When Hollywood really educated kids
Eighty years ago Columbia Pictures got a great idea for getting elementary schoolkids to come to movie theaters to watch films — not cartoons, but action-packed dramas just for them. The studio developed “serial” movies (that is, they really didn’t end in one sitting and required coming back time and again). And what better time to show them than on Saturday mornings when theaters were usually closed?
In the 1940s when I grew up, these Hollywood-produced movies became not only an outing for kids but another form of education outside schools. For example, the movies encouraged budgeting, long before courses would be offered to students. Usually parents would provide a dime or 15 cents for the weekly rite of passage, but because the combined series of films lasted three or more hours, the youngster was forced to divvy his funds carefully. Maybe 7 cents for admission, a couple pennies for initial refreshments, then the rest for a big gumball or licorice stick as the action of the feature flick drained emotion and energy.
These Sat-shows helped develop patience. The first film was a serial, maybe 12 to 15 parts in total. Each segment left the hero hanging over a cliff or surrounded by enemies. No matter. One had to keep the final scene in memory for seven days until the next Saturday to find out what happened. That thirst satiated, the viewer was left with yet another crisis to contemplate until next time. And by the time the serial came to an end, there was still no rest for the worrisome: a new serial would begin the following week.
Then came feature movies, almost always cowboy sagas. They introduced kids to geography. Virtually every one was set in areas with an intricate topography to fathom, from the Black Hills to the Badlands to the Chisholm Trail. The bad guys, after perpetrating their misdeeds, would flee and hide. But the heroes followed their tracks, often by dividing up and going in various directions. By taking an inventory of every inch of the territory — through canyons, prairies and deserts — the heroes would find the villains, often in the mountains, where they would invariably cut the bad guys off at the pass.
What is more, the films widened the vocabulary of kids that really impressed teachers, with such words as critter, little dogies, grub, posse, desperado, lasso, sidesaddle, homestead, stampede, pokey, hornswoggle, snakebit, sidekick, chuckwagon, grubstake, sawbones and the immortal words of Tonto to the masked Lone Ranger: Kemo Sabe, meaning trusted friend.
They also provided realistic and modest expectations for kids. Each cowboy seemed to be satisfied with a plate of beans, cup of coffee and, thanks to the song of the Sons of the Pioneers, “cool, clear water.”
Perhaps the most significant dividend of the films was in getting kids to have tolerance for all kinds of people. The heroes were scarcely monolithic. Roy Rogers was beady-eyed and thin, Gene Autry wide-eyed and a bit on the chubby side, William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy) with his silver hair looked old, Johnny Mack Brown had the Southern drawl of his Alabama upbringing, and George “Gabby” Hayes was living testimony that a man without muscles, teeth or a razor blade could warm hearts.
Lash LaRue was hard to love, what with his 18-foot-long bullwhip, black clothes and tough talk, but he got the job done. Then there was my favorite, Smiley Burnette, usually a sidekick to Rogers and Autry, who wore a floppy hat and outrageous comedic outfits that gave life to alternative dress styles.
No doubt, the Saturday-morning outing was a kind of meeting that developed a sense of camaraderie and respect for good conquering evil. The kids respectfully held their breath as the good guys were threatened by the villains, then whooped together when the blue cavalry came around the bend to rescue their heroes. Because they shared caps, the Saturday gang experienced the first form of burnout, namely, ringworm of the scalp, acquired from the backs of fabric theater seats and necessitating a future heads-up attitude. And the kids learned to comfort colleagues who lay sick in bed on the weekends, with a detailed briefing of their missed Saturday shows.
Finally, the Saturday movies always saw the heroes relieving their stress by a soothing song or two — a legacy I’ve carried with me to this very day. Whenever I feel ambushed by the rustlers of my world, I have a mind to round up my blessings, look yonder out my condo window, no matter the big heap of tall buildings and holler my favorite campfire tune, “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”:
“Cares of the past are behind/ Nowhere to go, but I’ll find/ Just where the trail will wind/ Drifting along with the tumblin’ tumbleweeds …”