Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines

SATURDAYS AT THE MOVIES

by 
                            Louise Dubrule

Those of us who are of a certain age remember spending Saturday afternoons in a darkened theater with all our friends. Before the advent of TV and the video games that occupy today’s youngsters, we played outside and invented amusements. If the weather was bad, we had board games or books to pass the hours inside. But good weather or bad, Saturday afternoons meant a double feature that started at 1 PM. We looked forward to this outing; and in thinking back, I’ll bet our mothers were glad to be rid of us for a while.

Admission to the double feature was a dime, later raised to fifteen cents. You went with a quarter and had enough for something to nibble. There were no hotdogs, nachos, or fountain drinks, but there was popcorn in white paper bags and a modest selection of candy. There was plenty of talking in the auditorium, but once the lights dimmed, we watched the screen entranced. We cheered and clapped for the hero, laughed at the funny lines, and gasped at the scary scenes.

The program started with a black and white movie, no more than 90 minutes long. It was often a comedy such as The Dead End Kids (sometimes billed as the Bowery Boys or East Side Kids), and we enjoyed the antics of Leo Gorcey as Muggs and his gang of toughs who had hearts of gold. Huntz Hall, the long-faced character in the Jughead beanie made us laugh the loudest. Another favorite was the team of Abbott and Costello, especially when their plot was combined with The Mummy or other scary character. Once in a while it was a Dagwood and Blondie movie with Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton in the starring roles. The first feature could also be a story about Renfrew of the Mounties in Canada, a mild horror movie, or a really bad gangster film, something that today wouldn’t rate even one star.

Before the second feature, we were usually treated to a cartoon. These were in color and starred Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Tweety Bird or the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote. Imagine my surprise years later upon seeing a real roadrunner and discovering that it was only the size of a crow and belonged to the cuckoo family!

Now came the part of the afternoon that made it all worthwhile: the Western. These were most often in black and white, but once in a while we got one that was in sepia tone. The most famous good guys were Roy Rogers (King of the Cowboys) and Gene Autry (The Singing Cowboy), and both of them played themselves. Others had a film persona: William Boyd was Hopalong Cassidy and he was the only hero who wore a black hat. Clayton Moore starred as the Lone Ranger and Allen Lane was Red Ryder. These heroes had sidekicks played by George “Gabby” Hayes, Smiley Burnett, Pat Buttram , Jay Silverheels (as Tonto). Bobby Blake (later known as Robert Blake of TV “Baretta” fame) was Little Beaver in the Red Ryder films. Their horses got billing too: We knew Trigger, Champion, Topper, Silver, and Pat Buttram’s mule Dandruff.

These were not the only cowboys, not by a long shot. How many of these do you remember? Early ones were Lash LaRue, Hoot Gibson, Buster Crabbe and Tex Ritter. They led the way for Johnny Mack Brown, Tom Mix, Sunset Carson, Tim Holt, Wild Bill Elliott, and Tim McCoy among others. We knew them all by sight.

Women were rare in the westerns except as damsels in distress or the schoolmarm. The exception was Dale Evans, wife of Roy Rogers. She was “Queen of the Cowgirls” and had a beautiful buckskin horse named Buttermilk. When Roy’s movie was a mystery, she was on hand to help solve the riddle. What’s more, she could sing duets with Roy, especially when the Sons of the Pioneers or Riders of the Purple Sage performed in the movie too.

The plots of these Westerns were interchangeable and they all featured the same rotating group of actors as the bad guys who always lost in the end. It was funny to me that the robbers wore a bandana over the lower half of their faces when they robbed a gold shipment or a stage coach but when they were in a saloon an hour later, the victims didn’t recognize the clothes, hats, boots, or even the horses tied outside. Most of these films had a runaway team pulling a buckboard (with a damsel aboard) or a stage coach (with a damsel aboard) or a supply wagon. Nearly every movie had a galloping gun battle with enough lead flying to sink a rowboat, but nobody got killed They were merely wounded or “winged.” Sometimes the plot had a few Indians who did the mischief, and occasionally the Cavalry came riding to the rescue with the familiar bugle call. The showdown was most often a chase scene where the cowboy du jour eventually caught up with the leader of the outlaws, pulled him out of the saddle, and together they rolled down a hill to the edge of a cliff. During the ensuing fist fight, our hero never lost his hat.

We never tired of the familiar stories, and we spent the next week playing cowboys, reenacting some of the best scenes. How simple and innocent it all was: no gore, no sex, no bad language, and no real violence. We learned that good always triumphed over evil. A couple of months ago we found some of these very old movies on DVDs for a dollar each, and suddenly I was 8 years old again, remembering the pleasant afternoons spent in the dark. How special it all was.

 

Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
Copyright © 2003 & 2004 & 2005 & 2006 Norm Léveillée
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Created 1 Feb 2003