HOULTON THEATERS
Backwoods Blog;
in the woods and on the road…
The above postcard of Market Square taken in 1951 showcases Houlton’s two side by side movie theaters in the downtown. Temple Cinema opened in 1919 (and is still operating today) while the Houlton Theater opened in 1941 and closed sometimes during the late 1950s. In case you’re wondering how I know the year is 1951, the Houlton Theater marquee lists the two current features; Jane Russell in His Kind of Woman and the Featherweight Boxing Fight between Sandy Saddler and Willie Pep, both of which occurred in 1951. The same “marquee method” was used on the other theater photo included below to identify that year as 1942. The community movie theater is how we watched movies before the introduction of VCR players in the 1980s and Netflix today. While it may be convenient to be able to watch a movie on your smart phone, the screen size and little speakers certainly limit the overall viewing experience. Sometimes bigger is better (and the popcorn is so good!). HIs Kind of Woman starred Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum, a film-noir depicting the adventures and romances of down-on-his-luck gambler Dan Milner (Mitchum). Russell and Mitchum starred in several movies together and were one of the hottest on-screen couples at the time. I had never heard of boxers Sandy Saddler and Willie Pep, but it turns out they were their generation’s version of the Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali fights in the 1970s. They met in four championship title fights between the years 1948-1951 with Saddler winning three times. It is the fourth and final confrontation on September 4, 1951 at the Polo Grounds in New York that the marquee refers to.
Al Abrams, the sports editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote that it was “the worst exhibition of unsportsmanlike conduct I have ever seen in a bout anywhere.” Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring, weighed in that it was a fight with “wrestling, heeling, eye-gouging, tripping, thumbing – in fact every dirty trick known to the old-timers.” The ring violations were so flagrant that after the fight the New York State Boxing Commission revoked Pep’s boxing license and indefinitely suspended Saddler. You can still see footage of the fights on YouTube if you’d like to see the two of them in action. Universal Pictures released Private Buckaroo starring the Andrew Sisters and Harry James with his big band in 1942, and with US involvement in World War II just gearing up the film served both as a recruiting tool and patriotic cinema. The plot may be a bit thin at times, but the music and dance tunes carry the production when the story lags. The entire movie is available to view on YouTube. These are just a few of the old movies to appear on Houlton big screens in years past. Don’t forget to support your local cinema!
See you at the movies,
Dave
August 24, 2022
