The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci-Wright

Silver Screen: Laurel and Hardy are part of the movie world's bright constellation of stars that have made us laugh and given us an escape from our troubles over the years.

Remember When

The changing marquee

By Cookie Curci-Wright

During the 1930s, '40s and '50s, America's movies passed through a potpourri of changes and trends: gats and girls in the '30s, patriotic heroes in the '40s and teenage rebels in the '50s.

During the Depression years, movies also offered something else to the public--reassurance and a promise that things would turn out all right in the end.

Singer Al Jolson brought sound to the movie screen in the 1927 musical milestone The Jazz Singer. But following the days of Prohibition, an economic depression and the popularity of infamous bootlegger Al Capone, movie musicals soon gave way to the burst of gunfire, inspiring a continuous flow of movies with gangland themes.

And screen bad guys Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft were among the "most wanted" at the local box office. These movie tough guys created new words and phrases that crept into the public's vocabulary. Women were now being called "dolls," "tootsies," "canaries" and "dames." Guns were called "gats," "rods" and "heaters."

The hard times of the Depression created a big boom in the entertainment industry. During those difficult years, 85 million movie fans paid 25 cents apiece to go to their local movie houses once a week and forget their troubles. They watched Fred and Ginger twirl, listened to Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald harmonize and laughed at the comical hijinks of the Marx brothers and Laurel and Hardy.

But the biggest draw at the movies in the mid-1930s was a little 7-year-old girl named Shirley Temple. America's sweetheart toppled movie stars like Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney and Joan Crawford from their No. 1 spots. Even though the economy was suffering, her admiring public plunked down enough cold cash to purchase six million Shirley Temple dolls at a cost of $3 to $30 apiece.

The little star's curly locks and dimpled smile were the only sales pitches needed to sell millions of dolls to a public hard-hit by the Depression. In the cartoon world it was sexy, naughty, outspoken Betty Boop who gave 1930 moviegoers something to giggle about.

In the early 1940s, with the news of Pearl Harbor so keenly felt, Hollywood production companies were making films that reflected patriotic themes. Filling America's need for movie heroes, stars such as Edward G. Robinson turned in their gangster fedoras for military caps during the 1940s. American GIs respected and admired "Rosie the Riveter," who was back home working in shipyards and factories. But it was pinup queen Betty Grable whom they fell in love with, displaying her famous picture proudly on their B-29 bombers.

If a young man wasn't wearing a uniform during wartime, then he was probably wearing a popular "zoot suit" with spectator shoes, wide-rimmed fedora, dangling key chain and wide, padded shoulders.

Young women, meanwhile, were all imitating glamorous stars such as Grable, Veronica Lake and Alice Faye. Peroxide was in demand as female fans began bleaching their hair blond. Somehow, amid a world in turmoil, came the most recorded song of the decade and perhaps the century: Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," introduced by singer Bing Crosby in the 1942 film Holiday Inn.

And Hollywood's cartoon character of the 1940s was a noisy redheaded bird named Woody Woodpecker.

By the time the fabulous '50s rolled around, the wide screen was ready to accommodate the latest films being produced in Cinerama, CinemaScope, stereophonic sound and 3-D. The end of World War II brought a whole new trend in movie themes and a whole new generation of movie actors.

It was "magic time" at the theater. The economy was booming, times were good and people were going to the movies just for the sheer fun of it. The moment those overhead lights dimmed and the MGM lion sounded its roar, we knew something wonderful was about to happen.

Marlon Brando took us on a thrill-packed motorcycle ride in 1954's The Wild One and inspired a craze for T-shirts and motorcycle boots. A year later, James Dean starred as the quintessential troubled teen in 1955's Rebel Without a Cause, making it fashionable for teenage boys to wear red nylon jackets and drive souped-up jalopies. The following year, a young Elvis Presley starred in his first film, Love Me Tender. Women everywhere fell in love with the singing sensation who starred in a decade of formula films.

Movies had become more realistic in the 1950s with 3-D, Todd-A O and Smell-O-Vision. Yes, Smell-O-Vision. If someone on screen was smoking a cigarette, the theater was spritzed with the aroma of cigarette smoke. It never caught on, but I guess that was all for the best, what with the unpopularity of smoke these days.

Later, it was low-budget, black-and-white horror films that caught the fancy of American teenagers. These films, mostly seen at the local drive-in theaters, drew a national cult following. Movies such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob were all best seen when parked in a car with your sweetheart at the local drive-in theater. What better way to make your date cuddle close than at a scary late, late show?

Mr. Magoo, a funny little man with squinted eyes and poor vision, was the popular cartoon character of the 1950s.

The grand old movie palaces are gone now, replaced by new, more practical theaters that offer us bigger screens and vibrating sound in the round. But they can't offer me the reverence I once felt while sitting inside a palatial theater in the 1940s and '50s, awed and mesmerized.

The movie houses created a world of make-believe for my generation, where outside it was always summer and inside we were always kids. And when we entered that movie world, Roy Rogers was our pal and the Dead End Kids our playmates.

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