1954 Bluefills, Nicaragua
Gladys Taylor de Padilla
Born in 1934
Bluefills, Nicaragua
Interviewed on September 21st 2019
By Victor Jose Padilla Castellanos
I think the earliest memory I have of going to the movies was watching For Whom the Bells Toll at my local movie theater in Bluefills, Nicaragua. I was 13 years old, so the year would have been around 1954. This is a little funny, because the movie had been released in the U.S almost 9 years prior, but I remember that love story as the first love story I watched on the big screen. Back then, everyone was trying to import a little bit of culture from the United States, even if it came a decade later, so it should not surprise you that the name of the theater was “The Los Angeles”. I think the afro-caribbean community identified more with the english speaking “gringos” than with the rest of the ladino communities in Nicaragua. We were born and raised speaking english, so a part of us always sought that language in the entertainment we were consuming.
The theater was a two story building right behind the central market, between the pharmacy and the dance hall. I remember it was two blocks away from the central park. The name though was a little bit deceiving, you would not have found inside its walls any of the glamour or bright lights that the “Los Angeles” named evoked. No, the sign atop the building tried to appeal to the Hollywood of our imaginations but my friends and I called it by a different name, El Pulgoso, the Flearidden.
El Pulgoso was the main theater in town, not by virtue of its quality but by virtue of how inexpensive it was. True to its name, anyone who spent their Friday night there could expect to go back home with a fair share of bug bites. You could also expect random interruptions, indiscriminate of where the plot of the movie was at the time. The film would break, or get tangled and the theater owner would have to call the technician so he could take a crack at the tapes. This would usually take between 20-30 minutes, which in the blazing heat of Nicaragua was almost enough to make someone pass out of desperation. With no fans or air conditioned, the only thing that could consistently keep us there without complaining was a good film.
But, what can I say, it took only 1 cordoba cent to go watch a movie and my friends and I took pride in paying for our own seats at the theater, even if we had to bring our own stools to watch the film. Back then, your parents would give you three to four cordobas for lunch and snacks at school for the whole week. But, my friends and I would pool together our refacciones, school lunches, so we’d save enough money to watch a movie on Friday nights together. Sometimes I even did extra tasks around the house so I could have money for the peanuts that they sold outside of the theater. I remember they sold them by the half pound, with the shell still on. As the audio of the movie was playing, you would hear the crackling of the shells being peeled. This sound is one of the things I remember most about the movies. I remember the crunch of the peanuts before the movie was about to start. How they at times seemed to silence the dialogue on screen. And how most emphatically, as people would stand up to get ready to leave the theater, dozens of feet would crush the shells left on the floor– bringing a sweet accompaniment to the often thunderous applause we’d give with the closing of the curtain.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember much about the movie. I am 80 years old and if there is something I’ve reckoned with is the way in which my mind has, often at random, chosen to forget some things over others. So I would not be able to tell you much about the complexities of the plot, the names of the actors, or who directed it. I’m sure one can look up such things pretty easily on a computer. But what I do remember is sitting with my sister, the both of us completely immersed, two hopeless romantics crying in that lovely, seatless, air conditioned-less, two story El Pulgoso.
