Our History is a regular column submitted by Kate Rauhauser-Smith, visitor services manager at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, examining the region’s history and some related displays at the museum.
Jack Tillotson sprinted across South Main Street with the huge disc-shaped metal film cannister clutched to his chest. The teen, an usher at the Earle Theatre, delivered the first reel of “Gone With the Wind” to the projectionist at the Grand Theatre. It was Friday, March 22, 1940, the movie’s Surry County premier at the Earle.
American audiences were packing movie houses across the nation to see the wildly anticipated feature. So many came to Mount Airy for the first show that a second show was planned at the sister theater across the street. The movie started at 8 p.m. at the Earle. It was scheduled to start at 8:45 at the Grand, and the house was sold out even though ticket prices were an unheard of $1.10 instead of the usual 35¢ admission.
Surry County residents loved theater shows if newspaper reports from the day are to be believed. School productions, amateur shows, recitals of all sorts were well attended whether at a church, opera house, home parlor or hotel dining room.
The Galloway Opera House, also called the Mount Airy Opera House (now the home of Brannock & Hiatt Furniture on North Main Street) was a stage theater but never had a screen. The Granite City Theater was the first-known movie theater in Mount Airy. It opened by 1908 and, like most theaters at the time, there was a stage for plays and vaudeville shows as well as a screen for silent movies.
Sound recording was about as old as image recording but no one could figure out how to get the sound to match the pictures reliably until the late 1920s. Mount Airy had at least four movie houses shortly after that. Elkin had the Lyric, State, and Amuzu theaters and Pilot Mountain, the Pilot Theatre.
They all had both screen and stage and hosted school plays and graduations, minstrel shows, musical performances and other community entertainments and civic purposes. Such businesses were seen as a sign of community success.
When the “New Center Theatre” opened on Oct. 25, 1937, they declared themselves to be “dedicated to a progressive community of enterprising people.”
Entertainment houses had a sometimes questionable reputation across the nation. The Center’s management was leaving nothing to chance.
“We pledge ourselves to bring to Mount Airy, at all times, good, clean, wholesome entertainment,” they said in the program for their grand opening. “And in doing so we hope to play an important part in the culture and educational life of this striving section.”
Their inaugural ceremonies were followed by news reels, a Popeye cartoon called “I Never Changes My Altitude” and then Irene Dunn and Randolph Scott in “High, Wide, and Handsome.”
They also boasted an air conditioning system for the heat of the summer that changed “the air every 1-2 minutes. Every invigorating breath of it will be cleaned and treated as it breezes through hundreds of sprays of cool, pure drinking water.”
Schedules were different in those early days with as many as four movies showing in the same theater in a single week. Sometimes there was a different movie every night.
While audiences ran the age spectrum it was as true then as it is today that many movie-goers were teenagers. This caused the Mount Airy city commissioners to pass an ordinance in 1944 requiring theaters to shut down by 11 p.m.
Theater owners and patrons petitioned the leadership to allow late-night shows on Saturdays which they did. They still required that all patrons be gone and the doors closed by midnight and no children under 16 were permitted in the last shows.
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the promise of entertainment that allows some escape from our daily lives.
“Still within the reach of all of us are life, and laughter, travel and adventure, beauty and science – all made possible by the silver screen. Romance, excitement, mystery, mirth, the spice of life. They take us out of the rut of hum-drum existence.”
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Built in 1935, the Earle’s distinctive Art Deco edifice makes a statement on South Main Street. The block housed most of Mount Airy’s movie houses for decades including the Broadway which became the Center (where the public restrooms are today); the Globe which became the Victory and then the National; the Princess which became the Grand (where Green Finance is today). The Earle became Cinema Theater in 1963 and then the Downtown Cinema before becoming the Earle again in 2011.
https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/web1_Earle-Theatre.jpgBuilt in 1935, the Earle’s distinctive Art Deco edifice makes a statement on South Main Street. The block housed most of Mount Airy’s movie houses for decades including the Broadway which became the Center (where the public restrooms are today); the Globe which became the Victory and then the National; the Princess which became the Grand (where Green Finance is today). The Earle became Cinema Theater in 1963 and then the Downtown Cinema before becoming the Earle again in 2011. Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
Most movie theaters here had wooden seats similar to school auditorium seating in the early years. It was also common to have a mezzanine or balcony which, during the Jim Crow era, was where black patrons were required to sit. This picture shows the interior of the Grand Theatre in 1927.
https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/web1_Grand-Interior.jpgMost movie theaters here had wooden seats similar to school auditorium seating in the early years. It was also common to have a mezzanine or balcony which, during the Jim Crow era, was where black patrons were required to sit. This picture shows the interior of the Grand Theatre in 1927. Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
The Influenza Pandemic, often called the Spanish flu, ran from January 1918 through December 1920 and killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. Many schools, churches and businesses – including the Amuzu Theatre in Elkin – closed their doors when it hit this region. The Amuzu closed the first week of February 1920 and reopened on March 2. A “war tax” was assessed on many frivolous goods, such as theater tickets which the Amuzu management turned to a positive. “Don’t stay home. Everybody go to the Theatre Over Here And Help The Boys Over There!”
https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Amuzu-Theatre-Closed-Flu.pngThe Influenza Pandemic, often called the Spanish flu, ran from January 1918 through December 1920 and killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. Many schools, churches and businesses – including the Amuzu Theatre in Elkin – closed their doors when it hit this region. The Amuzu closed the first week of February 1920 and reopened on March 2. A “war tax” was assessed on many frivolous goods, such as theater tickets which the Amuzu management turned to a positive. “Don’t stay home. Everybody go to the Theatre Over Here And Help The Boys Over There!” Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
News reels were an important part of going to the movies. Televisions, though available by 1928, were an extreme luxury. The only opportunity most had to see what was going on in the world was when a news reel played before the feature. Promotional materials for movie houses used that as a draw as with this 1942 flyer from the State Theatre in Elkin.
https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/web1_Clark-Gable-Poster-State-Elkin.jpgNews reels were an important part of going to the movies. Televisions, though available by 1928, were an extreme luxury. The only opportunity most had to see what was going on in the world was when a news reel played before the feature. Promotional materials for movie houses used that as a draw as with this 1942 flyer from the State Theatre in Elkin. Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
Old ads for movies around the region include the classics one would expect such as this Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical from 1949. Family and Oscar-quality movies weren’t the only ones to hit local screens, though. “Owl shows,” as late screenings were known, occasionally featured racier fare. The same theater ran a movie called “Unashamed” in January 1940 that was filmed, as the ad says, “in an authentic nudist camp” telling the story of a “Chastely unclad beauty in her search for love and happiness.” Suffice it to say that I cannot include that image here.
https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/web1_Pilot-Fred-Astaire-Poster.jpgOld ads for movies around the region include the classics one would expect such as this Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical from 1949. Family and Oscar-quality movies weren’t the only ones to hit local screens, though. “Owl shows,” as late screenings were known, occasionally featured racier fare. The same theater ran a movie called “Unashamed” in January 1940 that was filmed, as the ad says, “in an authentic nudist camp” telling the story of a “Chastely unclad beauty in her search for love and happiness.” Suffice it to say that I cannot include that image here. Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
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