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'Annie Hall' to X-rated: What Dallas was watching other than original 'Star Wars' trilogy

A few days ago -- or, long before everyone in the universe had already seen The Force Awakens -- I pulled a page out of The Dallas Morning News archives listing all the other movies screening in Dallas that day in late May 1977 when Star Wars erupted at the NorthPark I & II. Two things became immediately clear:

When you could choose between Star Wars and Annie Hall, everyone's a winner. And: Good Lord, we sure did have a lot of porn theaters around here when I was a kid -- including the one in University Park next to Kuby's.

Dig in.

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Not much had changed come May 21, 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back opened -- aside from the fact it marked the debut of the AMC Prestonwood 5, which snagged Empire opening weekend (to compete with NorthPark) and lasted a whole 19 years before becoming a giant nightclub and, ultimately, a pile of rubble.

Han Solo or Thunderbuns? Your weekend was wide open.

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Come May 25, 1983, the third offering in the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, opened in wide release -- on six screens, including the old UA Walnut Hill.  Its main competition: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone and Chained Heat.