It used to happen and it was rather grand.

I am cataloguing my mother's library which includes a number of books from or of her youth in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1930s and 1940s.  Leafing through Tulsa: Biography of the American City, there is a picture which brings back long forgotten memories.

The picture is a black and white of two rows of young men with the caption:

The Ritz Theater had uniformed ushers to show moviegoers to their seats.

A similar picture:

Click to enlarge.

And the memory is that within my lifetime, I knew of this as well.

When we lived in England in the mid-1960s, there were ushers for both movies and for theatrical plays.  They would escort you from the theater entrance to your seat.  If you carelessly arrived late, they would wait for a suitable point of low drama, and then escort you, with a rebuking expression, to your seats, using a penlight to guide the way.  

There was usually an intermission when usherettes would bring around trays of snacks, sweets and drinks to sell to patrons.  

Click to enlarge.

By the time I lived in England again in the mid-1970s, they were gone.  You seated yourself in movie theaters and movies played straight through.  I think theaters with plays may have still had the remnant of ushers, more to stand at the entrance and point rather than to escort you to your seat.  

The passing of an age and I am not sure I even noticed at the time.  When did they phase out here in the US?  Earlier than England I would imagine but perhaps not.

I had not thought of that whole ritual of arrival, tickets examined, and being escorted to seats in so long.  It used to happen and it was rather grand.