(Photo provided) Part of the movie ads from 1950.

If you want to go to the movies today, you have just a few options in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

You can go to the Grand Central Mall or go to your living room and stream one of the zillions of movies available from a virtually unlimited number of sources.

The movie screen scene in the area has been hit and miss for a long time. I think for most people, the peak age that you go to the movies is in your teens and twenties. For me this would have been the 1970s and 80s — it was an era when people wanting to catch a movie in this area had few options.

In a time before Google, the entertainment page of the newspaper let everyone know what was playing at area theaters. Long ago, in a galaxy (the Mid-Ohio Valley) far, far away people had options, A LOT of options, not all of which were classics.

A look at the entertainment pages of both The Marietta Times and The Parkersburg News from around 1950 finds a huge number of big screen options.

In Marietta, The Colony was running “Return of the Frontiersman” and “The Young Lovers,” with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly soon to be shown in “Summer Stock.” The Ohio Theater was running Roy Rogers’ “Trigger Jr.” and Gene Autry’s “Beyond the Purple Hills” that promised six-guns singing out for justice. Continuing the cowboy theme, the Putnam Theater was offering Johnny Mack Brown, who promised to crack down on cattle thieves in “Law of the Panhandle.”

The Center Theatre in St. Marys was playing a double feature with “Miss Tatlock’s Millions” and “The Hills of Oklahoma.” The Star-Lite Theatre in Reno had a double feature of westerns with “Colt 45” and “Borrowed Trouble.” It was no Netflix, but you had plenty of options to choose from.

Parkersburg had even more.

The Hiehle was playing the “Baron of Arizona” with Vincent Price. The Strand was playing the “Pirates Capri” and “Four Days Leave.” The Parker was playing “Yellow Cab Man” with Red Skelton.

The Virginia, which billed itself as the family theatre, was playing “Sons of Adventure” and “Riders of the Dusk.” The Smoot had “Daughter of Rosie O’Grady.”

The Mur Drive-in on Murdoch invited people to enjoy movies under the stars and were featuring “Lust for Gold” and “Crime Doctor’s Gamble.” Across the river the Belpre Open Air Theatre was featuring David Niven and Jane Wyman in “Kiss in the Dark.”

The 12 theaters in the area provided people with a wide array of options, and it’s a good thing as televisions were not in widespread use. Movie rentals and streaming were decades away. People were forced to be social because it was the only entertainment possible.

My parents, who grew up in the 1950s, would tell me that when they were dating you could go to the movies on a buck and still have change left over after buying refreshments.

That was not the case when I was a teenager just two decades later. The Colony was a dark and cold movie house by then. I only recall seeing two movies there, including the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It would be decades before it was reborn as the Peoples Bank Theater. By that time the drive-ins were struggling to stay in business.

We did have the movies at the mall. For a time, it was two screens before being expanded, with a different entrance, to five screens. For years there was no Williamstown Bridge, which meant you had to take the interstate to Williamstown. The large theater near the food court would come later, the recliner style seats and higher prices much later. The Burwell stayed in operation for a while, as did a theater that was operated in the building that is now offices across Market Street from the Blennerhassett Hotel.

The construction of the theater at Lafayette Plaza in 1990 finally brought movies back to Marietta. The opening night had free admission and a different movie on every screen. It was a sad day when it closed and was replaced by Harbor Freight. As much as I love shopping for tools, I just can’t go in there yet. Too soon.

The modern large screen television provides stiff competition to businesses trying to make the public showing of movies profitable. It’s just not the same though.

The shared experiences of past generations are somewhat lost today when movie time is essentially whenever you want it to be.

Art Smith is online manager of The Times, he can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com