| Over forty years ago, a movie theatre didn't need to | | | | with walk-up front steps" which "later became illegal |
| be located in a shopping mall to attract sufficient | | | | because it was a fire hazard." The Dallas Theatre |
| patrons. As other small, privately owned businesses | | | | made a profit during World War II but , he added, |
| had done before them, small-town movies theatres | | | | was the first of his three small-town theatres to "dry |
| survived -- and, in some cases, even thrived -- for | | | | up." A quonset hut theatre was constructed in the |
| several decades. One may still occasionally find | | | | river town of Warsaw after World War II. It |
| independent theatres grinding away in small towns | | | | outlasted the older theatre in Dallas City, but it never, |
| located far enough away from metropolitan areas, | | | | according to Justus, made money. A large theatre |
| but one is more likely to find abandoned buildings with | | | | circuit made him a considerable offer in the early |
| empty marquess that often resemble the rusted | | | | 1950s for all three of his theatres, but, despite the |
| prows of old ships. Some old theatre buildings serve | | | | gradual shifting of populations away from small |
| as shells for churches and small businesses, but even | | | | communities, he declined. He said that he just didn't |
| many of these buildings wear such skimpy | | | | want to get out of the theatre business.Television |
| camouflage that someone passing through town can | | | | contributed to changes in the rural communities, |
| easily guess the role they once played as a local | | | | particularly when nearby Quincy acquired a TV |
| center for a shared community experience. After the | | | | station in the early 1950s, but a shift away from the |
| nature of the community changed, after the local | | | | shared experience of small-town living was equally to |
| people began identifying with the national television | | | | blame. Justus' theatres lost customers no faster than |
| community, the local exhibitors stepped up the public | | | | many other local businesses, such as furniture |
| spectacle through promotional showmanship in order | | | | dealerships and dry goods stores. Despite efforts of |
| to revitalize not only its role in the community but | | | | theatre exhibitors and other merchants to keep their |
| often the local community spirit itself. These | | | | integral roles alive in a shrinking community, |
| converted marquees remind us not only of | | | | transportation facilitated the migration of residents to |
| abandoned ships but of shabby circus tents that | | | | urban areas where they established suburban |
| remain long after the circus has left town; they may | | | | communities complete with ubiquitous shopping |
| bear few traces of their former role in the | | | | centers and malls. New theatres cropped up inside |
| community rituals, but the memories of the personal | | | | these shopping areas, later becoming twins and |
| efforts of local showmen to keep the circus alive in | | | | multiplexes, but they generally failed to offer patrons |
| the face of cultural change will keep that circus and | | | | any sense of participating in communal rituals. |
| the knowledge of the cultural significance alive within | | | | Watching films projected by automated equipment |
| us.Before people relied so heavily on automobiles, and | | | | while seated among strangers in a shoebox-sized |
| before they were afraid to walk more than a few | | | | shopping mall theatre (in some urban areas) bore little |
| city blocks, many towns of less than a thousand | | | | resemblance to the experience of watching a movie |
| people had their own theatre which residents often | | | | with neighbors and relatives at the local "show |
| labeled "the show house" or "the picture show." | | | | house."Patrons in small communities did not have to |
| Residents of the western Illinois town of Carthage, | | | | wait sixteen weeks or to drive around the city for a |
| for example, saw two show houses in its business | | | | new film because the small theatres ran several |
| district not long after the beginning of the 20th | | | | changes a week. Justus recalled that his own |
| century, but only one of them survived for long. The | | | | theatres would run "a Sunday-Monday movie, a |
| Woodbine Theatre, named after the crawling vine | | | | Tuesday bank night, a Wednesday-Thursday, then a |
| that grew on the east side of the brick building, was | | | | Friday and Saturday. We got to the point where we |
| not the first theatre in the town of over three | | | | were open three days a week. First it was |
| thousand people, but the showmanship of its owner | | | | Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday; then it was Friday, |
| caused the competition to go out of business.The | | | | Saturday, and Sunday." The Carthage community |
| first Woodbine was converted into a theatre in 1917 | | | | supported the theatre during the week nights in the |
| by Charles Arthur Garard. C.A., as he was called, had | | | | late 1950s and early 1960s, but the Warsaw Theatre |
| already operated a local dairy and a downtown ice | | | | dwindled down to Saturday and Sunday showings, |
