Here is an ad for "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944), the offering at this Loew's Poli, an MGM movie theater, on New Year's Day, 1945. I've also run this graphic on my New England Travels blog this week, as the theater was once a fixture in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, though there were other Loew's Poli theaters in other towns.
We see the special midnight screening of "Meet Me in St. Louis" preview, which was an attraction for war workers on the swing shift who chose to spend their New Year's Eve not in formal wear and paper hats, but at the movies in their work clothes.
We are ever urged to buy war bonds. On this year when we've lost Van Johnson, who is featured in this movie and in this ad, let's take a moment to look back on those those special talents we've lost in 2008. Let's also recall a time when the movie theater was so much a part of our daily lives that it never seemed to close. We could buy bonds here, and give blood here, and sometimes walk away with dishes.
Happy New Year.
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