1956 St. Louis, Missouri

Bob and Sarah Dunn

1942, 1945

St. Louis, Missouri

Interviewed on February 5, 2023

by Jack McClelland

Probably seven or eight or nine, something like that. Yeah, I was remembering movies before nine. So I could, well, I don’t remember, I would say at the same time that would be right. 

I’m trying to remember, they’re all kind of messed together. But one that really struck home for me was um Disney’s Pinocchio. It was a cartoon but it was beautifully done. We watched a lot of Disney, early, early Mickey Mouse. Yeah, those ones are the actual films I grabbed from my father’s collection before the films melted. I remember loving Jiminy Cricket. Um, my grandmother would take us often and she loved Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and they would do a series of movies. They were sort of a team together. And in those days it was sort of the actors play themselves rather than playing a particular role so you always get Crosby as Crosby. Hopalong Cassidy, Westerns, Cisco Kids and Hopalong Cassidy. There were a lot of different western in these movie theaters. You know, with Indians and, shoot them out, shoot outs and always the very happy ending. Hopalong Cassidy would never drink alcohol. He would go into the saloon out west and always asked for water which I think is kind of because he was a good guy. Gone with the Wind. That was wonderful. It was a big screen technicolor which was sort of still somewhat new. But I just, I can remember the fire in Atlanta as Sherman was running downtown. It was all written, sort of from a southern point of view. The Confederate soldiers are all very glamorous. Yeah, there’s a scene in there where Cable, who’s married to Scarlett O’Hara, and she is, how would you say, she’s pretty awful to him? Yeah. And she comes in and he’s been drinking in his study and she’s giving him all kinds of trouble. And he essentially picks her up, carries her up the stairs very dramatically to the bedroom. The next scene, it’s morning and she’s got a big smile on her face. And she obviously had a great time. Vivien maybe won the Academy Award for her performance. 

Oh, I was in love with Vivien. She was beautiful and quite dramatic. Yeah.

Another one that you might know was Grace Kelly. Grace is probably one of the most beautiful actresses of that era. She was a Philadelphia socialite, truly beautiful. She filmed a lot of movies with Bing Crosby, probably Carry Grass, etcetera and ended up being courted by the Prince of Monaco so she actually became a princess. Yeah, they were just big, big stars, different from nowadays. They were glamorous in a different way. 

Well, in those days, Jack, they were theater palaces. The Fox is a good example. Three or four of them, quite a few downtown. Great, big, wonderful. The other ones I remember there were the St. Louis Theater which is downtown, again another palace. Have you been to Powell Symphony Hall for the Saint Louis symphony orchestra? That was the grand, grand Saint Louis movie theater. Um, but there was Loew’s, which I think could have been a national production company and, you know, had venues across the country. One of the things which the Fox had, which you’re probably aware of is the lights would all go out and there’d be a spotlight on the floor right in front of the stage in front of the curtain and out of that, this organist would emerge doing just all kinds of very scary things. And then the movie would follow that. There were a lot of little local movie theaters in neighborhoods typically. If you think of Delmar by Parkview, there were three movie theaters; the Tivoli movie theater, the Varsity movie theater and the Pageant, all three would have different movies going on. So we could walk as children, which we did as young kids, eleven or twelve, and we could walk up and cheaply go into the movie theater and see whatever was showing. And like I say, right in that same neighborhood there might be three different movie theaters but each would only have one movie. 

My grandmother took me mostly, then I would go spend the night with my other grandmother. She would invite one of her five grandchildren here, that would be my dad’s mom, and she would invite us, you know, during the year, maybe once or twice a year to come spend the night. But just individually and we would always go to the movie theater in Webster Groves. So I remember doing that. There were a lot of small movie theaters. When I visited my grandmother, there was a Will Rogers movie theater at the end of the block up on Union Avenue, North Saint Louis. And every so often in the afternoon, if she didn’t have anything going on, she would go up and watch the movie. She would take me if I was over there for some reason or other and we’d go watch. You know, it was sort of the way that generation would really entertain themselves often. And I remember where we were with the grandparents because your parents were working usually. My friends down the street and I would also walk to the movie. Yeah. But you might also jump on the street car and take a streetcar downtown where the big movie theaters were.

Well, it was very exciting. I mean, it was probably the most kind’ve exciting entertainment you could watch. TV was just beginning to come out, but this was a huge screen, great visuals and musical. Everything was just very, very exciting. Then a little bit later, some early, early 3D things where the audience would sit there with these special glasses and watch Lowell Thomas flying over the Grand Canyon. You would feel like your seat was falling into the Grand Canyon. That was very exciting. Just the intermissions, the movies were so long in those days that they would have intermissions. Popcorn, candy. That was that part of the fun. And they were cheap. My favorite candy? Milk Duds, or something like that? Or malted milk balls? And popcorn of course.

Popcorn? Did it have a particular smell like popcorn? Were you able to smoke in movies? Is it possible that you could have early on? I mean, everybody smoked, especially on screen. Everybody was drinking alcohol on the rocks and smoking cigarettes, all the stars. 

They weren’t like these recliners now, like slid back and with several openings for different beverages. They were just regular type seats. But I think, you know, you’d also have curtains and the curtain would open up and the screen would appear. It was much more like a theater production. And you’d turn around, and you’d see the projector in the projection booth.

The last, the last thing I’ll just say quickly is that it would be another venue for taking a date. Take a date to the movie. That was high living.