Old Movie Houses Find Audience

It's good to know people are keeping some of the old, historic movie theaters around ...

In an age of streaming videos and DVDs, the small town Main Street movie theater is thriving in North Dakota, the result of a grass-roots movement to keep storefront movie houses, with their jewel-like marquees and facades of careworn utility, at the center of community life.

From Crosby (population 1,000), near the Saskatchewan border, to Mayville, in the Red River Valley, tickets are about $5, the buttered popcorn $1.25 and the companionship free.

... During the last few weeks I've watched the old movie theater that stood on Main Street in The 'Ville for decades come down. I went there just once when I was a freshman in college -- for "Bean" -- before it closed, and a new, larger, more appealing movie theater opened.

I don't doubt that old theater was well past its prime (Once, in our University archives I came across a photo of students lining up outside the theater to see the premier of "Star Wars" in 1977.) ... But I'll sure miss driving down Main Street, seeing its marquee and waxing poetic about all of the cinema history it had seen.