| cream parlor which offered five-cent ice cream | | | | sometimes with a different film each night. Students |
| sodas, confections, five-cent crushed fruit souffles, | | | | from the local four-year liberal arts college in |
| and a tobacco called Garard's Royal Blue. He was a | | | | Carthage kept Friday night attendance strong at the |
| shrewd businessman, but he was also a fanciful | | | | Woodbine, but high school football games severely |
| dreamer who needed to be held in check by his | | | | limited Friday attendance in Warsaw.Another factor |
| pragmatic and even shrewder wife. Bertha, who | | | | that "made it so tough for the little towns," according |
| often accompanied the silent movies shown in his | | | | to Justus, was that the independent exhibitors |
| theatre with her piano, kept him from selling the | | | | "couldn't get the product until it had played the bigger |
| theatre and drifting off into other projects, such as | | | | places," such as Quincy, which is about forty miles |
| the growing of grapefruits in Florida. When C.A. died, | | | | south of Carthage, or Keokuk, which sits just across |
| she took over as proprietor until her youngest son, | | | | the Mississippi River on the southeastern tip of Iowa. |
| Justus, became old enough to help her.Justus recalled | | | | Because he was an independent, he had to wait six |
| in June of 1981 how his father never really had a | | | | weeks to play a film that was booked first in Quincy, |
| chance to enjoy any substantial returns from the | | | | Keokuk, or at other nearby circuit theatres. "If we |
| theatre for ten years after he converted it. "We | | | | could've played the film the next week," Justus |
| would've been out of business if it hadn't been for | | | | added, "Why, the people would have stayed home |
| talking movies," Justus said, the earliest of which | | | | to see it. But they knew that we weren't gonna |
| "were very hard to understand." The Woodbine was | | | | have it for awhile. So they'd go to Keokuk."Among |
| the first theatre in the area to show talking pictures, | | | | later gimmicks employed to stir local community |
| which were sound-on-disc like Warner Brothers' | | | | interest were Halloween midnight shows and four |
| Vitaphone system (shown in the black-and-white TV | | | | features run each New Year's Eve, but the biggest |
| promos for the 1955 film HELEN OF TROY and | | | | seasonal event in Carthage was the annual series of |
| included in the DVD and VHS copies of that film). The | | | | merchant-sponsored Christmas films. Before each |
| first sound films were "only part-talkies. They would | | | | Christmas season, Justus purchased a Filmack trailer |
| use some dialogue, then [the characters] would soar | | | | for the merchants, and a salesman from St. Louis |
| into song." Because sound equipment was expensive | | | | sold the merchants a spot on the trailer for $37.50. |
| to install, he and a friend Oliver Kirschner constructed | | | | The merchants were also given tickets or |
| their own sound system. Cast-iron record turntables | | | | complimentary passes for the theatre that were |
| were cast at an industrial plant sixteen miles away in | | | | good any time, but the Christmas films -- usually |
| Keokuk, Iowa, and attached to the projector drive. | | | | chosen for the children of those parents who were |
| Since sound projectors operated at 34 | | | | encouraged to do Christmas shopping in town -- |
| frames-per-second, they revised a way to speed up | | | | were shown free to the community. The popcorn, of |
| their projectors to synchronize the film with the | | | | course, wasn't free. I can remember stuffing sacks |
| soundtrack on the record. Occasionally, "the needle | | | | full of popcorn and handing them across the glass |
| would jump out of the groove," and the projectionist | | | | counter to pushy patrons who had to pay. . . not |
| would have to "pick it up and set it on the right | | | | $3.00. . . but ten cents.The midnight Halloween |
| groove by watching carefully and following the | | | | showings of horror double-features were the ones |
| sound." He recalled that they had to do this for two | | | | that I found to be particularly fun. Justus often ran |
| or three years until the advent of sound-on-film. | | | | double bills like THE FLY and THE RETURN OF THE |
| Whenever the needles would jump from one groove | | | | FLY and AIP's I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN |
| to the next because of over-modulation, the | | | | (1957) with UA's THE RETURN OF DRACULA (1958). |
| customers would patiently wait for the projectionists | | | | For the latter, in Warsaw, I shaped white cardboard |
| to synchronize the record with the film.The | | | | into a castle which covered the left exit. Above the |
| introduction of sound-on-film, which Justus recalled | | | | exit, appropriately enough for Halloween, was a clock |
| was here to stay by 1933, required that he, like | | | | which advertised a local funeral home. (I often |
| other exhibitors, insert an expensive sound head into | | | | wondered why funeral home clocks were displayed in |
| the projector. Because some films were released as | | | | small movie theatres in those days. Were patrons |
| sound-on-disc and some were released as | | | | being reminded that their lives were ticking away |
| sound-on-film, such as Fox's Movietone system, many | | | | while the films were flickering on the screen?) I |
| exhibitors had to choose between one system or | | | | stretched a wire from the projection booth to the |
| the other. "Consequently," said Justus, "we weren't | | | | exit, located immediately to the left of the screen, |
| playing any Fox pictures. Paramount came out with | | | | and draped a white bed sheet over a clothes hanger. |
| the records and Fox with the sound-on-film." Once he | | | | During a high point of one of the films, I stood in the |
| installed the sound-on-film system, he no longer used | | | | exit doorway with my girl friend and jerked on the |
| the disc system because he was never "able to | | | | string attached to the hanger, intending to pull my |
| completely overcome that wavery noise. The music | | | | ghost down to the exit over the heads of the |
| would go up and down."Although C.A. died shortly | | | | audience. The ghost emerged from the small |
| after the sound-on-disc system was working, he | | | | projection window on cue, but the hanger became |
| never saw the business at his theatre improve. | | | | hung-up on the wire and refused to travel as I had |
| Justus saw a gradual improvement "along about | | | | intended. I tugged on the string and it snapped, so |
| 1937." This increase in patronage came about not | | | | the projectionist gave the hanger a push. When the |
| because many small-town citizens were interested in | | | | houselights came on at the end of the feature, I saw |
| the latest technical improvements or in having their | | | | my intended deus ex machina suspended in plain view |
| lives enriched by the imaginative visions of such | | | | in the center of the auditorium. Maybe this failure |
| geniuses as Orson Welles; they merely wanted | | | | was why Justus limited all of my future promotion |
| entertainment that would whisk them away from | | | | efforts to the lobby and outside the theatre; maybe |
| their humdrum lives -- and an excuse to get out of | | | | he decided that I had been influenced too much by |
| the house. They didn't expect to be surprised by the | | | | the gimmicks of such master showmen as William |
| plot or ending and didn't really want to be intellectually | | | | Castle (for such films as THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED |
| challenged. They were as excited about seeing their | | | | HILL, THE TINGLER, MR. SARDONICUS, HOMICIDAL, |
| favorite romantic leads involved in the latest routine | | | | and THIRTEEN GHOSTS). Of all of the Castle films |
| star vehicles as they were about seeing the burning | | | | that Justus played, I can only remember the colored |
| of Atlanta.The fact that GONE WITH THE WIND | | | | glasses for the original THIRTEEN GHOSTS being |
| (1939) was a hit in Carthage may or may not have | | | | particularly effective. [Further details about horror |
| been the result of Justus renting the side of a barn | | | | movie promotions can be found in the companion |
| where he and his friends pasted up a 24-sheet | | | | article BLACK-AND-WHITE HALLOWEEN HORROR |
| display touting the popular classic. Many of the films | | | | HITS: I WAS A TEENAGE UNDEAD WITCH, which is |
| that we today regard as classics were, at the time, | | | | available online.]These are only a few examples of |
| little more than run-of-the-mill programmers. | | | | promotional machinations that were necessary to |
| CASABLANCA (1942), for example, was merely a | | | | boost ticket sales for the second-run films shown by |
| modest romantic thriller with Humphrey Bogart and | | | | independent, small-town exhibitors. Many of the |
| Ingrid Bergman acting as stand-ins for our exotic | | | | earlier gimmicks, such as bank night and |
| fantasies; they turned the attention of small-town | | | | merchant-sponsored Christmas shows, brought in a |
| patrons away from their personal issues while the | | | | few extra dollars, but it is doubtful whether the later |
| caricatured Nazi villains provided targets for their | | | | and more flamboyant gimmicks greatly affected |
| anger. In most instances, what was playing at the | | | | ticket sales. BOXOFFICE magazine and press sheets |
| local theatre was irrelevant, whether it be a film like | | | | for the individual films offered exploitation tips, many |
| WIZARD OF OZ (1939), which initially did disappointing | | | | of which required the ordering expensive supplies, but |
| business but was later perceived to be a classic, or | | | | the struggling independent had to primarily rely on his |
| films with appropriate titles like SMALL-TOWN GIRL | | | | own imagination to create makeshift, inexpensive |
| (1936). It was a community activity that was as vital | | | | promotions.Justus Garard* claimed to be one of the |
| to the town as the Saturday night band concerts | | | | last independent exhibitors in the area to go out of |
| when the white-painted wooden bandstand was | | | | business. The Woodbine Theatre in Carthage was |
| hauled to the center of Main Street.An activity that | | | | sold to the neighboring auto dealer in 1969 and |
| Justus promoted in his small town to help improve | | | | eventually converted into a showroom for new cars. |
| theatre patronage was bank night. Bank night was a | | | | The interior of his theatre, when my brother and I |
| gimmick that worked like this: the patrons would | | | | saw it shortly after it had been gutted for this |
| register in a large book, and attached to each | | | | purpose, resembled the interior of the small-town |
| registration form was a numbered tag which Justus | | | | movie theatre in the superb and touching Italian film |
| or an employee placed in a large drum. The drum | | | | CINEMA PARADISO (1989). The Dallas and Warsaw |
| was hauled out in front of the theatre audience after | | | | theatres, although closed long ago, still resemble |
| the first showing on Tuesday nights where a local | | | | movie theatres; the latter, used as a storage area |
| merchant or other prominent citizen would draw out | | | | for antiques, still has its prow of a marquee that juts |
| a number and announce it to the audience. If the | | | | out over the sidewalk. Not much has changed in the |
| person holding that number sat in the theatre at that | | | | river town of Warsaw, but on Saturday nights, |
| moment, he or she would claim the money. "If not," | | | | without the bandstand with local citizens playing |
| Justus added, "the money was put into what we | | | | instruments while kids skip around it, and without the |
| called bank night and held over until the next week. | | | | glittering marquee of the old movie theatre, Main |
| We'd add fifty dollars a week." A fifty dollar night | | | | Street seems much darker, and a lot lonelier. Perhaps |
| would hardly pay for the showing, and the theatre | | | | only a few independent exhibitors, like those in small, |
| wouldn't start making money until the jackpot | | | | midwestern towns like Carthage and Warsaw, |
| reached around $200 or $300. "Then we'd fill the | | | | resorted to the above-mentioned gimmicks, and |
| theatre," he said, and this didn't include "all the people | | | | perhaps the death knell for the mom and pop |
| who came down and gambled in the afternoons." Of | | | | theatre operation had been sounded long before the |
| course, a weekly winner would have wiped out the | | | | staging of many of the later promotional efforts, but |
| business, so Justus, like other independent exhibitors, | | | | like the sailors on ships which many of these |
| took a gamble with this particular gimmick.Another | | | | still-existing theatre fronts resemble, the tenacious |
| gimmick to bolster limping ticket sales involved the | | | | independents refused to go down without a |
| distribution of sets of silverware one piece at a time | | | | fight.[Note: *Justus Garard's statements were taken |
| until the patron had collected an entire set. These | | | | from an interview conducted by Sam Garard in June |
| sets -- knives, forks, spoons, and ladles -- were | | | | 1981 at a Daytona, Florida, cinema draft house |
| easier to handle than dishes; dishes were shipped in | | | | owned by Sam at the time. I am indebted to both |
| barrels and often arrived broken. Unlike today, | | | | my father who passed away in May of 1988 and |
| exhibitors actually made the bulk of their profits from | | | | younger brother for the information which supports |
| ticket sales. The limited offerings of the concession | | | | my own recollections. Some of these memories have |
| stands in small theatres -- long before the days of | | | | been utilized as background for my novels |
| hot dog warmers and cheese-covered tortilla chips -- | | | | WATERFIELD and CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.]All |
| provided only a small percent of the revenue. The | | | | rights reserved.Charles J. Garard is a writer and |
| best years for ticket sales, added Justus, were | | | | professor of British literature, American literature, |
| during World War II.While Justus was an officer in | | | | mythology, and film studies. He has taught for two |
| the Navy in 1943, a fire started in the furnace and | | | | colleges, two community colleges, and two |
| consumed the entire theatre. His uncle, prominent | | | | universities (most recently a university in Anshan, |
| architect Edgar Payne, drew up blueprints for a | | | | China). His nonfiction book on film POINT OF VIEW |
| wider, single-floor theatre, and construction began | | | | IN FICTION AND FILM: FOCUS ON JOHN FOWLES is |
| immediately under Kirschner's supervision. The new | | | | available from Amazon. His interests include |
| building had no balcony, but it did contain a | | | | mainstream fiction (with his father's movie theatres |
| soundproof cry room on the second floor. The | | | | forming the background of two novels), |
| seating capacity of the theatre was 500 seats, and | | | | science-fiction time travel, and horror; he is now |
| this was later reduced to 350.In the late 1930s, | | | | working on a novel about Atlantis and is gathering his |
| Justus remodeled an older building into a theatre in | | | | notes for a novel about China. He lives in Atlanta, |
| Dallas City, Illinois, sixteen miles north of Carthage. | | | | Georgia, USA. |
| The theatre, he recalled, had a "beautiful front lobby | | | | |