Leonard Theater, Cedar Vale, Kansas

By Gary White (CVHS, Class of 1955

Movies were the principal form of entertainment in Cedar Vale, Kansas, in the late 1940s, before the advent of television in the area. The Leonard Theater did a brisk business, showing three different movies each week: a western or other action film on Friday and Saturday; a good clean family movie, such as a musical or a comedy, on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; and a serious drama or thriller on Wednesday and Thursday. (The Wednesday and Thursday fare were mostly what is now called “film noir” by film buffs.) I attended at least once each week and twice if there was something good on. Admission was $.25 for kids. My 50-cent allowance would stretch to two movies per week if I didn’t spend some of it at the drug store.

The theater on Main Street had been a small vaudeville or “opera” house in earlier days. It had a full proscenium arch stage and seated about 200 patrons on one floor. The front entrance of the theater was recessed off the sidewalk and had a series of four steps leading up to the ticket booth in the center, with swinging doors on either side. At the left side of this area was Bill Leonard's office, which looked out on the entrance area through a series of windows.
Bill and Maude Leonard owned the theater. Bill was the chief projectionist and Maude sold tickets. I seldom saw Maude except when she was seated in the ticket booth, wearing a hat or turban and heavy makeup. Maude always reminded me of a gypsy fortuneteller, with her colorful costumes that were often made of some form of velvet. She may have really come in from the show circuit, along with Bill. Bill was long and lean, a stooped man with a hang-dog face. He worked in his office in the hour before the start of the movie at 7:00 PM, and we became the best of friends. I would stop by to visit with him before to the movie, and he would regale me with stories of his days in the circus band or on tour with various shows.

Bill had been a musician, the first professional musician I ever met. His office had musical instruments hanging on the walls, along with posters from the great movies he had shown at the theater over the years.

It was rumored around town that Maude had been a showgirl, and the couple was thought to be not quite respectable. If Maude had been on the vaudeville stage, it hadn't been for many years, because they were both up in years by the time I knew them. Bill was clearly in ill health. He was very thin, with the constant cough that all consumptives have. Maude was not in much better shape, but a heavy coating of makeup covered the worst of the ravages of time. Bill sat in his office chair, looking as if he might not be able to summon the energy to make the nightly climb to the projection booth. He had a long basset hound face and the largest ears I had ever seen. His doleful eyes would light up only when speaking of his past glories, and then he would become quite animated and laugh at the various adventures and misadventures he had lived through. I thought that the life of a musician on the road must be about the most exciting thing imaginable, and dreamed of someday playing with the circus band myself. As a sixth grader, I had just started lessons on the trumpet, and Bill's stories sent me home to practice even harder to make the high school band and someday “go on the road.”

Bill's office work consisted of booking future films and preparing the ads that were shown before the cartoon each evening. The theater had a magic-lantern slide projector that used three-by-five-inch glass slides. Bill would paint the ads directly on these glass slides, using a white opaque paint. He was the local sign painter in the daytime (another skill learned in the circus), and his ads were carefully lettered and even sported simple artwork in the form of stick figures in various amusing poses that illustrated the content of the ad. He would often be painting when I arrived, and I would wait in silence while he finished up so I wouldn't distract him and cause him to make a mistake.

As our friendship deepened, I started going to his office even on evenings when I wasn't going to the movie. I would spend some time with Bill and then move on up the block to talk with Mrs. Walker, the owner of Whitney Drug Store. One evening when I stopped by, having already seen the current movie, Bill asked if I would like to join him in the projection booth. Of course I jumped at the chance, and he took me up to show me around before the film started. The projection balcony was directly over the office and entrance area, up one flight of stairs. You had to go in the main entrance of the theater to reach this set of stairs, which were hidden behind a door in the lobby. The projection balcony was divided into two areas, one containing the projection machines, and another where Bill could sit when he was not having to change the film in one of the projectors. The projectors contained open carbon arcs that burned with a lot of heat, so that the projection room was always stifling hot. The light for the projectors was obtained by the electric arc between two round carbon rods about 5 inches in length. The rods were gradually consumed inside the projectors, which were vented through the ceiling. Keeping them adjusted for maximum light was a continual job. The room contained two movie projectors and the magic lantern. Along the back wall was a machine for rewinding and splicing film, and the whole room was heavily padded to keep the sound of the projectors from disturbing the patrons. The current film was in large reels in metal cases on the floor. In the small sitting area outside, there were two huge turntables that had been used to play the sound track for early talking films, before the days when the sound track was placed directly on the film. One of these turntables was used to play records in the minutes before the film began and during the showing of the magic-lantern ads.

Bill explained how he threaded the projectors and adjusted the carbon arcs. At the beginning of the evening he would load both projectors before starting the magic-lantern slides. Then he would put a 78-rpm record on and go to the booth to show the slides. On the wall between the projectors was a three-way switch that would shift the sound system from the records over to either of the projectors. Bill would run through his slides and then move to the first projector. He would start the projector and, when the film sound began, throw the sound switch and at the same time operate a shutter that cut off the light from the magic lantern and opened the projection hole for the first projector. If his timing was perfect, there would be a smooth segue into the film. Then he shut down the magic lantern, and he was free to rest in the sitting area until the first reel ran out. Near the end of a reel of film there are a series of warning spots on the upper right corner of the film. Bill would start the second projector precisely on one of the warning dots and then switch both the sound and the shutter in front of the projectors at the same time. If his timing was good there was scarcely any discontinuity in the projected image or sound. Then he would remove the reel from the first projector and place it on the rewinding machine while he reloaded that projector. There was a separate reel for the prevue of coming attractions and the cartoon. Most films were “three-reelers,” so Bill had to reload each projector only once in an evening. Of course, if the film broke or a projector jammed, he could be called into service on a moments notice. Otherwise he rested in an overstuffed chair in the sitting area, periodically checking to see if the carbon arcs were OK. If there was a technical difficulty, all the kids and some of the adults in the theater below would stamp their feet and make other disrespectful noises, and Bill would have to work at double speed to mend the problem. I thought Bill’s profession was quite glamorous. He was still in the entertainment business, just as he had been in earlier years.

After that first visit to the projection booth, I became somewhat of a regular. I would first have to pay and see the current feature, then Maude would let me in free the next night to visit with Bill. This ensured that they wouldn't be giving out free passes. For a period of time I spent one or two evenings each week sitting with Bill in that cramped little sitting room or following him around as he operated the projectors. I saw various projection disasters, such as film jams that ate up several feet of film and the burnout of the carbon arcs in the middle of a reel. When a carbon arc burned out, Bill would have to stop the show and replace the carbon electrodes. This was dangerous work because of the high voltages and high temperatures involved. The patrons would clap, stamp and whistle all the time that Bill was working feverishly inside the projector. I heard a lot about what he thought of his patrons during those emergencies!
As I grew older, I spent less and less time with Bill at the theater. I began to go to the movies with girls, and activities at the high school occupied more and more of my time. I didn't realize that Bill’s health was deteriorating badly until I heard one day that he had died. This came as a real shock to me. Mr. Beggs (my high-school band director) asked me to join him and two members of the band's trombone section to play hymns for Bill Leonard's funeral. We wore our band uniforms for this event, which was staged in the movie theater. The preacher was up on stage in front of the screen and Bill's coffin was in the lobby. We set up our music stands in an open area near one of the fire exits at the front of the auditorium. I don't remember many details of the funeral, but it was somehow both a solemn and a festive affair. Our brass quartet played several hymns and some of the townspeople spoke. As we filed out of the theater past Bill's open coffin, we saw that he had been dressed in his circus band uniform, with gold braid and brass buttons down the front. I think it was altogether one of the most appropriate funerals I have ever attended. The brass quartet accompanied the funeral procession to the cemetery, where Bill was laid to rest accompanied by hymns. I remember feeling that, if we had only brought some drums, we could have formed a Dixieland band to play a rousing version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" as we left the cemetery. I know that Bill would have liked that a lot.

That funeral marked the end of an era in Cedar Vale. The Leonard Theater was no more. Maude Leonard went to live with a niece in Kansas City. Several years later, when I was a senior at the University of Kansas, this niece contacted me to let me know the Maude had died, and that there were some of Bill's items that she had wanted me to have. I drove to Kansas City and spent an evening with her, talking of Bill and Maude. She gave me Bill's cornet, clarinet, and a derby hat, which are the most tangible artifacts of my childhood and youth in Cedar Vale, Kansas.