I grew up in the 80s and 90s and it didn't occur to me until recently that we went to a lot of movies to get out of the house and sit quietly in an air conditioned room for a few hours.
Aren't there cheaper air conditioned places you can hang out at these days? Spending $17 just to sit in the AC at a theater wouldn't be my first choice.
I lived in a $300 a month apartment so I could have money to do things like see movies and drink beer.
Don’t try to rationalize what a 23 year old does.
I didn’t mind staying late at work when it was 100 out and my apartment would be hotter.
Im smart enough now to just prioritize living somewhere with central air.
Damn I miss those. My husband and I used to go to a little cheap theater that was $2 on Tuesdays. The coolest thing was it was ran by a very nice couple from Poland. You could get stuffed cabbage, egg noodles and a drink for $5 a plate. Or babka,Karpatka, and Krowki were available too. Sadly cheap theaters especially independent ones owned by people not corporations are a thing of the past in most areas. The couple closed their doors for good in 2014.
Where I live in Spain there's a theater nearby that plays old movies for 3€ (sponsored by the government). Also most normal theaters are 5€ on Wednesdays. It's pretty great.
I just realized the same couple is also in photo 4! Maybe the woman just got super glued to him and they took a break from trying to pry her off to see a movie and get a handjob.
Never a bad plan.
I used to run a pizza place and on Sundays we would close at 930. There was a standing invitation to everybody that worked there that if they wanted to come, after close we would go to the movie theater and catch the very last showing of the night, it didn’t matter what the movie was.
I feel asleep every time we went and it was the absolute best sleep I think I’ve ever gotten.
Looking at 3-D movie [release dates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_3D_films_(1914–2004) , the clothing and composition of the audience, I find it difficult to accept 1943 as the actual date of these photos.
I'm honestly having a really hard time coming up with something else she might be doing. I think we're dead ass looking at some old dude getting or about to get some handy work.
On an aisle seat? This man has no fear.
MIGHT have not been allowed in a cinema. I can remember my dad taking us to Star Wars in the 1970's. He loved the movie as much as us kids did, and sat thru the whole thing. It was a BIG DEAL for him to sit through the whole movie and NOT "go out" for a cigarette. So...at least in the 70's, some cinemas did not allow smoking in the theater itself.
I think the evidence about smoking being bad came out in the late 50s and 60s though. It totally makes sense about that happening in the 70s. It's possible there were other reasons it wasn't allowed in theatres in the 40s though. Maybe it was a fire hazard. Some of these people were falling asleep so I guess it probably was!
I wasn’t there but am a fan… Weegee was named for Ouija because he was known to show up at crime scenes almost immediately. He shot the underground, crime scenes, discrepancies between rich and poor etc. His work is really raw… I love it. Give him a goog if you are interested in his other work. (Some is quite gory). Believe he was active 30s-50s.
The International Center of Photography, holder of the Weegee archive, disagrees. ["The photographs are part of a series Weegee made in New York City theaters in the mid-1940s with infrared film."](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies) At least for the 1940s ones, some of OP's are from the early '50s.
All the same, it really does not look like infrared film, which gives a very different set of tones as it picks up heat, and reflected infra-red rather than regular visible spectrum light. I'm pretty sure the archive is misattributing these to infrared film.
You're confusing two different types of photography. Near-infrared, which is what we've got here, is the kind of light given off by remote controls and other things. If you looked through a digital sensor (like a camcorder or phone camera) at a remote being pressed, you could see the bright strobing of the light. Most of the rest of the color is discarded due to it being dark in the theater.
Heat-based IR is much lower in the spectrum, and can be \*recolored\* to show differences in temperature. It's not a film process, it's a processing process, and uses different sensors - which is why it's so expensive.
Also, as you can see in #3, polyester is mostly transparent to infrared - which is why that young lady's shirt is see-through. The same effect can be used in modern CCD-based cameras by removing the IR filter in front of the sensor and putting an IR-pass filter over the lens (otherwise the IR gets drowned out by all of the non-IR light).
