Is It Curtains For Curtains In America S Movie Theaters

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show must feature one of the most famous curtains in movie history.

Announcing the start of The Blue Angel yesterday, the rising red curtain in the main theater of the Music Box took on a certain risque quality—it was as though the screen were performing a striptease for the audience, creating anticipation for the burlesque numbers Marlene Dietrich would perform in the film. Of course, a movie house doesn’t need to show The Blue Angel (or Gypsy or The Rocky Horror Picture Show) for a curtain to trigger this association. All it needs is the curtain—though, unfortunately, fewer and fewer theaters have one. How many are left Chicago? In our era of IMAX screens, surround sound, and concession areas bigger than some corner stores, I find it odd that cinemas would forgo this age-old amenity, which has the effect of rendering the big screen separate from (one might even say more mysterious than) the world outside the theater.

Ben Sachs writes about moviegoing every Monday.