What do you all remember about going to the movies? CV fans are waiting.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Movies
Being inspired by Don's very successful post on the Pool Hall, I would raise the topic of the Leonard Theater. Surely we all visited that place often. I have written fairly extensively on the theater in early posts, so I won't go into detail right now. However, we must all remember the rats that skirted among the seats to collect the wrappers and stuff we dropped. And I have vivid memories of the Technicolor musicals I saw there for the first time. Also, the Saturday night Westerns that made western New Mexico familiar territory the first time I saw it "live."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
I mentioned Tim Holt to one of my CV friends the other day, and she had no remembrance of that great cowboy star. But some of my earliest memories were of sitting in the Leonard Theater and watching Tim Holt and Hopalong Cassidy and Charles Starret. When one was watching those guys, the rats on the floor and the older guys and gals necking on the back rows did not bother at all.
The Saturday afternoon matinee was a nickle in the 30s. For this I got to watch a Buck Rogers serial installment and a Looney Tunes cartoon as well as some singing "Oater".
A year or two later I started developing crushes on Hedy Lamaar, Sonia Heini, and others only now it was costing a dime. They still had the cliff hanger serials tho.
Besides the cartoon, there was the Newsreel, usually covering the WWII. We didn't have TV, so that was the exciting way we kept up with how Uncle Sam was kicking butts of Japan and Germany.
My favorite recollections was when Jack and I gave Maude a Mayday basket with a frog in it. When we gave it to her, the frog jumped out and she jumped about a foot. We were afraid to go to the movies for about a month, but when we did, she just laughed.
Maude was a pretty tough old bird under all that makeup and wild costuming. Great story, Dick.
Did the Leonard's build the theatre .. and/or .. what was the history of movies/entertainment in Cedar Vale?
Excerp from an article by Carl N. Helmick in the book, "History of Chautauqua County"...."Bill Leonard came to Cedar Vale to manage the old opera house. He was a registered pharmacist, so he and his wife, Maude, founded the Leonard Drug Store. A little later they founded the Mystic Theater. They conducted a contest to select its name which was won by Eliza Harris, long-time Cedar Vale teacher. Bill ran the projector and Maude sold tickets - five cents for kids and ten cents for adults. Bill had his own patent medicine, 'Cee Vee Healing Oil' which, according to the label was 'For Man or Beast'."
Thanks, Pat! Does anyone know where the Opera House was located? Was it at the site of the theatre? Does anyone remember 'Cee Vee Healing Oil'?
I think the Opera House was on the second floor Moon bldg.-formerly the Co-op Store. The original Mystic Theater was where Herbs Hamburger Joint was. You may remember that Herb's place sat on a larger concrete slab. That slab was all that was left of the Mystic Theater after it burned to the ground in the early part of the century. Back to the Opera house--if anyone has better facts I am not sure--it might have been over the Dosbaugh Bank, next door to the Co-op Store in the corner Bldg.
Thank you so much, Don. Your email from Pat Molder indicates that indeed the Opera House was located in the old Cedar Vale National Bank building. Later, I will forward said information from Pat in this regard. (Thanks, Pat!)
Post a Comment