In connection with the newsletter I mentioned last week, I’ve been getting lots of letters and reminiscences from my high school friends. Those recollections of the 1940s and early 50s started a mental journey back to that time and, as one thing so often leads to another, I found myself awash in memories of old movies and some of the actors who populated them.
There were two movie theaters in Knoxville at the time — located about a block apart right downtown. Both were owned by the same woman so they were not competitive, rather they offered a broad variety of movies each week, often as many as eight or ten different films to choose from. Each month, the “Knoxville Reminder,” an advertising circular, contained a movie schedule for the two theaters. It listed the titles of all the movies, the principle actors, days the movies were to be shown and at which theater. It hung by our kitchen calendar and we consulted it closely.
The Grand Theater screened the most current films, the extravagant musicals, the latest technicolor movies, all films featuring big-name stars, widely-acclaimed comedies and the more serious war stories, mysteries and romances aimed at the adult audience. It was the place where you were most likely to see the year’s Oscar-winning films and actors.
It was there that we saw such films as “Lassie Come Home,” “National Velvet,” “Boy’s Town,” “Tarzan of the Apes,” starring Johnny Weissmuller, and those other Olympic favorites Sonia Heine and Esther Williams in films written especially to showcase their talents. We never missed any of the Abbot and Costello films or those with such familiar stars as Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Lionel or Ethel Barrymore, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Lamour and many names from Broadway, ballet, vaudeville and the circus. These included magicians, acrobats, clowns and popular names from radio shows; George Burns and Gracie Allen, Fred Allen; and many of the big dance bands. Chaste romances showcased Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, June Allison, Van Johnson.
The Marion Theater (we were in Marion County, in case you were wondering) catered to the Saturday afternoon crowd with a steady diet of westerns including those singing cowboys Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans — along with sidekicks Gabby Hayes and Sons of the Pioneers. We counted on seeing The Lone Ranger and Tonto every week or two, those serialized early super-heroes like “The Green Hornet” and “short subjects” such as a Billiards champion whose name eludes me, early versions of “Candid Camera” a few “Three Stooges” and “Keystone Kops” episodes and color cartoons with Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, Porky Pig and friends.
My earliest movies were “Pinocchio” and “Bambi.” I vaguely remember a curly-haired little Shirley Temple and more clearly recall Margaret O’Brien who could shed tears on-demand and starred in a lot of tearjerkers. She was replaced on my personal favorites list by the teenage Mickey Rooney, Jane Withers, Roddy McDowell and a very talented Elizabeth Taylor. I remember detectives Nick and Nora North and their dog Asta, and I hated to miss any of the Ellery Queen mysteries. Then came a rash of war movies that blur together in my memory.
“Gone With the Wind” was finally shown at the Grand Theater during my high school years, so popular that tickets had to be purchased in advance and so lengthy that it included a half-hour intermission. In those days, most radio programs lasted only fifteen minutes, no television program for more than thirty, and most movies were screened twice in an evening — including newsreels, cartoons and assorted short subjects — with time to get popcorn before the feature film began. I haven’t been in a movie theater for several years now. Today it costs a bit more than the 25 cents I paid when in high school when that bag of popcorn, soda or candy bars were only five cents.