people on both sides of the street. Several people would not get out of the EMS guy's way, because they didn't want to lose parking spaces they were waiting for. The EMS guy's had to run about half a block to get to the guy. Luckly, the victim was OK.

Another guy died peacefully in his seat. No one knows exactly when, but he sat there for all 5 shows of, "Cutthroat Island" one Saturday. A girl-manager who closed, pushed him, thinking he was sleeping, and he fell out of the seat. She flipped out, and quit the next day. I said to two ushers who worked all day; didn't you notice he never moved? You just swept around him, or what!? They replied; we thought he just really liked the movie....

I should re-title this post to; Dead people in Theaters!
 

I've had people dance in the auditorium and on stage to the end credits of "True Lies" during its opening night, and I've had a film director insist after a test run that my Zeiss Favorit 70 projectors run at _at_least_ 27 fps, and that we need to do something about it before his film starts.

But my probably weirdest experience occured when I was answering the phone at the box office when things were really slow in the booth. The following conversation took place:

"This is the Draken theatre, Ari speaking. How may I help you?"
"Hi. Do you sell popcorn?"
"Yes."
<click>

I still have no good explanation for this one.

But what really tops it all off happened to a friend of mine, Jeff. Anyway he is the head projectionist at one of our 12 plexes across town, and his booth is comprised of 3 hallways. One of them has a door that is kept unlocked downstairs so the employees can get to their breakroom. Jeff was walking down the main hallway in the booth and passing another when out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure. He turned and looked and to his horror it was a lady squatting down and peeing on the booth carpet next to the projector! I guess she didn't like the presentation! Actually she had wandered upstairs and thought it was the bathroom or something! I don't quite remember how Jeff handled the situation, but I believe he directed her out.
 

--Oh,well not TOO much goes on in our small town.

--Chris
 

One night, he came out of his office to find that some customer had vomited all over the candy display. Unsure what to do, he called my assitant manager (yes the same one) and asked, "well, what should i do, just clean it all off and put it back?" . Needless to say, he doesn't work here anymore.
 

One night while I was managing Rocky Horror at the end of the film a couple of kids were saying "come on Bob, Lets go Bob." They hauled Bob out to the sidewalk and then came back in and called the paramedics. They worked on Bob for 20 minutes and took him away. I called my boss and said "oh well, at least he died on the sidewalk."

Bob was 19 and had drunk a pint of Shnapps and had a joint. I guess his heart gave out.
 

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I don't remember the date, but DO know it happened the day the head manager came back from his one week vacation and the day I got to visit the emergency room. (Did I mention I got "severe food poisioning" according to the doctors and was out for almost a week?)

At another theater, they ran Independence day for 24 hours straight it's opening day (meaning the theater was open non-stop for 36 hours). The last show of the opening day was an 11PM show. Everything was counted, staff was sent home, the projectionist left and as I understood it the only people remaining in the building other than customers was a "supervisor" (not true management), regular employee and a rent-a-cop. Picture this, the guys are on board the alien space ship tapping into the alien computer system (miraculously enough Windows compatible!!!) and the countdown is going...7...6...5...4...3..poof, the projector shuts down! Now remember, there is no projectionist in the building, no manager in the building and several hundred pissed off people 10 minutes from finishing the movie at it's climactic point. My friend who was in the theater said a bit of a riot broke out when the announcement was made that they couldn't finish the show because there was no one who knew how to work the projector and all the managers were gone...meaning no refunds and no passes!

Apparently each breaker panel covered TWO projectors and the running machine was shut down on accident.

 

If they'd gone to the auditorium next to that one, they would have run through a screening of a movie called MAKING LOVE which, if you don't remember, dealt with homosexual themes and was quite popular at our theatre in Long Beach, California. I suppose it would have made the movie even more popular.

When I told people about the incident I was fond of saying "We had to let them in. After all, they were showing their stubs."

With apologies for tastelessness (although the story remains true),
-Greg
 

Hey Brad, wasn't that an Apple computer?

_________________________________________

Apparently each breaker panel covered TWO projectors and the running machine was shut down on accident.
_________________________________________

I guess they should have had "someone who knows how to work the projector" there until the show was over, or at least someone who wasn't in such a hurry to get out of there that they flipped that breaker without knowing what it controls!

------------------

Scott

 

-Mike
 

Aaron

Anyway, Mr. VIP walks out a little used fire exit, and finds a guy taking a leak. Mr. VIP grabs him and throws him through the exit door and pulls it shut, so "Leaky" can't get back in. He had to humbly walk around to the front to get his coat, and his wife.

We all really liked Mr. VIP after that, and respected him, too.
 

Manager had complaint of two men in the restroom stall, doing something together that is better done at home.

The manager found the restroom unoccupied, except for one stall, where he saw two pairs of feet, one on top of the other. He rapped on the door and told them they'd better leave, or he was going to call the cops on them.

He then waited outside the restroom for the pair to emerge, and was shocked to discover it was two GIRLS; each about 12!

 

When, as projectionist, I took over responsiblity for this wiring, I found it it in pretty bad shape, much of it exposed above ground. Short-term repairs over former years had largley consisted of jumping ramps with extention-cord wire, rather than digging up the field and finding the short or open.

Over the course of the first year I was there, I began to correct this situation, repairing connections and removing a lot of these jumpers some of which, were anyone's guess as to where they terminated.

