Lesley Thompson sells the tickets, is the usherette, the cleaner and the "chief chucker-out" at Ohakune's cinema.
Mrs Thompson is the wife of Bruce, whose father, Harry, bought the purpose-built cinema in 1931 from the Patriotic Society.
The cinema was run by a committee and held its opening screening in August 1917.
Mr Thompson snr came to New Zealand, worked on the roads in Raetihi for the borough council, and bought the Royal Theatre from the Punch family in 1925. The Royal was built in 1915.
It was the heyday of theatre and dances in the Ohakune milling town, so Mr Thompson built the Plaza at the Junction in 1938.
Harry died in 1948, but his wife, Emily, kept the cinema on Goldfinch St going. Television came along in the 60s and movie patronage waned. Bruce Thompson took over the cinema from his mother in 1979, and today his grandchildren are the fourth generation involved in the 230-seat cinema.
"It's more of a hobby for us now," Mrs Thompson said, "we don't make money."
If the Thompsons needed more help at a popular viewing, they called in the family troops, she said.
They mostly catered for the skiers who were regulars at the one film-a-night screenings during the season.
The 35mm projector is showing the Karate Kid on the cinema's single screen this week.
Mrs Thompson said she was a "railway's kid" who came to Ohakune from Birchfield, a small West Coast town 10 minutes from Westport. However, during a trip south recently she became aware the place had disappeared.
She had attended the local high school, while her future husband was schooled in Wellington.
They began "kicking around" when they were 18, but there was no kissing in the back row of the movie theatre for this couple. It was six years before he proposed, she said.
Family gets kicks from flicks for nearly 80 years
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