Who can pass on a movie ticket for 50 cents? America's Cheapest Man could not. I made a 27-mile round-trip to the South Hills for the cheap thrill, which means whatever I saved went out the tailpipe, but then any economist would tell you that not every market decision is rational.

My journey down Interstate 79 to Star City Screenworks outside Bridgeville was more for the nostalgia of handing the ticket vendor a dollar and getting two quarters back. The last time that happened was probably 1963, when I was 7. My mother would regularly peel away in the station wagon after dropping my siblings and me for the Saturday afternoon double feature at the local theater, giving us one extra dime to use at the phone booth when it was over.

Dime calls, phone booths, double features and any semblance of childhood freedom have gone the way of Davy Crockett's coonskin caps and the Allegheny County prothonotary, but this 14-screen, second-run movie theater has been all but giving its Tuesday shows away for the past six months.

It's a specialty house, and its specialty is movies that most moviegoers already have seen or never wanted to see. Star City is for the few, the proud, the incredibly cheap. My friend Steve Hansen, who has made false claims that he could go toe-to-toe with me in any frugality derby, put me on the scent of this place a few weeks ago. So I arranged to meet him, his wife, Linda, and their friend Lance Jones.

As I drove into the parking lot, I could sense I was entering a realm not unlike one of the movies we'd see, "I Am Legend.'' That was last year's Will Smith blockbuster. He's the last man on Earth, and that is close to the way you feel if you arrive at Star City after the doors have opened on a Tuesday.

One ticket vendor was easily handling the three or four people in front of me. I dropped my four bits and then, for the first time in my life, bought a $4.50 large popcorn from the lone concessionaire. Then I made the long, solitary walk through a spookily quiet hallway to Screen 4.

We'd decided to meet inside for "Lars and the Real Girl,'' a decision few other Americans have made. Dennis Kucinich may have been a bigger draw. This anti-blockbuster opened last October on a handful of screens and now panhandles for viewers at second-run theaters like Star City. That's too bad because it's a sweet movie.

How can you make a PG-13 movie about a lonely guy who buys a life-sized doll, announces it's his girlfriend, and then works through his delusion with the help of a nameless town with a heart of gold? That'll cost you at least 50 cents, but it sure beat the previous movie Mr. Jones had seen at Star City.

"I think this was a great value,'' he said, "and I think 'Dewey Cox' was priced just right.''

Mr. Jones left for home and, when I announced I'd spring for the next round of movies, the Hansens nearly had to be peeled from the floor.

I refilled my soda cup with tap water and lugged my remaining popcorn, still enough for a family of four, across the multiplex for "I Am Legend." This is the kind of movie they used to advertise when I was a kid with lines like "We'll sell you the whole seat -- but you'll only need the edge!" It's based on the same novel that spawned "Omega Man" in 1971, when Charlton Heston was on his sci-fi jag.

The special effects are very good and Will Smith commands the screen but I felt like I'd seen it before. When Smith blew away a mannequin with a high-powered weapon, I was glad that Lars and his dummy/girlfriend weren't there to see it.

By the time I left Tuesday about 5:15 p.m., the theater manager told me the ticket count already had surpassed the 241 from a full Monday, and evening shows were yet to come. Four or five regulars would be there all day, having developed the gluteal stamina to sit long periods of time without tiring. Carpe diem.

If I could have found them, I'd have given them the rest of my popcorn.

As for the three guys at the ticket counter whom I persuaded to buy tickets for "Lars'' rather than "Legend,'' if you didn't like that choice and can identify yourselves to me by age, hats and time of show, I'll mail you a check for a buck-fifty and you can all go threesies on a cup of coffee.