General Cinema Corporation
By Kris Starring
1st (known) Open
(dates unknown - 1960's)
Nicknames: "Projector," "60's GCC," " GCC Projector," "Kaliedoscopic Projector"
Logo: On a kaliedoscopic red/purple background (think the Family Affair credits) we see a white translucent GCC logo: an abstract projector made out of the letter G, and two C's representing film reels above and below the G to the slightly aligned to the right. A jazzy drumbeat begins and the film reels (the C's) begin to rotate and pause when a harpsichord riff cuts in. The musical trade-off repeats a few times until the brushes finally take it home, allowing the projector enough time to spool out a line of dots that spring into the letters of either "COMING ATTRACTIONS" or "FEATURE PRESENTATION" with the final hit of the drum.
Variant: There was another variant of this opening with a blue background.
SFX: The film reels rotating and the projectors spooling out the dots that morphed into the titles.
Cheesy Factor: The dots transformation into the titles is very rough, and the kaliedoscopic background is very cliched 60's and looks more like someone wadded up some purple cellophane.
Music: A sassy jazz beat established on snare with brushes, occasionally interrupted on the off-beat by a catchy harpsichord riff.
Availbility: Extinct, appeared only in General Cinema theaters before the start of a movie or trailers during the 60's and 70's.
Scare Factor: Median, the harpsichord riff and psychedelic graphic effects could catch some off guard.
2nd Open
(late 80's-1994)
Nicknames: "Popcorn In Space"
Logo description TBA
3rd Open
(1994-2002)
Nickname: "City Searchlights"
Logo: We fly out from some shrubs on a mountain at night to see an aerial view of a city very much like LA illuminated with lights. In the center of the city there are some searchlights moving back and forth. We pan upwards to see the searchlights merge into a circle over a cloudy night sky. The spotlights fade out leaving a blue circle with the white letters "GCC" arranged like this...
C
G
C
...which make up the General Cinema logo. "General Cinema" fades in underneath in gold for a brief moment, followed the words "Feature Presentation" which are in gold as well.
SFX: The searchlights, the flight over the city, and the clouds moving, all decent CGI. A little bit reminiscent of the Showtime Feature Presentation bumper from the 70's and early 80's.
Music: An orchestrational piece with strings and clarinets as we take flight, and ends in a timpani hit when the words "Feature Presentation" appear.
Availability: Extinct, seeing that it was only used in theaters. This opening was first used around the time the infamous "Candyband" trailers were introduced to advertise General Cinema's concession stands. General Cinema continued to use this and those additional trailers until the bitter end in March 2002 when AMC Theaters, Inc. bought the chain after its crippling bankruptcy in 2000.
Scare Factor: Low, the timpani hit at the end may get to some though.