The Rialto Theater
Beeville, Texas
Every couple of years or so, I seem to do a memory check on some of the Grade B movie stars that made films for our post World War II generation of kids that loaded the suburban movie theaters each Saturday morning or afternoon to watch a four-hour double bill that was aimed straight at our restless little culture-deprived minds.
My home base for these weekly retreats from all thoughts grown-up was the Avalon Theater in the Houston East End on 75th at Lawndale. They tore that sweet bastion of adult-free space down too long ago for me to have gone back in time for a treasured photo of the original “Avalon” post. It was the “Capri” for a while thereafter, then went through several lives as a “church” before the wrecking ball got it about five years ago.
What’s in a movie house name beyond all of our fond personal memories? Most of us from that era were pretty much dancing to the same beat no matter where we lived, or what they called our base theater, even then. Our many movie homes all over America simply played to our single heartbeat tastes for action, adventure, mystery, goosebumps horror, comedy, and cliff-hanging weekly serials. Mine just happened to spawn at the Avalon.
Here was the set-up at the Avalon, circa 1946-52: Nice cents paid for your ticket. For another sixteen cents, you could get pop corn, candy, and a coke. That worked out to a quarter. So, moms and dads could get rid of their kids for four hours each Saturday for a quarter a kid and have some free time to do whatever it was that boring parents enjoyed doing with each other back in the day.
Here was the formula for what we got on the screen for that three to four hours we were there: one western; one other show, pretty much running the gamut of all those topics I described earlier, a cartoon, a weekly serial; sometimes a one-reel specialty show like “Joe Doakes”, and about one gazillion previews. – Some things never change.
Here are some of the leading western stars that I recall: Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, Rod Cameron, Sunset Carson, The Cisco Kid, Eddie Dean, The Durango Kid, Tim Holt, Alan “Rocky” Layne, Red Ryder, Roy Rogers, Jim Wakely, The Lone Ranger, Bob Steele, and Wild Bill Elliott, just to name a few that I’m hoping will trigger your own memories.
The second movie was usually a contemporary times script that frequently included some other franchise B stars like The Bowery Boys, Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, The Three Stooges, Dagwood and Blondie and Boston Blackie were all common stars that we mostly embraced as we might have members of the family, They were our stars – not the stars of our parents.
The weekly serials I especially remember included Batman, (of course, there were three Batman serials), Superman, The Crimson Ghost, The Purple Monster, Rocket Man, The Phantom Rider, King of the Forest Rangers, The Daughter of Don Q, and The Mark of Zorro, There were others. Perhaps, you can help me remember what I’ve now forgotten and left off the list.
The movies were our electronic social gathering point back in the day. We didn’t text or e-mail 0r play computer games, but we did rally to the messages of our post war movie fare. Funny thing is, even though there was a lot of shooting, especially in westerns, I don’t recall these exposures making us think or feel that shooting people in reality was OK. We just didn’t think in those terms.
We did believe in fist fights and wrestling matches as ways of settling serious disputes. That much I know for sure.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
February 19, 2013 at 2:32 pm |
Gabby Hayes , I remember as everyone’s side kick,,,” Darn Tooten”
a favorute slang,
February 19, 2013 at 6:54 pm |
Other Western Sidekicks: Smiley “Frog” Burnett; Roscoe Ates; Al St. John; Carlos Bustamante Rafferty; Andy Divine; Leo “Pancho’ Carrillo; and “Fuzzy” Knight come to mind. But you are so right, Patrick. – Gabby Hayes was No. 1 – all time.
February 19, 2013 at 2:46 pm |
Annie Oakley, Judge Roy Bean, Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Rex Allen, Smith Ballew, Lash LaRue, Audie Murphy, Slim Pickens, Tex Ritter. For 25 cents at the Olmos Theater on San Pedro Ave. in San Antonio, we spent four or five hours watching 10 cartoons, a serial, and usually a horror movie double-feature: The Creature From The Black Lagoon, War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, The first Body Snatchers … it was paradise. Went through a whole box of jaw breakers, red hots, milk duds, jujubees, malted milk balls, kept the dentist in business.
February 19, 2013 at 7:12 pm |
Mark – Your candy memories light a hungry yearning for those good old days of candy for sweet-tooth sake! I once had to write “I will not eat Red Hots in class” on the blackboard 100 times, At the movies, I also recall those really sweet orange slices, spearmint leaf green candies, and those delicious pink disc shaped peanut candy praline sandwiches that were off the radar on sugar loading days at the picture show. How did we survive it? Maybe it’s due to the innocent pursuit of good times and good tasting treats that made it OK for us then. Now that we’ve been taught that those things are bad for us, they probably would be.
Nice horror movie list you made up. I saw all of them at the drive in movie with my girl friend. They were all great date movies and the original Body Snatchers beat ’em all hands down as a film that inspired continuous teenage boy-girl closeness under the scary dark skies of a Houston summer evening at the Trail Drive In Theater on OST.
February 19, 2013 at 8:14 pm |
I still remember going to the Avalon with my two cousins. Ronnie was older and Sherrie a year younger. We went to see “The Creature of the Black Lagoon”. I have never been so scared in my life!! We all were. The Avalon was an every weekend thing back then but as we became teens we caught the bus to downtown and went to the big movie theaters. Also remember the King Center Drive In and the Trail Drive In. I did see the body snatchers there also!
I still tease my little brother about the time we went downtown to see a movie that was very scary and he squatted down, with his face hidden in the arm of my isle seat, begging me to take him home. The movie was “King Kong”! Ah…..the good old days!
February 19, 2013 at 10:35 pm |
I remember the serial, Blackhawk, as a favorite on
Saturday mornings and afternoons. Also, there
were the annual Duncan Yoyo exhibitions and
competitions.
February 20, 2013 at 2:32 pm |
My place was the Tower movie house on Westhiemer. It was at least 10 miles by bike from my house, but no problem.
Remember we paid 9 cents to get in for 3 plus hours of fun. It was always packed.
I really liked the Green Hornet and Sky King complete with the directional finders, etc.
February 28, 2013 at 9:29 pm |
My place was the Hi-Pointe in the Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis. Saturday afternoon matinee 10 cents, popcorn 5 cents, Powerhouse candy bar 5 cents and we’re set for the day. Two movies, cartoon, March of Time, serial (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, Jungle Jim, Ace Drummond with his biplane). Parents got rid of us all day for 20 cents. Good days.