1957 Nacogdoches, Texas
Cheryl Slay Williams
1947
Nacogdoches Texas
Interviewed on September 7, 2019
By Hoang Le
My dad and my uncle loved, I mean LOVED, to watch new western movies. We grew up in the West after all and tended cattle in the outskirts of town. My dad especially loved western films, particularly those with John Wayne. Oh boy did dad get excited when he heard about the release of “The Searchers” starring John Wayne. John Wayne was all my father ever talked about, and he couldn’t wait for this new film to come to our theater – the Main Theater.
This weekend was special. Dad and uncle invited me and my cousin to come along and watch the new film. We were only 10 years old at the time, but I remember that movie vividly. Whenever we wanted to go downtown for anything, we would take our car and drive there. Downtown was only eight miles away. it was quite a long drive in our old Ford model car; it would take us almost twenty minutes to get to town.
Dad paid for our tickets, so I don’t remember the price, but I do know that a few years later when I entered high school, tickets went up to fifty cents per showing. There were so many people waiting to get tickets; it took another whole thirty minutes before we got to our seats. But the wait was totally worth it.
Then, dad took us over to another stand, the place where the popcorn stand used to be. The smell was so overwhelming, we couldn’t pass through the theater doors without buying a bag of popcorn. For something that tasted so good, I couldn’t believe it only costed a nickel. It was such a remarkable experience! That theater seated almost 800 people that night. The lower level was already packed with people, but we were lucky enough to get seats in the balcony. I’ve never seen so many people gathered together in one place and all to watch a movie?
But I could truly see why everyone came to watch the movie. By the time the film finished, I didn’t even notice that two hours had passed. How time really flies when you’re having a good time… My favorite scene of the film was when John Wayne comes to rescue Natalie Wood from the Comanche Indians. And as I grew older, I also fell in love with westerns. I noticed a recurring pattern; it was always the cowboy who goes on a journey to fight the “evil” Indians and usually kills them in the process. It’s not a western if there isn’t any fighting or violence in it. Maybe the gunfighting is what kept me coming back to the theater to see more westerns. And I would often hang out with girl friends in high school, and we would do movie nights every other weekend.
It really pained me that the Main theater was the only theater in town. Dad told me they closed his favorite theater, the Texan theater. I did come back to Nacogdoches after I married in the 1980s, but the Main theater was already closed by then. It was sad to see my childhood movie theater gone. But every time the Searchers is reshowing on TV, I would invite all my friends for a watch party. The color may not be as good as films today, but the narrative and acting make up for it well. Even though I’ve watched it several times, there is always something new that I didn’t notice before. The Searchers is still one of my all-time favorite films and most definitely, the best western film out there.
