Memories - Chapter 10 -- THE MOVIES OF BILOXI
1955
Television was slowly making its way into every
home. It was limited to the larger
cities - nearest the stations. You see,
"cable" back then meant the transatlantic phone system. Being located
between Mobile
and New Orleans ,
Biloxi was a
"fringe" reception area - a nice phrase describing the snowy
picture. Even our 50 foot roof top
antenna had problems with New Orleans
when the weather was bad. So, like most
other Biloxi
residents, we still depended on the movies for entertainment.
For a small town, Biloxi had quite a collection of movie
houses - six in all -the Buck, the Roxy, the Bayview, the Avenue, the Biloxi
(we called it the Meyers), and the Saenger.
About the only thing these movie houses had in common was a screen. Each theater had its own peculiar character
and clientele.
The Saenger was Biloxi's premier Movie Showplace - the biggest, the plushest, the most comfortable - with the biggest screen. Home of the first Cinemascope picture run on the coast (The Robe), and the first color 3D Movies (The Wax Museum). The Saenger had a huge theater organ - used for special shows. More on the Saenger later....
The Buck was especially for the kids - located just one
block south of the Bakery on Lameuse
Street .
Every Saturday there were mobs of kid coming and going - the movies
never ended - running back to back. While the movies ran continuously, the
marquee never changed. Until the day it
closed - over fifteen years later, the dirty red plastic letters heralded "Always TWO
features" but there were lots of short subjects, Our Gang comedies, and a
few serials. All of this for ten
cents! The Buck was also famous for its
smaller ten cent bag of popcorn, which, if you started out with a quarter, left
five cents for a bar of candy.
The Buck, located
on Lameuse Street ,
one block south of Howard avenue .
Its floor plan was truly unique. The
concession stand (or candy counter as we called it) was outside - on the
sidewalk. On the adjacent wall were two
doors - about twenty feet apart. No
matter which door you picked, once inside you suddenly found yourself facing
the audience. Yes, the movie screen was on the wall behind you - about three
feet over your head!
We could
immediately identify a newcomer by their reactions. First the door opened, and after standing for
a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, they saw everyone facing them! Totally surprised and confused they
exited. And in a few minutes, the other
door opened, and the scene repeated itself.
After the shock wore off and their eyes became adapted to the darkness,
they began the search for a seat among the sea of kids.
The screen was tiny, and the films were old - but all of
them classic kids entertainment - Gene Autry with Gabby Hayes, the Abbot and
Costello classics "...Meets the Wolf Man, ... Meets Dracula, ...",
Rin- Tin-Tin, and of course everyone's Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The Buck, had one problem - it ran serials -
like Rocket Man - but somehow, the episodes never connected up. So each episode left everyone trying to solve
the usual cliff-hanger ending!
While all the other Biloxi
theaters had air conditioning, the Buck's cooling system was just two
industrial sized fans - mounted to the front and high above the audience. They sucked the muggy air from outside and
blasted it onto the audience in one continuous gale. Airborne popcorn boxes
thrown upwards from the front often landed in the last row. Yes, it was a pretty low budget operation,
but for less than a dollar, four kids or two adults were entertained for
hours. I guess that's why they called it
the Buck!
Now, the Avenue Theater, on Howard Avenue , was in the in the heart of
downtown Biloxi . It's entrance was nothing more than a small
facade of black glass tile tucked between stores, movie posters in glass cases
flanking the ticket window. As someone
giving directions best described it, "If you walk too fast, you'll miss
it." The Avenue attracted the young adult crowd - mostly teenagers the
high schools, and the airmen from Keesler Field, the local Air Force Base. Young girls of Sacred Heart
Academy , the Catholic High School , were discouraged from
attending movies. The nuns insisted that
the girls could only go in groups of three or more - or risk expulsion if
caught! Thinking back, I wonder how the nuns enforced this rule? You see, at that time, nuns traveled in
pairs, and were rarely seen outside the convent or the school grounds much less
even near a movie house.
The Avenue's program was typically second runs - a lot of
"B" movies - products of the minor studios. I think the Avenue screened just about every
science fiction and horror film that Universal and RKO ever made. They played
them all - SHE, THEM, IT, Little Shop of Horrors, and everyone of the Roger
Corman/Poe Classics - ironically, films that survived and went on to define the
Hollywood Camp Movie. Danny, Chuck, and
I were usually there for the first showing of the afternoon.
The Avenue was also tenant to the two adjacent
businesses. On one side there was a tiny
jewelry shop - the door took up half the width of the place. The showcase ran the length of the alley-like
interior. On the other side was Bodie's
Travel Service. It too was small, but it
had a bit more frontage. We always
paused to check out the miniature display in the window - a travel scene on a
small shelf - cardboard standing figures of people in native dress, ships,
airplanes. Travel posters lined the
walls inside the office area. Dangling
overhead, a mobile of airplanes, palm trees and smiling people, gently revolved
and twirled - welcoming you to Biloxi 's
one-and-only travel agency. The widow
display changed about every six months - when the sun bleached colors became
too obvious.
The Avenue Theater was incredibly small - everything in
it seemed miniaturized - the seating area, the aisles, the screen, and the
lobby that barely accommodated a couple of tubular steel arm chairs covered in
green vinyl. The candy counter was large
enough for just one worker. Even the
framed movie posters on the walls were the smaller tabloid size. But the manager - Mr. Meyers - was far from little! Looking like
the adult version of Tweedle-dum, he always stood at the doorway taking
tickets, tearing them in half and politely returning you the other half - what
for? .. I never knew.
There was another memorable part of the Avenue Theater
-the clock. It hung on the wall above
the emergency exit at the front of the theater. It was one of those Deco style
clocks - illuminated from the edge - the hands and numbers glowing a pale blue . The dial and hands floated mysteriously over
the black case on the wall as the second hand swept slowly over empty
space. Illuminated letters around the
edge read "BILOXI LUMBER COMPANY".
The clock was essential equipment - telling us if we had enough time to
"stay to the good part" again...
For others it was their sole reminder of time passing in the outside
world. That clock was probably the best piece of advertisement the Biloxi
Lumber Company ever had!
The Roxy Theater - down on Point Cadet - was in a
"rough" neighborhood. It was flanked by cheap bar rooms -favorite
hangouts for the fishermen when they weren't on the shrimp boats. There, around the nearest corner lay one of Biloxi 's "camp
grounds" - left-overs from the 1930's - a sordid collection of small
tar-paper shacks -homes to the poorest of the poor. The shacks were like boxes
- no more than 12-15 feet on the side - with tin roofs. In total contrast, on the corner - next to
the Roxy, there was a wonderful old two story white cottage complete with
gingerbread scroll. The downstairs was a
small variety store. The windows in front were always freshly decorated with
themes - Easter, Christmas, Back-to-School, Halloween - that made it worth a
trip to the "Point" to see. A
sign hung over the doorway "Bay Sundries" - a sign I found confusing,
because I thought they had misspelled "Sundays"...
Because of the neighborhood, we always with our parents
at the Roxy - and it had to be a special film to get us there. I remember some of the classics shown there -
Hans Christian Anderson -with Danny Kaye, Forbidden Planet, the Ginger Rogers
and Fred Astair films, and my first 3D movie!
BayView Theater - Does Anyone Recognize the Young Man? |
The Bayview Theater, was another one of the "neighborhood" movie houses - located on the back bay, right at the foot of
After a short walk, you climbed a dozen triple-wide
stairs separated by polished brass hand-rails, up to the lobby where the ticket
taker greeted you. The auditorium was
pretty shabby - the old laminated
hardwood theater seats were terribly uncomfortable - especially if you sat in
one that was missing a bottom - and in the pitch darkness, this was easy to
do. The air intake for the
"sometimes-not-working-well" air conditioning system was a series of
cutouts along the right wall - covered by heavy metal screens. The air rushing into the black holes drowned
out the film soundtrack; the nearby seats were definitely "last
choice". This was where Danny,
Chuck, and I first saw The Wizard of Oz - but that was even a mildly
disappointing experience - the film broke twice during the showing.
Then there was the Biloxi
theater - a few blocks up from the Bayview on the corner of Lameuse and
Division Streets - another neighborhood kids' movie house. At times, however, the kids were pretty
rowdy, and I remember seeing the owner ushering some of the worse ones
out. Danny and I would walked from the
Bakery to the Biloxi
when we were about twelve. We had to
cross the railroad tracks on the way - and this meant Mom had to give us a
refresher course each time - on how to cross the railroad tracks. One Saturday afternoon, before we reached the
tracks, Danny came up with an idea - he wanted to see what would happen to a
penny left on the railroad tracks. We
knew there would be a 3 o'clock
train, and we could hardly wait to see
what happened to the penny. But I made
the mistake of telling one of our friends, Roger, what we did.
"You put a penny on the track! You did?!
Oh, man don't you know that could cause the train to derail and
crash?", Roger warned us - all too late.
What had we done? We were terrified. We were already inside the movie, it was just
beginning - we couldn't go back - we didn't have enough money to buy another
ticket back into the show - and going back home we would have to explain to Mom
what happened. It was too late! So, with typical child-like abandonment, we
decided to watch Zorro instead...
During the movie, Danny looked my way, and I glanced back
- very nervous when we heard the train whistle outside. Any moment we imagined there would be a
horrible noise -screams - sirens - and an announcement of the terrible disaster
- that we caused - all because of a stupid penny. And of course, we just KNEW Roger was waiting
to tell on us. But - nothing happened!
On our way back, Danny searched for his penny while I
kept watch for approaching trains. There
in the coarse gray gravel he found it, sparkling - bright and shiny. It was squashed like a piece of chewing gum -
elongated and curled up - the face of Lincoln
still faintly visible among the scratches.
And, thank goodness, there was no train wreckage in sight. We got by with it this time, but we both
promised ourselves we would NEVER do that again!
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