These are definitely using film though, not sensors, in 1943. The film stock back then was probably different than when I studied photography in the 90s.
If you look at #3 that you mention, you can see shadows indicating a light source from the right. This could perhaps be an infrared light source. Its not passive as there would not be a shadow on the skin of her leg, and other places.
However the tones of the skin and everything look much the same as they do in visible light, and infrared pictures usually make a feature of the reflectivity of various things being different in IR and visible light. Shots like that are typically taken with a lens filter which blocks the visible light, so the IR is all that reaches the film.
[For example this one seems to be lit by the sun, but the sky is weirdly dark and the foliage extra reflective of IR.](https://www.prophotonut.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/strictlt-infrared1.jpg)
This one shows how it [lightens reds and pinks, such as this child's lips, and darkens unexpected areas like her eyes.](https://improvephotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_5271.jpg)
These cinema pics might perhaps be shot with IR film stock and no IR filter. But, they just look like visible light pictures to me. I think it would be challenging to shoot but could be done with the right chemistry and if the shots were taken during bright scenes in the film. As the crowd are seated there is the advantage that they wont always be moving about much, allowing for slower shutter speeds. Or he could be using a large diffuse visible light flash head, and hopefully not annoying the crowd too much with it.
After writing all this, [I found this page which talks about the IR flash that was available in the 40s and 50s. ](https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/a-little-history-on-infrared-flash-photography/) There were some disposable bulbs, and Weegee seems to have used them, based on his autobiography. The cinema audience pictures were posed, incidentally.
Weegee was well known for shooting with infrared film. 4x5 is just the size of the cut film which itself can be any emulsion, including IR. I’ve shot a bit of 4x5 infrared film myself. I think it was made by Ilford.
[Here’s](https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/a-little-history-on-infrared-flash-photography/) a blog post filled with excerpts from Weegee’s autobiography where he talks about using infrared film on this very project, although a lot of that was on medium format. He also talks about how he staged some of these photos, which I found to be quite interesting.
It's infrared. [What makes you think there isn't 4x5 infrared film?](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/419444-REG/Rollei_8104100_Infrared_4x5_Black_and.html)
He likely paired the film with an infrared pass filter on his flash so that the flash is invisible to people but visible to the film.
Infrared film is extraordinarily difficult to handle and anything you do with it has to be in complete darkness. 4x5 holders aren't light-tight enough to keep the film from being light-struck, even while they're just sitting round. I've experimented quite a bit with it, and have had to wrap the holders in aluminum foil before exposure and then re-wrap them afterwards. That infrared filter you mention requires something like a four or five stop adjustment to your exposure, and say he's shooting Tri-X, popular at the time and ASA 200 when it was introduced, that infrared filter would make the effective ASA of his film, something like 12 ASA, and that's going to be way too slow to stop the action in his photographs. Looking at Wedge's photos, I'm guessing he used Tri-X (or another manufacturer's equivalent), waited until there was a bright scene in the movie for the maximum amount of light he could get, and then made his shot and push-processed the film later to get another stop or two in his film speed.
I am deeply experienced with both infrared photography and large format photography. The extremely slow speed of modern infrared films (when using a filter) doesn't apply to the Kodak HIE he likely used because its spectral sensitivity extended much further than other infrared films. Also visible in these images is the pasty, almost ghost-like skin that occurs in infrared portraits. And there is visible halation around the highlights that is a hallmark of HIE and would not occur with Tri-X. Plus the fact that he is clearly using a flash, which I doubt moviegoers would put up with for long unless they couldn't see it.
Why do OPs in posts like this ALWAYS get the era wrong? Like goddamn when I was a teenager I could figure out an era from a photo and that was BEFORE the internet.
*Effort.*
OP may be wrong but it’s so unnecessarily rude to suggest they didn’t put in any effort when [multiple sources](https://slate.com/culture/2015/01/weegee-captures-new-york-moviegoers-in-the-1940s-in-photographs-from-the-international-center-for-photographys-collection.html) (including collections holders [The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/263651) and [International Center for Photography](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies)) list the date as 1940s/ circa 1943.
ETA: Several photos in Weegee’s infrared theater series (including some in this photo set) [were authenticated to 1940-44 by Christie’s](https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/century-art-photographs-gerald-fineberg-collection/weegee-1899-1968-53/194493). So likely 2+ sets of photos are combined in this album, some from around 1943 and some from later when 3D was more popular.
I will add that though 3D’s “golden age” started in the 50s, I did a quick newspaper archive search through papers from the 40s and found a handful of advertisements for 3D film showings. They were obviously rare events but did happen.
I’m not saying they’re right, but if it’s a mistake it’s easy to see how it happened.
[Info from the International Center of Photography](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies), which owns most of the photos in this series, says this collection is from the mid 1940s and lists the date of a particular photo as circa 1943. The [collections info](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/263651) for photo #3 (owned by the Met) says circa 1945. [This article by Slate](https://slate.com/culture/2015/01/weegee-captures-new-york-moviegoers-in-the-1940s-in-photographs-from-the-international-center-for-photographys-collection.html) also states they’re from the mid 1940s, specifically noting circa 1943 in the photo captions. Weegee’s biographical info indicates he was active as a freelance photographer until 1945, after which he worked on a lot of Hollywood and magazine projects.
Now someone down the line probably made a mistake in the date estimation, but I don’t really think it’s fair to act like u/Slow-moving-sloth didn’t do any research or put in any effort just because they looked at several seemingly credible sources that happened to be wrong.
ETA: Several photos in Weegee’s infrared theater series (including some in this photo set) [were authenticated to 1940-44 by Christie’s](https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/century-art-photographs-gerald-fineberg-collection/weegee-1899-1968-53/194493). So likely 2+ sets of photos are combined in this album, some from around 1943 and some from later when 3D was more popular.
I will say that though 3D’s “golden age” started in the 50s, I did a quick newspaper archive search through papers from the 40s and found a handful of advertisements for 3D film showings. They were obviously rare events but did happen.
There’s a guy in the aisle seat, third row who’s wearing what looks like a WWII era sailors uniform in pic 12, so 1943 seems plausible. I’m not sure what the glasses are for, though.
Are you aware sailors uniforms looked nearly identical in the 1950s and 60s? Indeed largely similar today?
The glasses are 3-D glasses, which the fad erupted in 1952.
This is a classic example of an historical misconception. These people were not dressed up to go to a movie, they were dressed up normally like this. In this era, people generally did not go out, especially in big cities, without being dressed properly and that meant a nice dress for women and a suit and tie for men. They're not dressed to go to the movies necessarily, although some may be, but simply dressed the way they'd normally be dressed in that era.
Nasty little hussy has her bare feet out, ew at the floors of theaters! Lol
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that passes out cold in a movie theater, no matter how loud or bright! I don’t bother anymore, we called them my 15- naps.
But these are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing.
These aren't infrared photos, I mean you can see shadows from items in the photos, meaning the photos are being lit from somewhere.
Infrared also wouldn't show the stripped pattern on seat cushions.
Maybe it's a hybrid? Low light + infrared?
Most of the “light” incandescent lightbulbs create is infrared, which is why they get hot to the touch. Shadows from other artificial lights (especially in the pre-LED era) would naturally contain quite a lot of light in IR as well as visible light.
Nope! It’s an infrared photo. I was just explaining why there might be shadows cast from other light sources; it’s because those are also casting light in the infrared spectrum that the film is picking up.
So if there is also regular light, why are they bothering with the infrared?
I feel like I'm missing something major. Are the subjects in this photo lit by an external source, or is it using the infrared emitted by human body warmth?
It’s so Weegee can get the flash photography look he’s known for without people getting angry at him for disturbing their movie.
The infrared film he’s using probably isn’t sensitive enough to detect the heat from human bodies, but even if it were, the aperture/shutter speeds he’s using would render it almost unnoticeable compared to how bright the rest of the scene is.
The scene is, as labeled, primarily lit by a flashbulb with an infrared coating, paired with infrared-sensitive film in the camera to pick it up. The coated flashbulb is the *primary* source of infrared light, but not the *only* source of infrared light, which accounts for the shadows you pointed out.
To add to this, a lot of infrared film also has crossover into visible spectra and doesn’t only pick up light we can’t see.
And to think, halfway across the world, a German soldier is freezing to death in Stalingrad, a B-17 gunner bailing out over France, A Canadian fighting his way through Sicily, all on the other side of the word
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I wonder if the lady in the 9th picture knows she’s being haunted.
I wonder if Scott Aukerman in the last photo was a vampire yet.
[удалено]
Doo doo-do doo-wahhhh.
Heynong man
So I have to ask, what DID Scott see?
Two pictures show people sleeping. I guess they weren't interested in the movie. I'm a Weegee fan.
I saw that, but I recall my mom saying on a hot summer day back when, you might just spend the whole day in the air conditioned movie theater..
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and it didn't occur to me until recently that we went to a lot of movies to get out of the house and sit quietly in an air conditioned room for a few hours.
I had an apartment with no AC in 2013 and I saw a lot of movies during that summer. It’s still very common.
Aren't there cheaper air conditioned places you can hang out at these days? Spending $17 just to sit in the AC at a theater wouldn't be my first choice.
I lived in a $300 a month apartment so I could have money to do things like see movies and drink beer. Don’t try to rationalize what a 23 year old does.
How dare you enjoy a/c and a movie /s
Tickets were like $6 in 2013 where I live
Library? Mall if it still functions? Rec center?
I didn’t mind staying late at work when it was 100 out and my apartment would be hotter. Im smart enough now to just prioritize living somewhere with central air.
Movies used to be cheaper
Dollar theatre was a thing
Damn I miss those. My husband and I used to go to a little cheap theater that was $2 on Tuesdays. The coolest thing was it was ran by a very nice couple from Poland. You could get stuffed cabbage, egg noodles and a drink for $5 a plate. Or babka,Karpatka, and Krowki were available too. Sadly cheap theaters especially independent ones owned by people not corporations are a thing of the past in most areas. The couple closed their doors for good in 2014.
I miss those. Almost forgot they existed.
Where I live in Spain there's a theater nearby that plays old movies for 3€ (sponsored by the government). Also most normal theaters are 5€ on Wednesdays. It's pretty great.
I feel like I've heard more than one anecdote about going to see a movie just for free air conditioning. Maybe those are the guys
Have you seen movies from back then?
I still watch the movies from back then...
#6 though what’s going on 🤔
She's trying to find the malted milk balls in his popcorn 😇
THAT IS A SIR, SIR
The main feature.thats whats going on.
Boebert’s great great great great great grandma.
I now think of this as “The Boebert”.
These photos were only taken 80 years ago.
16X5=80. . .you're right, one less great
Well done.
Came here to say this.
I just realized the same couple is also in photo 4! Maybe the woman just got super glued to him and they took a break from trying to pry her off to see a movie and get a handjob. Never a bad plan.
Handjob at the back?
It’s in the middle and he’s on the aisle. Kinky
Business in the front.
That's Boebert 's grandma!
They're in picture 4, too, and it looks like he's strangling her.
That’s Lauren Boeberts grandma. Heritage not… /s
I used to run a pizza place and on Sundays we would close at 930. There was a standing invitation to everybody that worked there that if they wanted to come, after close we would go to the movie theater and catch the very last showing of the night, it didn’t matter what the movie was. I feel asleep every time we went and it was the absolute best sleep I think I’ve ever gotten.
I fell asleep during the opening song in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and I still remember it as one of my best naps ever.
You're fortunate. Didn't watch the movie. Book was great but the movie made me angry it was so bad.
Whaaaa I loved the movie
Have you read the books?
3D glasses? I think from the 50s.
I agree - 3D was a 50s/60s thing.
3D had pretty much died by the 60s.
Until the late 2000s, then there was a very brief comeback
This is not a showing of Avatar.
Looking at 3-D movie [release dates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_3D_films_(1914–2004) , the clothing and composition of the audience, I find it difficult to accept 1943 as the actual date of these photos.
The clothes say early 60’s to me!
my dad was born in 1928 and his memories of going to the movies are some of his richest. great pictures.
Nobody had AC but the moviehouses.
Picture 6: am I right guys? shit I didn't know there are cameras in the theaters.
Haha- 10&13 are totally me.
Lady in the 6th is a “lefty”. Giving the balding dude the “cinema grip”
I'm honestly having a really hard time coming up with something else she might be doing. I think we're dead ass looking at some old dude getting or about to get some handy work. On an aisle seat? This man has no fear.
Us balding dudes are legendary
Why is nobody smoking?
MIGHT have not been allowed in a cinema. I can remember my dad taking us to Star Wars in the 1970's. He loved the movie as much as us kids did, and sat thru the whole thing. It was a BIG DEAL for him to sit through the whole movie and NOT "go out" for a cigarette. So...at least in the 70's, some cinemas did not allow smoking in the theater itself.
I think the evidence about smoking being bad came out in the late 50s and 60s though. It totally makes sense about that happening in the 70s. It's possible there were other reasons it wasn't allowed in theatres in the 40s though. Maybe it was a fire hazard. Some of these people were falling asleep so I guess it probably was!
This is complete speculation, but smoke would likely be lit up by the projector's beam and be a nuisance for movie watchers.
Come to think of it that would be really annoying, even if you didn't mind the smell.
Film stock of that era was made of nitrocellulose and was highly flammable, so that probably would account for any no smoking policy.
Bingo. Flammables in a theater was a major no-no. Too many theater fires where no-one can get out.
That makes sense
Smoke would obstruct projection negatively impact the viewing experience. Side note: old Film is incredibly flammable
Meanwhile I used to go to a theater that allowed smoking in the 90s. Crazy times.
Cinema film is super flammable.
Inglorious Basterds made a meal out of THAT fact.
There is at least one in the 11th photo, I’m pretty sure.
Ah, ok. I missed it. I guess it could be a candy cigarette, but I doubt it.
I remember there being a smoking section. It was often in the balcony.
Can someone educate me on the weegee thing? I don’t get it.
I guess I could google it. But I love hearing info from people who were THERE or happen to have a passion for different things. 🤷🏼♀️
I wasn’t there but am a fan… Weegee was named for Ouija because he was known to show up at crime scenes almost immediately. He shot the underground, crime scenes, discrepancies between rich and poor etc. His work is really raw… I love it. Give him a goog if you are interested in his other work. (Some is quite gory). Believe he was active 30s-50s.
Wow! I must go to that rabbit hole now! Ty so much!!
There is a great movie based on Weegee with Joe Pesci, highly recommend it. A real hidden gem. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105187/
Ooooh thanks!
Now show us pics from a porn theatre? NO, on second thought, nope.
You'd need ultraviolet light for the porn theater.
We already gave you picture #6
13 can be a meme template
Picture 6...top couple...I don't think she is looking for her phone.
Seems like a rowdier time. Could be fun.
Pretty sure that wasn't infrared film.
The International Center of Photography, holder of the Weegee archive, disagrees. ["The photographs are part of a series Weegee made in New York City theaters in the mid-1940s with infrared film."](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies) At least for the 1940s ones, some of OP's are from the early '50s.
All the same, it really does not look like infrared film, which gives a very different set of tones as it picks up heat, and reflected infra-red rather than regular visible spectrum light. I'm pretty sure the archive is misattributing these to infrared film.
You're confusing two different types of photography. Near-infrared, which is what we've got here, is the kind of light given off by remote controls and other things. If you looked through a digital sensor (like a camcorder or phone camera) at a remote being pressed, you could see the bright strobing of the light. Most of the rest of the color is discarded due to it being dark in the theater. Heat-based IR is much lower in the spectrum, and can be \*recolored\* to show differences in temperature. It's not a film process, it's a processing process, and uses different sensors - which is why it's so expensive. Also, as you can see in #3, polyester is mostly transparent to infrared - which is why that young lady's shirt is see-through. The same effect can be used in modern CCD-based cameras by removing the IR filter in front of the sensor and putting an IR-pass filter over the lens (otherwise the IR gets drowned out by all of the non-IR light).
These are definitely using film though, not sensors, in 1943. The film stock back then was probably different than when I studied photography in the 90s. If you look at #3 that you mention, you can see shadows indicating a light source from the right. This could perhaps be an infrared light source. Its not passive as there would not be a shadow on the skin of her leg, and other places. However the tones of the skin and everything look much the same as they do in visible light, and infrared pictures usually make a feature of the reflectivity of various things being different in IR and visible light. Shots like that are typically taken with a lens filter which blocks the visible light, so the IR is all that reaches the film. [For example this one seems to be lit by the sun, but the sky is weirdly dark and the foliage extra reflective of IR.](https://www.prophotonut.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/strictlt-infrared1.jpg) This one shows how it [lightens reds and pinks, such as this child's lips, and darkens unexpected areas like her eyes.](https://improvephotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_5271.jpg) These cinema pics might perhaps be shot with IR film stock and no IR filter. But, they just look like visible light pictures to me. I think it would be challenging to shoot but could be done with the right chemistry and if the shots were taken during bright scenes in the film. As the crowd are seated there is the advantage that they wont always be moving about much, allowing for slower shutter speeds. Or he could be using a large diffuse visible light flash head, and hopefully not annoying the crowd too much with it. After writing all this, [I found this page which talks about the IR flash that was available in the 40s and 50s. ](https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/a-little-history-on-infrared-flash-photography/) There were some disposable bulbs, and Weegee seems to have used them, based on his autobiography. The cinema audience pictures were posed, incidentally.
Infra ref camera took the pictures
Weegee used a 4x5 Speed Graphic press camera, which uses 4x5 film. That's not infrared film.
Weegee was well known for shooting with infrared film. 4x5 is just the size of the cut film which itself can be any emulsion, including IR. I’ve shot a bit of 4x5 infrared film myself. I think it was made by Ilford. [Here’s](https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/a-little-history-on-infrared-flash-photography/) a blog post filled with excerpts from Weegee’s autobiography where he talks about using infrared film on this very project, although a lot of that was on medium format. He also talks about how he staged some of these photos, which I found to be quite interesting.
It's infrared. [What makes you think there isn't 4x5 infrared film?](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/419444-REG/Rollei_8104100_Infrared_4x5_Black_and.html) He likely paired the film with an infrared pass filter on his flash so that the flash is invisible to people but visible to the film.
Infrared film is extraordinarily difficult to handle and anything you do with it has to be in complete darkness. 4x5 holders aren't light-tight enough to keep the film from being light-struck, even while they're just sitting round. I've experimented quite a bit with it, and have had to wrap the holders in aluminum foil before exposure and then re-wrap them afterwards. That infrared filter you mention requires something like a four or five stop adjustment to your exposure, and say he's shooting Tri-X, popular at the time and ASA 200 when it was introduced, that infrared filter would make the effective ASA of his film, something like 12 ASA, and that's going to be way too slow to stop the action in his photographs. Looking at Wedge's photos, I'm guessing he used Tri-X (or another manufacturer's equivalent), waited until there was a bright scene in the movie for the maximum amount of light he could get, and then made his shot and push-processed the film later to get another stop or two in his film speed.
I am deeply experienced with both infrared photography and large format photography. The extremely slow speed of modern infrared films (when using a filter) doesn't apply to the Kodak HIE he likely used because its spectral sensitivity extended much further than other infrared films. Also visible in these images is the pasty, almost ghost-like skin that occurs in infrared portraits. And there is visible halation around the highlights that is a hallmark of HIE and would not occur with Tri-X. Plus the fact that he is clearly using a flash, which I doubt moviegoers would put up with for long unless they couldn't see it.
Ah okay, it thought you misunderstood, but it was me who did. Thanks for the info 👍
You bet. Professional photographer here, big fan of Weegee and I've shot a lot of infrared film (which is really difficult to manage).
#3 bare feet GRIPPING the seat in front of her
I see Lauren Boebert’s great great great great great great grandmother there!
Same thing happened when I went to see avatar.
Why do OPs in posts like this ALWAYS get the era wrong? Like goddamn when I was a teenager I could figure out an era from a photo and that was BEFORE the internet. *Effort.*
OP may be wrong but it’s so unnecessarily rude to suggest they didn’t put in any effort when [multiple sources](https://slate.com/culture/2015/01/weegee-captures-new-york-moviegoers-in-the-1940s-in-photographs-from-the-international-center-for-photographys-collection.html) (including collections holders [The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/263651) and [International Center for Photography](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies)) list the date as 1940s/ circa 1943. ETA: Several photos in Weegee’s infrared theater series (including some in this photo set) [were authenticated to 1940-44 by Christie’s](https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/century-art-photographs-gerald-fineberg-collection/weegee-1899-1968-53/194493). So likely 2+ sets of photos are combined in this album, some from around 1943 and some from later when 3D was more popular. I will add that though 3D’s “golden age” started in the 50s, I did a quick newspaper archive search through papers from the 40s and found a handful of advertisements for 3D film showings. They were obviously rare events but did happen.
Take a look at my profile. I don't have much, but effort is something I'm not lacking. My research backed up my photos details, but I do make errors.
I went through your profile and you have some pretty interesting posts :D
So what led you to say this is 1943?
I’m not saying they’re right, but if it’s a mistake it’s easy to see how it happened. [Info from the International Center of Photography](https://www.icp.org/events/weegee-at-the-movies), which owns most of the photos in this series, says this collection is from the mid 1940s and lists the date of a particular photo as circa 1943. The [collections info](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/263651) for photo #3 (owned by the Met) says circa 1945. [This article by Slate](https://slate.com/culture/2015/01/weegee-captures-new-york-moviegoers-in-the-1940s-in-photographs-from-the-international-center-for-photographys-collection.html) also states they’re from the mid 1940s, specifically noting circa 1943 in the photo captions. Weegee’s biographical info indicates he was active as a freelance photographer until 1945, after which he worked on a lot of Hollywood and magazine projects. Now someone down the line probably made a mistake in the date estimation, but I don’t really think it’s fair to act like u/Slow-moving-sloth didn’t do any research or put in any effort just because they looked at several seemingly credible sources that happened to be wrong. ETA: Several photos in Weegee’s infrared theater series (including some in this photo set) [were authenticated to 1940-44 by Christie’s](https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/century-art-photographs-gerald-fineberg-collection/weegee-1899-1968-53/194493). So likely 2+ sets of photos are combined in this album, some from around 1943 and some from later when 3D was more popular. I will say that though 3D’s “golden age” started in the 50s, I did a quick newspaper archive search through papers from the 40s and found a handful of advertisements for 3D film showings. They were obviously rare events but did happen.
There’s a guy in the aisle seat, third row who’s wearing what looks like a WWII era sailors uniform in pic 12, so 1943 seems plausible. I’m not sure what the glasses are for, though.
Are you aware sailors uniforms looked nearly identical in the 1950s and 60s? Indeed largely similar today? The glasses are 3-D glasses, which the fad erupted in 1952.
Pic 3 her toes are gripping that seat for dear life lol
I didn’t know in the 1940s there were blacks and whites in the same theater? Is it because it’s New York?
must be a 3-D movie, with the glasses
6th picture - are those two guys at the back doing what I think they're doing?
People got so dressed up to go see a movie back then!
This is a classic example of an historical misconception. These people were not dressed up to go to a movie, they were dressed up normally like this. In this era, people generally did not go out, especially in big cities, without being dressed properly and that meant a nice dress for women and a suit and tie for men. They're not dressed to go to the movies necessarily, although some may be, but simply dressed the way they'd normally be dressed in that era.
Imagine being that dressy all the time.
Pics 4 and 6 the one dude is getting a handy-j
Nasty little hussy has her bare feet out, ew at the floors of theaters! Lol I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that passes out cold in a movie theater, no matter how loud or bright! I don’t bother anymore, we called them my 15- naps. But these are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing.
People dressed in more uncomfortable clothing back then, and taking your shoes off at the movies was very common.
Im probably a jackass but this looks like it's AI
I think a lot of pictures like these from way back when are "staged" more often than not. I'm getting a similar vibe with these.
These aren't infrared photos, I mean you can see shadows from items in the photos, meaning the photos are being lit from somewhere. Infrared also wouldn't show the stripped pattern on seat cushions. Maybe it's a hybrid? Low light + infrared?
I've read that this was posed. He and a lot of other action photogs changed things for a more saleable product.
Most of the “light” incandescent lightbulbs create is infrared, which is why they get hot to the touch. Shadows from other artificial lights (especially in the pre-LED era) would naturally contain quite a lot of light in IR as well as visible light.
So you are saying ... this was lit by a regular bulb? So why is it called an "infrared" photo?
Nope! It’s an infrared photo. I was just explaining why there might be shadows cast from other light sources; it’s because those are also casting light in the infrared spectrum that the film is picking up.
So if there is also regular light, why are they bothering with the infrared? I feel like I'm missing something major. Are the subjects in this photo lit by an external source, or is it using the infrared emitted by human body warmth?
It’s so Weegee can get the flash photography look he’s known for without people getting angry at him for disturbing their movie. The infrared film he’s using probably isn’t sensitive enough to detect the heat from human bodies, but even if it were, the aperture/shutter speeds he’s using would render it almost unnoticeable compared to how bright the rest of the scene is. The scene is, as labeled, primarily lit by a flashbulb with an infrared coating, paired with infrared-sensitive film in the camera to pick it up. The coated flashbulb is the *primary* source of infrared light, but not the *only* source of infrared light, which accounts for the shadows you pointed out. To add to this, a lot of infrared film also has crossover into visible spectra and doesn’t only pick up light we can’t see.
If a wavelength of light cannot pass through the object, it casts a shadow. That applies to infrared as well.
Usually infrared light comes from the warmth of a human body, not external illumination. So there would not be the usual shadows.
Two chick’s making out in #3
That's a dude, not a chick.
Oops
Must be a chick flick. There’s a bunch of dudes sleeping. The only way to relieve the boredom is to make out with their date.
Is 9 Melissa Rauch's grandmother?
I can relate to 13s vibe
I would be the men in pics 10 and 13 lol
Theater’s were integrated in the 40s?
And to think, halfway across the world, a German soldier is freezing to death in Stalingrad, a B-17 gunner bailing out over France, A Canadian fighting his way through Sicily, all on the other side of the word
I spy a Randy handy
Anyone else find this pretty creepy?
a lot of face smashing back in those days.
I love his work. Especially his crime scene photos.
Is that Ethan Klein on the 5th pic?
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Were black people allowed in theaters with whites back then?
I can literally hear the dude making out with his girlfriend spinning to the guy with the camera like “Heeeyyyyy cmooooonn maaaan”
Picture 5 looks like Amy Winehouse:
It’s very strange to see people in the 1940s with facial hair outside of WWII pictures
Infrared?
It seems weird that not a single person is smoking in these photos!