One summer night, I had just changed-over onto Reel 2. Heading for the rewind room with Reel 1, I was suprised to see a guy at the door. He was dressed in coveralls and black rubber boots, and was dangling a speaker in front of me. Strangely, it was not one of our current speakers, but one of the old rectangular Devrys that had been replaced a few years back.
"Speaker don't work" he said.
"O.K.", I said "but you didn't have to take it off."
Grabbing a new speaker, flashlight, and tool belt, I glanced at the upper magazine to see how much time I had and asked "Where you parked?"
He looked at me for a second "Parked?" he said, then shrugged "Up there.", pointing to one of the farms on a hill behind the Drive-In.
I realized what that jumper I removed had done.
"Here," I said, handing him a new speaker.
He nodded and headed back up to his farm-house in the rapidly fading light.

Meanwhile, I beat it over to the post and re-connected the mysterious line.

Turned out, during the first year of operation, these people used to complain about the noise late at night -until we ran a line and gave them a speaker on their front porch (facing the screen).

I kept that old Devry for a feild monitor. Had better sound than our new ones.
 

This guy (homeless I think) ran into one of our cinemas danced on the stage and then started to strip and he just ran out again. A patron came out and notified us. Creepy

I've see many sex acts in cinemas even teenagers in G rated movies going for gold if you know what I mean. There is a time and a place for stuff like that.

I can't stand people vomiting in cinemas or parents leaving their babies dirty nappy under the seat. YUCK.

About a year ago a girl ( teenager ) pass out in one of our cinemas. She OD on Vanilla Essence. The ambulance took here to the local hospital. I would like to be a fly on the wall to hear what here parents said to her. HEHEHEH.

A few years ago one of the ushers found a man dead sitting on a toilet. He was checking the toilets at the end of the night. He was there for a few hours and when the ambulance came to pick him up they couldn't lay him flat, he was stiff. I can't remember what he died of.

A lot of the staff reckon they have seen ghosts in our cinemas and our bio boxes. I never believe them as I never seen any before. Oh well.

Cya

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"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
 

I was on vacation, when I returned, the Assistant told me that an elderly gentleman had an accident in the bathroom. He claimed when he was on the toilet, the seat shifted and his testciles got caught between the seat and the bowl. (I'm glad I was on vacation, because I know I would have laughed.)

It was a Friday night, and as usual, the directionless teenagers had nothing better to do than bother the patrons and staff of the local 10 screen movie theater. I was in the office between shows preparing a deposit when one of the supervisors told me something was going on in the lobby. I got on the radio and called my assistant to meet the supervisor and me in the lobby (they were both female). There were a bunch of teenagers milling around and I decided to check the restroom. As soon as I walked in, every head turned to look at me. I said "There better not be any trouble here tonight." Returning to the lobby, I checked in with the asst. and super. Next thing I know, I hear the "N" word and see arms swinging. I grabbed two kids and threw them in opposite directions, the assistant sat on one that was on the floor, the supervisor had one against the wall and was about two inches from his face saying "just calm down". We threw them all out and called the police. You're thinking "was he crazy to get involved?" The lobby was between shows and full of people coming and going. We weren't trying to be brave, we just didn't want to see anyone get hurt. From then on, we had Police officer in the lobby on Friday and Saturday nights. I know some of you must be thinking "big deal, we've had five people shot at our theater". Well, we were all surprised because this was unprecedented for a small town in Maine.

And I have to add my "seen that" to the fecal matter, dirty diapers, underwear, condoms, bjs, and sex in the aisle at various theaters I have worked at through the years.
 

Little did I know that a flock of rather large seagulls had roosted on the roof of the building underneath the "mushroom" cap of the air intake! Several of the birds got sucked into the HVAC system, and got chewed up! After the blower got up to speed, I heard these strange squeaking, and grinding noises coming from the attic.

A few seconds later, all the white and grey feathers from the birds start blowing out all the air vents in the ceiling!
 

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One day I was doing the management thing and had a few people call in sick. Later that evening I was approached by one of the ushers saying "Isn't Johnny supposed to be working tonight?" I said Yes, but he didn't show up. They told me his grandmother was here to pick him up from work. When I went out to tell her that he didn't show up today another usher overheard and said that he was in watching a movie. So of course I go in to that auditorium to get him and find him passed out drunk. I tried to wake him up, but to no avail. Then I got another person so we could take him out of the movie. So we carried him into the lobby, he is still knocked out and we were told by other employees that he said he drank a fifth of JD. We called an ambulance to check him out(by his grandmothers request) and the cops also showed up becuase he was a minor. A few days later I find out that he had severe alcohol poisoning, got his stomach pumped, got arrested that night, and got his probation revoked.

Another one... We have rent-a-cop's at our theatre on weekends and I have seen them take people to the ground on several occasions. Once for swinging on the guard, and the others mostly because they were drunks.

I will post other stories as I remember them.
 

Born On The Fourth July, with it's frequent, rapid panning seemed to make a lot of people sick. The ambulance had to come get somebody just about every night.

It was pretty funny watching these dazed people come walking out of the house, and collapse like a sack of 'taters.

doodie, the nasty, decedents, I'm afraid I've never had the displeasure.

 

This guy calls the front desk at about 5AM and says, "I'm going to check-out, now." and hangs up the phone. The clerk, not thinking twice, punches up the guy's room and checks him out. The maid goes up to the room bright and early to clean the room to find that the guy 'checked-out' allright! He was sitting in the bath tub with his wrists slashed!

The paramedics were able to save him because he cut his wrists the wrong way. (Across, not lengthwise) He got a bill for cleaning and disinfecting the bathroom!

Many more hotel stories, if ppl. want but that's for another time and place!