The Theaters

I found the theaters! There are two of them in Versailles. The first, in the Town Hall, was constructed in 1875 and (obviously) didn't run movies primarily, or perhaps at all, during the time it was in use. I have not found evidence that would indicate it was used as a movie theater. If it was, it was before 1930. In the book Dr. Ingles brought to class, it said that in 1929 there was only one theater running in Versailles, and it called it the "Opera House," I believe. I don't know what space that refers to. More on these issues later. It currently resides on the second floor of the police offices for Versailles and functions as housing for the heating of the first floor and for storage of police matters and city records--boxes and boxes of minutes from municipal meetings. I haven't decided whether I can have the courage to dive into those records. One argument against doing so: city council meetings (at least today) tend to be rather obscure and irrelevant to the "mass culture" of an area, at least in a direct way. Certainly, this council was responsible for the construction of the first theater in town, but I doubt people were hanging on the words of the council members' minutes on a weekly basis. Pictures!

It's kind of a mess. The stage is hand painted, with a cloth "dome" supported by those sticks you can see. The back wall is made out of painted doors:

Perhaps not surprising, but still a testimony to the make-shift quality of the town's entertainment opportunities. This doesn't mean that entertainment wasn't important; perhaps quite the opposite. It shows that they wanted a theater so badly that, despite a lack of cash, they managed to scrounge up a bunch of old doors no one needed anymore and tack them together. The rest of the room is a mess:

On the right are all the city files; barely visible on the left are the police records and storage. Here is the heater that has been installed in the middle of the room, making the space completely incapable of rehabilitation:

It heats the first floor, like I said. The other stuff on the floor is ballot boxes, voting booths, and other things associated with running a village. Like Seagram's 7:

Admittedly, that is tucked away under the floorboards for the stage, but maybe the city police had a party one summer's night. Oh, and here's an old sign up there testifying to the village's heritage:

They like their chickens! The fact that they date themselves in this capacity back to the 1880s will color everything I do. It is certainly not an exaggeration to call the village agricultural, so whether this particular slogan is anachronistic won't matter.

Here's the other theater:

So I talked to Lois Baker on the phone and here's what I've been able to figure out about this theater. The whole building was owned by a Mr. Goodall, who was the son of immigrants from England. He ran a drug store on the first floor in the 20s. According to Mrs. Baker, he opened the theater in 1930, maybe 1929. They changed movies 3 times a week, and showed double-features once a week--the double-features were usually westerns. They popped popcorn in the theater during the movie. They had a woman who played piano between movies. There is a significant historical controversy over the identity of the woman, but I will have to address that at another time. For my purposes, it is crucial to note that Mr. Goodall ran the theater as an established member of the community; his second venture built off of his first (he sold snacks downstairs that people could take upstairs). So even in Mr. Goodall's personal history, there is a sense of continuity, an internal logic to why he would open a theater; he already had the apparatus to support it directly downstairs! Mrs. Baker remembers going to these movies in the 30s, at least until her father's death (in 1937?). She thought the theater closed down sometime in the 40s when people started going to Greenville to see movies. I am scheduled to sit down with Lois in a couple weeks to interview her in more depth. She is something of a local history guru, and several people mentioned her name when it came to retelling Versailles history. Here's the view of the old theater/police station from the new one:

Clearly, competition between these two would have been deadly in a village this size. The city-operated theater probably shut down when Mr. Goodall opened shop, but that's pure speculation. Mrs. Baker thought the theater was always equipped for sound. If her dates are correct, that would make sense. As I will discuss later, there is historical controversy over that detail as well. I don't know if these speakers are original:

Note also the radiator heating up and to the right. Is that original too? Finally, here's backstage:

Much more "professional" or less cobbled-together than the older theater. They still use the space from time to time for large gatherings and dances. The piano is still in tune. Downstairs is now a Farmers Union Insurance building, and next door (upstairs) is where the Masons meet to this day. Everyone says it's very secretive, both Lois and the current agent at the insurance company. I'm trying to post a ... post about the newspaper in Versailles, but can't get pdfs to show in a blog post. Ugg.