My mom would take us to the "Bioscope" on a Saturday afternoon, I remember before the movie started they would have "News Reel" which would have news mainly from London and all in black & white, then they would show a short either "Flash Gordon" or a disney short.
Then they would have a 15 minute interval and the movie would start, just enough time to get an ice-cream, my favorite was the Zoom ice-cream that had a collectable disney toy in the bottom of the cone. It was 3 flavours of ice-cream in the shape of a rocket, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate at the top, covered in a bit of real chocolate.
It was this shape but made from real ice-cream!
When we were teenagers we were allowed to go to "The Adelphi" which had been revamped and for the life of me I can't remember the name, I just know they had Kinekor Kiddies Club on a Saturday morning, so you would get in to see a movie for less than on any other day and you would get popcorn and a drink with your ticket.
I remember seeing "Grease" there when it first came out, and my friend Morag and I went to see "Mary Poppins" during the school holidays, there was a lady sitting behind us singing to every song, until we told her to Shut up!!!
Later on we were allowed to go to the Kine Centre in Johannesburg to watch movies, it was across the road from the Carlton Centre and the place to go. When I was at college, I remember going with all the college girls, my friends Heather and Nicole were part of our group, anyway we took up a whole row of seats - but I have no idea what we went to see!
There was a guy on his own who sat in front of us, anyway we were passing popcorn up and down the row and I remember someone dropped it, and it went all over the guy sitting on his own ... he didn't budge, until the lights went out and then he moved seats, probably because we spent the entire time killing ourselves laughing ... poor guy!
I saw my first "No under 18" movie at the Kine Centre - Heather, Nicole and I would catch the bus to college together, Nicole would always entice us into bunking and it was the time "American Gigolo" came out. The usher was checking our tickets and I almost didn't get in, he said to me "You're not 18" and I said I am, he said "No you're not, you're only 17", (and I was), he must have seen the shock on my face and just let me go in! He never queried Heather and Nicole who were the same age as me, but I guess I just never wore as much makeup.
I just found this really interesting web page on Movie Theatres in Johannesburg > https://johannesburg1912.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/theatres-in-early-johannesburg/
My dad owned a Movie house in Yeoville and in this article it talks about the "Bug House" in Yeoville, which must be where he got it from. ‘Bughouse’ bioscope in Yeoville - My mom and dad lived in Fortesque road in Yeoville when they got married in 1956 and I remember my dad saying he owned a bioscope, we still had the projector when we were kids and loads of Black and white TV shorts from America on film called "My little Margie".
Before the Kine Center, we would sometimes go to His Majesty's or The Colosseum in town to see movies, at one stage they were showing all Elvis's movies at His Majesty's and my mom love Elvis so we were dragged along to see them, however I grew very fond of Elvis!!!
If you have read a lot of my blog, my father was in construction and had his own construction company, he helped build his Majesty's in the 40's and I have a photo somewhere of him shaking hands with General Smuts.
Would love to hear your memories of the Movie houses in Johannesburg.
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