See a movie, get a gravy boat
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Dec 2024 / Jan 2025
Everything Old
See a movie, get a gravy boat
by Corbin Crable
Holiday Films
The holiday season is big business for the film industry, and even though many former moviegoers prefer to stay home and stream their favorite movies these days, there are still some of us who continue to flock to movie theaters to watch the latest flicks on the big screen.
Price, of course, can be assumed to be the primary deterrent keeping butts out of movie theater seats – the other, of course, being convenience.
Nearly a century ago, the industry faced much of the same problem. The economic disaster wrought by the Great Depression rendered going to the movies impossible for families struggling to survive; for many, the moviegoing experience was a luxury simply out of reach.
Movie palaces tried to incentivize those same folks who had dropped regular moviegoing from their routine by giving away inexpensive glassware and dishes. Those theaters partnered with marketing firms to create a “Dish Night,” a weekly giveaway to housewives who brought their family to the movies. Each woman would receive one dish per person each week, and after as few weeks, she was able to amass full dinner sets.
Inexpensive dishware
“Inexpensive dishware, purchased by the railroad car-full, cost perhaps five cents per piece. Successful Dish Night programs could attract 250 women, who usually brought their husbands or family along with them to the show,” according to the International Museum of Dishware Design, which hosted a related exhibit, “Dish Night at the Movies,” early last year.
Today, complete collections of that Dish Night dishware sell online for anywhere from a few bucks up to $100.
One of the most prominent companies to partner with movie theaters on these campaigns was the Salem China Co. of Salem, Ohio. Since the 1920s, the company had “promoted bulk dishware sales to furniture stores and banks to offer as free bonus gifts when a family purchased a dining room set or opened a savings account. Salem was among the quick-thinking potteries and distribution companies that now sought to spread the appeal of “something for nothing” to struggling movie theater managers,” according to the museum.
Still, despite the fact that these dish sets were relatively common, they can be difficult for collectors to identify.
“There is no easy way to identify for certain if particular plates, glassware or kitchenware came from a “China Night” giveaway.
Homer Laughlin pieces
Mostly we have to depend on family lore of how great-grandma acquired them. Only a few pieces were marked – those were often bread plates that promoted the start of a dishware promotional program at a certain theater (these tend to be Homer Laughlin pieces),” the museum’s website reads. “Giveaway dishware was produced by numerous potteries in a wide variety of patterns. They were very inexpensively-produced items. … Some fortunate women had plenty of fine china in their homes already, and relegated their Dish Night plates to the garden shed, but others were grateful to have something shiny, new and unchipped to use on their tables.”
Movie theater Dish Nights ended with the 1950s, when theaters tried to attract customers and lure them away from that new invention called the television. These days, it appears that not even something like Dish Night could resurrect the long lines at the box office that movie theaters have enjoyed for nearly a century. Still, for a generation in midcentury America, the gimmick seemed to work.
If you’ll be attending a movie with your family this holiday season, enjoy that special outing that has become all too rare. And if you eat your big holiday meal on your great-grandmother’s Salem china beforehand, remember to say a little ‘thank you’ for her loyalty to the moviegoing experience all those years ago.
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