A night at the movies that wasn't

I went out last night with one of my roomates to see the advance premier of Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the Loews Theatre at 32nd Street and 2nd Avenue. We got there for 5:45 P.M. for a movie that started at 7:00 P.M. The movie was advertised in the New York Post as a free deal for the readers. There were no advanced tickets, all you had to do was line up.

We were told our chances of getting in were quite good considering the theatre held 673 people and was the largest theatre the movie house had.

Between 6:00 P.M. there were quite a few people who showed up and got in line in front of us because "they knew them". I would say these people cost us a spot in the that theatre. These people cost us a spot even though we showed upo more than an hour before the theatre opened and they simply "knew" someone in line.

I also blame the theatre for not pre-distributing tickets to those that showed up. Say at 5:00 P.M. they should have started handing out tickets to those in line who showed up. This guarentees the people that stayed in line for a long time would know they were guarenteed to be in the theatre. Also, this would have let the people waiting in line, like myself, what the chances were of getting into the theatre.

This would have also helped out the movie theatre who, after running out of tickets, would probably have had some of the crowd go and see other movies and pay and admission.

Not only did the movie theatre not do the above, the movie theatre didn't even let others see another movie. All of this despite one worker who said our chances of getting in were very good.

I feel cheated by the movie theatre on this.

Others also felt cheated as well. Twentieth Century Fox, the production company of the movie, handed out free passes to a lot of its workers and clients to see the show. These clients were told they had free passes to see the movie. Therefore, these people thought they were guarenteed to see the movie. Despite that, these same people had to line up with all of us with the newspaper advertisements. This despite, as one person in line told me, they were promised advanced tickets with this pass to get in for a job well done. Yet she didn't end up seeing the movie either.

To Loews Theatre, the New York Post, and 20th Century Fox: A BIG THUMBS DOWN on this one!

I do hope the companies got their pictures of the crowd lined up for their promotional pictures.