Prior to the Malls Came: Showmanship for Small-town Movie Theatres

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As other small, privately owned businesses had done before them, small-town movies theatres survived -- and, sometimes, even thrived -- for a number of decades. One may still occasionally find independent theatres grinding away in small towns located far enough far from metropolitan areas, only one is more likely to find abandoned buildings with empty marquess that often resemble the rusted prows of old ships. Some old theatre buildings serve as shells for churches and small enterprises, but even a number of these buildings wear such skimpy camouflage that somebody passing through town can readily guess the role they once played to be a local center for a shared community experience. After the nature from the community changed, following the local people began identifying with all the national television community, the neighborhood exhibitors stepped within the public spectacle through promotional showmanship in an effort to revitalize not simply its role in the community but often the local community spirit itself. These converted marquees remind us not simply of abandoned ships but of shabby circus tents that remain long after the circus has left town; they may bear few traces with their former role locally rituals, but the memories from the personal efforts of local showmen to have the circus alive inside the face of cultural change can keep that circus as well as the expertise in the cultural significance alive within us.

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Before people relied so heavily on automobiles, and before these were afraid just to walk greater than a few city blocks, many towns of less than a thousand people had their particular theatre which residents often labeled "the show house" or "the picture show." Residents of your western Illinois town of Carthage, for example, saw two show houses within its business district not long after the beginning of the twentieth century, but only one of those survived for very long. The Woodbine Theatre, named once the crawling vine that grew on the east side of the brick building, was not the primary theatre during the city of over three thousand people, nevertheless the showmanship from the owner caused your competition to go out of business.

The 1st Woodbine was transformed into a theatre in 1917 by Charles Arthur Garard. C.A., when he was called, had already operated a nearby dairy and also a downtown frozen treats parlor which offered five-cent soft ice cream sodas, confections, five-cent crushed fruit souffles, along with a tobacco called Garard's Royal Blue. He was obviously a shrewd businessman, but he have also been a fanciful dreamer who should be locked in check by his pragmatic and perhaps shrewder wife. Bertha, who often accompanied the silent movies shown within his theatre together with her piano, kept him from selling the theatre and drifting off into other projects, like the growing of grapefruits in Florida. When C.A. died, she took over as proprietor until her youngest son, Justus, became old enough to aid her.

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⏰ Last updated: Jul 14, 2016 ⏰

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