Return To 1977 Chapter 268: Ah, movie

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Hong Yanwu was thinking hard about the future, when things happened to take a turn for the better. When he saw the crowds of people in front of Caishikou Cinema, an idea quickly appeared in his mind - sell movie tickets!

So he immediately proposed to "Xiao Leizi" that he wanted to do this business in Caishikou Cinema.

After fully understanding what Hong Yanwu meant, "Xiao Leizi" who was initially frightened was instantly relieved of his guard and agreed without hesitation. And to be honest, he quite admired Hong Yanwu's inspiration.

On the other hand, after all, the price of movie tickets is too low. Even if they are sold for an additional 80 cents, how much profit can they make? Besides, there’s a chance that it won’t be sold, so you’ll lose as much money as you throw away!

So "Xiao Leizi" thought that he might be able to make a little money through this, but it would be quite difficult to feed a family of thirty or so.

So, when Hong Yanwu later proposed to share some of the profits with him, he completely took it as a joke. Not only did he refuse very generously, but he also half-jokingly said that if Hong Yanwu and the others could not make enough money to eat in the future, they were always welcome to come to him for a meal.

In response, Hong Yanwu smiled and said nothing, but patted "Xiao Leizi" affectionately on the shoulder.

Indeed, if he told anyone now that he could make money by reselling movie tickets, he would definitely be laughed at, saying that he was mentally ill, or, to put it mildly, this guy was bragging.

This is the difference between vision and knowledge, a lifetime apart.

In this era, it can be said that people have almost no common sense in the field of business and economics. No one understands the principle of small profits but quick turnover, and the principle of accumulating a little makes a lot.

I am afraid that everyone will not understand this until Yin Shengxi builds a huge business group by selling "big bowls of tea" at the front door for a few cents

No one understands speculative theory these days. They do not understand that extraordinary profits will only occur when demand and supply are not equal.

Only when the dual-track price system is implemented in the future and "official corruption" becomes prevalent, will the broad masses of the people be soberly aware of this.

In fact, in Hong Yanwu's view, this business is comparable to selling sea cucumbers in Bincheng. It is definitely a gold mine with unlimited potential that needs to be tapped!

Why do you say that?

Because a good business mainly consists of two aspects. The first is the market size, and the second is the relationship between demand and supply. The market is huge, with high demand and low supply. Of course, the best situation is the best situation, and the opposite is the worst situation.

To put it bluntly, it is the simplest theory of speculation that rare things are more valuable!

So do movie tickets meet this situation?

Of course it does! And it couldn’t be more consistent!

In fact, if we look at the market size, taking 1977 as an example, according to statistics, the permanent population of Beijing at that time was 8.71 million. But that year, the number of moviegoers throughout the year reached more than 263.83 million.

Calculated, this is equivalent to the average number of people in Beijing watching movies thirty-three times a year. This shows how huge and prosperous the market is!

If we look at the demand side, people's spiritual and cultural life back then was also extremely scarce.

In the past era, watching movies was the main form of spiritual entertainment in people's lives besides reading and listening to the radio. Not only students love to watch movies, but also housewives and employees of various units love to watch movies. Young people also like to fall in love at the cinema.

It is difficult for people today to understand the love and enthusiasm for movies back then. If you have relatives or friends who experienced that era, just ask them about their feelings about watching movies back then, and most of them will get this answer.

"If you know there is a movie to watch, then you will feel like it is a good day when you get up together", or "When I was a child, I went to the cinema and it felt like heaven."

This may sound exaggerated, but it is true. If you don’t believe it, you can confirm it from the details of people’s lives in that era.

People back then knew the movie lines by heart. Everyone eagerly absorbs the characters and quotes in the movie. If you don't understand it, you can't get along with everyone.

The most popular lines, such as "Let Comrade Lenin go first" ("Lenin in 1918") and "I, Hu Hansan, are back again" ("Shining Red Star") are still said by many people today.

Others include "Go ahead, I'll be happy if you do it for seven, seven and forty-nine days." ("Zhan Hong Tu"), "The spirit of heaven opens, the spirit of earth opens, and the demons and ghosts leave quickly." ("Forest of the Forest") "Fire"), "Those who rush forward will be rewarded with three ounces of smoke!" ("Breakthrough of the Wujiang River"), For the sake of the party-state, reach out your hand and give your brother a hand! "("War in the South and North")... These have become common or even necessary languages ​​in people's lives. When used in a specific context, no one can't understand it.

Even people’s nicknames are all taken from characters in movies. Matsui, Old Fox, Six Hundred Work Points, Translator, Zhou Papi, Ma Xiaofei, Xie Laozhuan, Bai Taohua, Gu Shuhui, Bukharin...

In addition, there are even more exaggerated situations.

For example, sometimes, work units or schools will collectively organize movies to watch, and it often happens that someone is always ahead of the plot of the movie. Such a person will say his lines line after line. Before the character speaks, he speaks first. When the character speaks one sentence, he takes the next.

You know, TVs were far from being part of people’s lives back then. To be able to achieve this level, you have to watch the movie countless times, which is definitely beyond the scope of what normal people can understand.

What's more, there are still many people who pay an unbearable price to watch movies.

For example, some people climbed over the wall to watch a movie and got caught on the glass, resulting in injuries to their legs and feet, disembowelment, or removal of the penis. Some people chose to drill into the heating ducts, but were suffocated to death before they came out. There are also cases where violent impulses occur due to the scramble to buy movie tickets, and people are killed or injured by mistake.

This shows how crazy people's obsession with movies was back then.

So, let’s look at the supply side. On the contrary, neither the number of theaters nor the number of films in Beijing can match the strong demand of the people!

When the Republic was founded, there were only 26 theaters in the capital with a total of 16,433 seats. Not only are the quantities small, but the equipment is also poor. Except for a few theaters such as "National", "Dahua", "Maiki" and "True Light" which were known as the first-class at that time, most of the others were converted from tea gardens, restaurants, theaters, entertainment clubs or small churches. . Most of them are small, simple and dilapidated.

Later, because the people's government attached great importance to cultural undertakings, it tried every means to build, renovate and expand screening venues. So it’s time to get to the “movement” front. There are already 69 theaters showing public screenings in Beijing, with a seating capacity of 56,504.

Unfortunately, there are not many "professional theaters" that can screen movies all year round. Most of them are "cum-screening theaters" that can not only screen movies, but also perform dramas and cultural programs. For example, open workers’ cultural palaces, clubs, folk art theaters, or auditoriums of government agencies and companies that are open to the outside world.

Even if these "part-time cinemas" screen movies, they do not sell tickets to the public. They usually use organized ticket sales.

What is even more regrettable is that the arrival of the "movement" has impacted cultural undertakings. Throughout the decade, the number of public theaters, instead of increasing, actually decreased.

Just imagine, when the "movement" ends, these more than 50,000 seats have been used to create more than 200 million moviegoers. What kind of situation will that be like?

In the same way, during the "movement", countless films were regarded as black goods of censorship, capitalists, and revisionists, and became "big poisonous weeds" that were banned from screening.

In the eight years from 1966 to 1973, only 20 new feature films were released in theaters in Beijing. The main screenings are "model opera" films, "Three War" films ("Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", "Southern and Northern War"), political documentaries and "critical films".

It was not until 1974 that new domestic films were gradually released on the eve of the New Year. But there are not many, and the political framework is too restrictive. Audiences generally believe that the new films are not as good as the old films. As a result, theaters are becoming less and less crowded, and domestic films have almost become “box office poison.”

On the contrary, imported films have successfully maintained the interest of the broad masses of people in watching movies.

Like Soviet movies "Lenin in October" and "Lenin in 1918". Albanian movies "Coast and Thunder" and "Underground Partisan". North Korean movies "Flower Girl", "Apple Picking Time", "The Fate of Kim and Eun-hee", and "The Invisible Front". Vietnamese movies "Forest Fire" and "The Road Back Home". Romanian movies "Danube Waves", "Boiling Life", "Explosion" and many more.

These foreign films that appeared on the screen at the end of the "movement" finally made the boring movie theaters lively again. People rush to the cinema and often have to spend half a day or get up in the middle of the night to queue up to buy tickets for these popular movies.

Even when "Flower Girl" was playing, there was chaos in the ticket hall of the Capital Cinema. There was a looting incident. Not only did the door glass break several pieces, but gloves, shoes, hats, and even watches were scattered all over the floor. .

So such a jingle became popular in society at that time.

"Albanian movies are incomprehensible, Romanian movies are hugging, North Korean movies are crying and laughing, Vietnamese movies are airplanes and cannons, but our movies are all **** news bulletins..."

As for now, we are in the transition period between two eras. It is precisely because there have been no good books, good plays, and good movies for many years that the people's desire for culture and spiritual entertainment has reached an unprecedented level. Thirst level.

So, when the cultural policy opened a crack and some Chinese and foreign films before the "movement" were thawed and re-screened, people's enthusiasm for movies was irresistibly rekindled and a vote was once again generated. A hard-to-find phenomenon.

Of course, Hong Yanwu has no way of knowing the detailed data and specific conditions of the film market mentioned above.

But he knows one thing! From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, it was the most rare golden era for our country's film market.

The most powerful proof is that he still remembers that in 1981, when the circulation of "Popular Cinema" increased from 500,000 to 9.6 million when it was resumed in 1979, even foreign reporters were stunned when they heard this number. Say, "No. 1 in the world!"

In addition, even now, he can clearly feel this heat in his life.

Forget about the scene after the movie theater ended, he still remembered how proud Fang Ting had been when "Big Preserved Fruit" got two movie tickets, and how envious others were.

He also knew that his neighbors Bian Jiangong and Su Jin ran out to watch a movie early in the morning the day after they came back. But when they queued up and finally got there, they only had tickets for the afternoon.

In the end, both of them didn't eat. They used the meal money to buy three shows. They watched the same thing three times in a row before going home. It was quite beautiful to be hungry. Afterwards, they even promoted their experience as a smart thing, and actually received recognition and applause from many peers.

So, is there any need to be suspicious of a market like this?

The most important thing is to consider it from the perspective of market operation. Doing this is currently a "blue ocean". No one has seen the benefits contained here, and of course there are no competitors.

Similarly, there is also a blank in legal management. The police and workers' militia simply don't see this happening, and the management of the cinema only focuses on maintaining order and catching fare evasion and counterfeiting.

Taking a step back, even if you are really caught, the consequences will be much lighter.

It's neither stealing nor robbing. It's just a few cents, but it's not like food stamps or other tickets that can affect the national economy and people's livelihood. At most, they can only write inspections and criticize the faults of education.

Then what is there to hesitate about? Of course it’s worth working hard, there’s a lot to be done!