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Marlow Theatre
The following information was submitted by Marc, a former resident of Marlow Heights, who also worked at the theater from 1968-1970. Read on for some interesting facts and first person account:
“I worked at this theatre from 1968 to 1970 as an Usher. As one of the "enforcers" we had more fun than anything else. Besides, free movies and all the stale popcorn you could eat were only 2 of the benefits. There were others for young teenage boys, but that would be more gloating then reminiscing.
The Marlow Theatre opened in 1963 and will billed as one of the most modern movie houses in southern Maryland, owned by the Wineland Theatre group. Wineland owned the popular drive-in theatres around the southern Maryland area at the time. Eventually, as his age progressed, he ended up selling off most, if not all his drive in theatre properties. He kept his movie houses since they were more profitable. The Marlow Theatre was sold to Lowe's in 1990. It was about that time that the building was converted into the multi-plex theme we now enjoy.
The original Marlow Theatre housed 720 seats in one huge auditorium. The sound system was comprised of 10 foot speakers behind the screen, which was more of a mesh fabric than a solid surface. This allowed the audio to travel straight through the screen and into the audience. The price of a ticket was normally around 75 cents for adults and 35 cents for children under 11, with some special engagements reaching as high as $1.25 for an adult admission.
There were two movie projectors in the booth, both powered by carbon rods to produce the high volume of light needed to project the image onto the massive screen. The temps in the movie booth would easily reach into the mid-80s in the winter and mid-90s in the summer due to the heat these projectors would put out on their own. The projectionist would literally have to live in the booth, not much larger than 12 x 12, during his shift to ensure that the projector's carbon rods didn't break or burn too low during a reel. And since this was considered not only their workshop, but their living quarters too, there was all the home comforts, such as a refrigerator, hot plate, small sink, and a toilet (that's right, a toilet). Films arrived in metal film cans, as they still do today for the old style movie projection systems. These smaller reels would have to be transferred onto huge reels, which would hold approximately 5 or 6 smaller reels of film. That meant that the projectionist had to splice each film reel together as they were transferred over to the larger reel. And at the end of a film's run, the reverse had to be done to return the film back to the distributor. This was a ton of man-hours, but what else was a projectionist going to do with their free time.
The marquee was the major eye catcher. This is where all the movie information could be seen from far away. There were 4 lines, each capable of holding about 24 letters. Each letter was made of red plastic, measuring 2' x 2', that would hook onto the rails that ran along each line of the marquee. In that space we had to show the name of the film, the main star(s) of the film, including the rating, and if space provided, the movie times. We would scoot along the ledge, that measured less than 2', and change the marquee on a weekly basis mostly on Wednesday nights since the films would normally change on Thursdays. And it didn't matter what the weather would be... rain, snow, bitter cold, etc. The show must go on. Our boss (and theatre manager, Mrs. Ruth Becker) kept an eye on the smallest details. There was no room for misspellings, or lines that were not perfectly centered. All that fun for a $1.40 per hr wage.
Concessions have never been the same. The butter for popcorn was real stick butter, not yellow oil. And the price of a large popcorn was only 50 cents. Beverages were purchased from vending machines for 5 cents. And other treats were just as affordable, whether from the concession stand or vending machines, at an average of 35 cents per item.
Whenever I return to PG County on a visit I make it a point to retrace my old footsteps. There are some photos of the old theatre on the classmates.com website. Hope you find this interesting. Again... great website. Thanks for sparking some memories.”
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