Movies were movies when you paid a dime to escape
Cheering the hero and hissing the man in the cape
Romance and action and thrills
Pardner there's gold in them hills

Movies were movies when during the titles you'd know
You'd get a happy ending
Dozens of blundering cops in a thundering chase
Getting a bang out of lemon meringue in the face

Bandits attacking a train
One little tramp with a cane
Movies were movies, were movies when I ran the show

Movies were movies when Pauline was tied to the track
After she trudged through the ice with a babe on her back
Girls at the seashore would stand
All in a row in the sand

Rolling their stockings an inch and a quarter below
The line of decency
And Swanson and Keaton and Dressler and William S. Hart
No-one pretended that what we were doing was art

We had some guts and some luck
But we were just makin' a buck
Movies were movies were movies when I ran the show!

And Swanson and Keaton and Dressler and William S. Hart
No-one pretended that what we were doing was art
We had some guts and some luck
But we were just making a buck

Movies were movies were movies
When I ran the show!