Remember going to the movies in Decatur?
DECATUR — Have a smart phone? You now have an instant movie theater and can view movies anywhere. Have a Blu-ray player? Now you can sit in your living room with a host of movie options at your disposal. With all these modern devices, it’s no wonder that the days of the walk-in movie theaters and the openair drive-ins are declining.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the movie theater was one of the main gathering places where people could go to escape into the world of the imagination.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Decatur had two movie theaters and a drive-in, all in the downtown area. This was the topic of the latest Decatur Historical Committee monthly forum in the committee room at Decatur City Hall on March 1.
One of the walk-in theaters was located next to the old House of Chicken building on Main Street.
The main movie theater occupied the space where Handy Mart is today. It was of two-story Odd Fellow Lodge design with a balcony on the second floor and a concession stand near the entrances on the first floor. It, like most of the theaters of its day, was a grandiose palace with ornamental metal decoration on the ceiling, chandeliers and plush seats. It was owned by the Coverston family from near Gravette. The family also owned movie theaters in Gravette and Gentry, and Noel and Southwest City in Missouri.
The drive-in was where Grand Savings Bank is now. Moviegoers simply paid admission at the entrance and found a parking spot in front of a huge white movie screen. Sound was projected using huge speakers in the projection booth. At that time, you could either sit in a car or watch the movie under the stars.
In the late 1770s, the first picture shows used a system called the Magic Lantern. Put simply, these projectors used a series of hand-painted slides that were changed much the same way as a 1950s slide projector. People gathered in homes and small businesses to see the magic of these “moving” pictures.
American inventor Thomas Edison designed a new type of motion picture projector called the Kinetoscope. The system used a continuous loop of film enclosed in a box. For a nickel, viewers would look through a set of lenses with a light on the end. The light would shine through the film and the lenses fo- cused the images. The film had a set of evenly spaced holes that corresponded to a set of gears in the projector. This moved the movie loop through the Kinetoscope. The new projector gave birth to the moviehouse. For $250, anyone could purchase one of Edison’s devices and put it wherever they chose.
At the time, there was no way to synchronize the film with the dialogue. Actors would use exaggerated facial movement to imply the act of speaking. After the scene, a dialogue box popped on the screen with the words the actor spoke. While this was going on, a piano or organist would provide background music. This gave rise to the silent movie.
Many theaters had either a piano or organ positioned at the side of the movie screen. The pianist or organist would set the mood for each scene. During sad scenes, the organist, for example, would perform music that set somber overtones. When the hero swept in to save the day, a lively, brisk piece set the scene. This gave rise to the “Mighty Wurlitzer” theater organ.
The instrument had several sets of stops which could mimic any band or orchestra instrument. Movie patrons would go to theaters to hear the organ as much as they did to see the movies.
In 1929, the silent movie, “Wings,” starring legendary silent screen actors Clara Bow, Charles Rogers and Gary Cooper, made history when it won the first Oscar for best picture during the first Academy Awards ceremony. “Wings” was a film about World War I pilots in France.
In the mid 1920s, a new movie format began to take shape — the “talkies.” The industry finally found a way to synchronize dialogue with the pictures.
For a quarter — prices varied in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s to as much as 30 cents — children and adults could sit and watch their favorite cowboy stars like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter or John Wayne. Or, they could watch their favorite action hero, like Randolph Scott.
The second decade of the 20th century gave rise to one of the most popular forms of entertainment, the serial. These were usually short in duration and were divided into chapters. Each week, the movie house would present a new chapter. This enticed children to return every week, usually on Saturday, to see the next chapter. During the Golden Age, beginning in 1936, Flash Gordon, which was 12 chapters long, was the first of these, followed by Dick Tracy (1937), The Lone Ranger (1939), Buck Rogers (1939) and the Green Hornet (1940). These were just a few of the hundreds of serials.
Movie theaters and driveins continued to flourish throughout much of the 20th century. However, with the advent of the CD and eventually the DVD, the movie theater began its decline.
Drive-ins, in the height of their popularity in the 1950s and ’60s, numbered around 4,000. In the 1970s, the oil crisis and the beginning Daylight Saving Time spelled the end of the outdoor theater. In 2014, there were only 238 left in the United States. In Arkansas, there are only four, one of which is the old 112 Drive-In in Fayetteville.
By 1951, all three of the Decatur movie theaters were gone. The grand Decatur theater was sold to the city of Decatur and used as city hall until 1986 when the old school building was renovated and the city moved its offices. A few years later, the old building was torn down and a convenience store was constructed in its place.
The golden age of the walkin theaters and the drive-ins, like the ones that once graced downtown Decatur, are now just faint memories, part of a past we will likely never reclaim.