It was a script that only Hollywood could write: Failing small-town cinema launches weekly cash-prize promotion; ticket sales soar, theater survives. Idea catches on and becomes national craze, saving picture-show industry from ruin.

That’s just about how it really happened. The small-town cinema, Delta’s ornate Egyptian Theatre, had opened in 1928, festooned with hieroglyphic murals and busts of the pharaohs. But five years later, with the Great Depression in full swing, the Egyptian seemed about to go the way of King Tut. That’s when theater owner Charles Yaeger dreamed up his ingenious promotion: Bank Night. The winner, randomly selected from a week’s worth of entry forms, took home $30—a useful sum during hard times. Bank Night lured enough patrons (at 25 cents a ticket) to keep the Egyptian in business, and other struggling theaters quickly followed suit. By 1936, according to Time magazine, the practice had spread to 4,000 movie houses nationwide. “Bank Night has become an American institution,” marveled the Saturday Evening Post. “It has profoundly affected the social life of America.”

Over the ensuing decades, the Egyptian lost much of its luster; by the 1970s the decorative murals had disappeared under layers of mummifying plaster and paint. They were uncovered and restored in the 1990s as part of a five-year historic-preservation project, which culminated with a grand reopening in 1997. A capacity crowd showed up in period attire to enjoy the Cecil B. DeMille classic King of Kings—and, at intermission, to take part in another Bank Night giveaway.

Was a happy ending ever in doubt? This is Hollywood, after all.