Now, if, like me, you were in college (or university, as they say back East) when Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) in "Annie Hall" announced that he had to see a picture "exactly from the start to the finish," and you thought that made perfect sense, it seemed bizarre to imagine a time when people had to be encouraged to show up before the feature started: "No one... BUT NO ONE... will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance..." (It turns out Paramount had done something similar with Hitchcock's "Vertigo" just two years earlier: "It's a Hitchcock thriller... You should see it from the beginning!") As the proprietor of the Opening Shot Project, which emphasizes the importance of the first shot in setting up and framing certain films, the idea that somebody would watch a movie without having seen the beginning is incomprehensible to me. Why cheat yourself of the joys of discovery and development? Or just knowing what's going on in the story?

"It is required that you see PSYCHO from the very beginning! The manager of this theater has been instructed, at the risk of his life, not to admit to the theatre any persons after the picture starts.

"Any spurious attempts to enter by side doors, fire escapes, or ventilating ducts will be met by force.

"The entire objective of this extraordinary policy, of course, is to help you enjoy PSYCHO more."

-- Alfred Hitchcock

I think I remember one time when my mom dropped off me and my friends at the budget Lynn Twin theater in the middle of a matinee showing of "Call Me Bwana" (Gordon Douglas, 1963 -- must've been a re-release) with Bob Hope and Anita Eckberg, which was playing on a double-feature with "Beau Geste" (Doublas Heyes, 1966), with Guy Stockwell, Doug McClure and Leslie Nielsen. But that was a Saturday kiddie matinee, and we all knew it was just a form of weekend daycare. (Incidentally, I thought the Bob Hope movie was terrible -- though not as painful for me to sit through as Stanley Kramer's 1963 "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," which also had me cringing and grinding my teeth as a kid.)

For years I've heard that it was commonplace in earlier decades for people to simply "go to the movies" -- no matter what was playing, or what time it was showing. In my attempts to learn more about this strange ritual from a bygone era, I came across this essay by Gary Cokins on the origin of the phrase, "This is where we came in." Mr. Cokin writes: