Memories - Chapter 10 -- THE MOVIES OF BILOXI

Saenger Theater 

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 Lameuse Street.  Like the Roxy, it was in a working class part of town, but the bar rooms, at least, were a little further down the street.  The Bayview had a somewhat unusual layout.  The ticket booth faced the sidewalk, and just past it was a huge open foyer.  One wall was the store front for The Bayview Florist Shop -its giant picture windows framed with artificial flower arrangements while refrigerated cases in the rear displayed roses and gladiolas  - pink, white, red, yellow.  Giant sized movie posters filled the opposite wall of the foyer.

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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