There were matinees daily and I would frequently watch a double feature before clocking in for my evening shift. Every day I’d come in and riffle through the cans to check for gray soundtracks, an indication of a dye-transfer print. We actually received a mint blue-track nitrate print of Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. Who cared about spontaneous combustion?
There was actually a rep from the City assigned to check for permits. Back then you had to have a permit in order to show a film. She was older than water, a dead-ringer for Estelle Wiinwood in The Producers. When we screened Von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress she insisted that we restrict children under 18 from seeing it. The old bat didn’t make a peep when we showed Emmanuelle or Super-Vixens, but Dietrich was filthy.

We did well, frequently filling the place on the weekends, but business waned. I was canned in 1982 and the place only lasted another year or so before being swept away by home video. It was glorious while it lasted.

Here’s a piece of an original Parkway schedule: