Is this where we came in?

When my brother and I were young kids and able to get a few coins on a Saturday, we could walk to the neighborhood movie theater. In fact I seem to remember one coin, a quarter, was enough for two tickets. As the youngest, it was my job to solicit the money from our step-dad, a task made easier after his first few Olys of Saturday morning had time to work their mellowing magic. Olympia was the beer of choice, not because it was brewed with artesian water, but because it was cheap. The corner grocer knew it was OK to let two kids with a wagon pack a case home on credit, and in payment of our delivery services, movie money seemed appropriate.

We just walked to the theater, without any idea of what movie was playing or what time it started. When we got there, we looked at the posters in front to get an idea of what was on, and then bought our tickets and went inside, where we had to pass through the heavy curtains protecting the aisle from the lobby lights. Once on the dark side, we had to do that walk of faith, with our hands in front like Frankenstein, hoping there wasn't some obstacle in the aisle or maybe an unexpected drop off, all the while knowing how foolish we looked to those already seated with their eyes adjusted to the dark. Sometimes we had to just stand in the aisle until a bright scene exposed the audience long enough for us to get our bearings and grab an empty seat.

The matinees were usually cowboy movies or adventure serials and it was easy to tell what was going on because the plots were all the same, with the heros fighting the villains and ultimately winning. But since we did not start watching at the beginning, for us the victory usually came in the middle of our viewing and then we had to stay for the next beginning and keep watching until we recognized that "this is where we came in". As we graduated to more distant theaters with musicals and dramas, the plots were a little over our heads, which made it harder to recognize where we came in, particularly in the dramas.

Some screenplays are written a little like our matinee experience. The story begins in the middle and then flashes back and forward until we recognize that we have been given the whole thing.  A scriptwriter on a recent special feature I watched said the only flashbacks that are proper are ones that advance the plot. I don't know if I can explain what he meant, but I agree with him.  Starting briefly in the present and then telling the whole back story straight through is fairly common and works well, as when "Citizen Kane" dies with "Rosebud" on his lips, prefacing the telling of his tale. Too much time shifting is often a screen writer's way of trying to mask a weak story.