As we start up this fledgling newsletter, I thought it might be useful – and hopefully inspirational – to dredge up memories of a favorite 20th century downtown business that certainly had a big impact on my young life: the LaFrance Theatre. This article will be mainly a memoir, high-lighting some memories of the many happy hours I spent in its darkened interior as a kid growing up in the 1940s and 1950s. That building is now the Studio 101 salon and spa:
I’m sure most of you old-timers have your own fond memories of going to the “movies” at this down-town culture center and, perhaps, some will want to share those memories in future newsletters.
But first; a little movie theater history from the Swanton Enterprise archives. Swanton’s first such theater was actually started up by Harry Plummer at his building located at South Main St. and Chestnut way back in 1922 – only a couple years after Swanton’s big tornado disaster.
That was “silent movie” days and Harry named his theater the Arcade. All such theaters needed a piano player to play music to dramatically enhance the drama onscreen. The Arcade’s piano player was Ruby Babcock; sister of Iva Weigel. (I know this is just trivia, Folks; but I thought mentioning some of these names would tickle some old-timers’ memory cells!) Ruby went on to play piano at the LaFrance Theatre in 1928. The projectionist at the Arcade was Billy Latimer, who also transferred to that job at the LaFrance after it opened in 1928.
Some recollections of the Arcade by now deceased old-timers was that the theater was very plain inside and all on one level floor with the projectionist on a raised platform behind the audience. The piano was situated to one side of the screen. The audience sat on fold-up wooden chairs. Every now and then, the film would break and the audience would have to wait while it got re-spliced.
Ahhh… but then came September 22nd, 1928, when Leo Pilliod opened the grand new LaFrance Theatre on North Main St. in the building next to his auto dealership. It featured a down-sloping floor to the stage and silver screen with “the latest appointments and modern projection”! And all in a “fire-proof” building!
Leo was a bit of a showman himself and part of the hoopla surrounding the grand opening involved a contest for locals to come up with a winning name for the new theater. Midge Walters’ grandmother, Nellie Coon, won that contest by combining the first names of Mr. and Mrs. Pilliod: Leo A. and Frances!
The early LaFrance didn’t just feature movies. There were also live shows which ranged from religious and political gatherings to a spectacular performance on June 19th, 1931, when Silkini the Magician sawed a woman in HALF! Or so it was advertised.
The BIG change, however, took place in May, 1929, when Leo Pilliod brought the “Talkies” to Swanton! Can you guess the first sound movie to be played here? YEP; “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson!
Unfortunately, Leo died in 1933, but his family kept the theater going. One interesting attraction that played on March 17, 1938, was a March of Time chapter: “Inside Nazi Germany – 1938”. I wonder how prophetic that was.
In 1935 Ken Norwine was hired to manage the LaFrance. He had formerly been the treasurer for the much bigger Paramount Theater in Toledo. Ken ran the LaFrance until he resigned in 1940 to take on an executive position with the Pilliod Cabinet Company. I got to know Ken personally when I got an after-school job at the “box factory” cleaning spray paint booths in 1956. That job didn’t last long… but that’s a whole other story!
Leo’s two sons and daughter ran the LaFrance into the mid 1940s… the war years. During this time, old-timer Rheda Pasch recalled working there as ticket-taker, popcorn-maker and concession stand operator. Ticket prices were 15 cents and 25 cents! You could get a bag of popcorn for a dime!
There were a lot of westerns that played during those years and when I started going to the LaFrance in the late 40s, cowboy icons Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy were my first heroes. But they were soon joined by Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan!
In 1944 the Pilliod family sold the LaFrance Theatre to Nat B. Charnas, who also owned a few other movie theaters in this area. He put a lot of money into refurbishing the LaFrance, including a new silver-tone screen, glass-fronted “coming attraction” display cases and a new sound system. He also hired Jams Baker to manage the theater. I knew Jimmie Baker later on as the typing teacher in the high school. I think managing the LaFrance was just a moonlighting 2ndgig for Mr. Baker.
Charnas advertised well and had another “Grand Opening” in November, 1944, which was well received with overflow crowds. The LaFrance prospered throughout the 1940s and into the early 1950s.
These were my principal LaFrance movie attendance years. I grooved to cowboy heroes, jungle kings, gangster dramas and war stories. I generally saw these movies in the company of my school buddies and we all had a good time thrilling to the action on-screen … or making wise-cracks about it. Occasionally, we’d toss popcorn or candy at each other. Perhaps it was the latter activity which inspired us minor hooligans to come up with another name for the LaFrance: the Ratrace!
Now, I’m not sure just when I started hearing that dubious nickname or who I first heard it from. But the rumor was that some of the guys had seen rats running around under their seats making off with popcorn or candy! ONE of these guys claimed that a rat had actually crawled over his shoes! You can imagine how fast that kind of intriguing tale spread among kids and adolescents. So it became a popular joke/question among us to ask, “You wanna go to the Ratrace tonight and get our shoes polished?!” True or not, it didn’t deter us from going to the LaFrance. Some of the original wooden theatre seats are still part of Studio 101:
1950 was a watershed year for me. I started it out as a 10-year-old in the 5th grade. I took in as many movies as I could, of course, but two of them galvanized a lifetime obsession with science-fiction. The first was, “Rocketship X-M”, starring a young Lloyd Bridges. It was my first movie visualization, outside of cartoons, of humans going to another planet in a spaceship. I was so mesmerized by the film that I crouched down in my seat and waited through intermission so I could see it again on the next showing!
The second movie that came to the LaFrance later that summer was “Destination Moon”… a much more realistic and colorful production. That was it, Boy! I decided right then and there that I wanted to be the first man on the moon! Well… as we all know, dreams and reality seldom coincide.
1951 brought another hugely significant sci-fi movie: “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. It wasn’t an outer space saga, but rather an alien visitation story warning us about the dangers of military aggression and nuclear weapons. That message is still very appropriate today. Movies like these along with comic books and early TV serials like “Tom Corbett – Space Cadet” and “Flash Gordon” got my creative juices flowing. I began a hobby of designing and slapping together home-made rayguns in my dad’s basement workshop. I knocked out a few crude ones in 1950 and 1951 before I became preoccupied with other pursuits. However, I took up this hobby again in the 1970s after my own son came along. Naturally I had to indoctrinate him in the ways of science-fiction, so I started making rayguns again. I’ve been doing it ever since.
My next oldest brother, Kenneth Richard (Dick) Sutherland, Also has some fond memories of the LaFrance. He actually worked there for a year or so around 1950 as a projectionist’s assistant. He learned how to splice ads into film reels between the features and did other ‘gopher’ work; like changing the movie posters in the glass display cases. Too bad he didn’t hang onto some of those posters… they can bring good prices in the collector market! Dick wasn’t actually paid any money for his assistance, but loved it anyway because he got to see all the movies for free… and free popcorn too!
September of 1950 saw a notable example of local businesses working together for the good of the community. The Swanton Corn Festival, an annual big event here, was filmed; parade and all. The edited film was shown the following week at the LaFrance. I don’t know if that film still exists, but I, for one, would like to see it.
On September 13, 1951, Marvin S. Harris took over the LaFrance as its new owner. He had big plans for it by previously announcing that there would be “A show every night!” Previously, the theater was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to flagging patronage. He also put a suggestion box in the lobby for patrons to help him in making further improvements.
ALAS! Marv’s intentions were good but his timing was lousy! He got into the small town movie business just as television was sweeping the country! I recall that my father had bought our first black & white RCA TV from “Red” Klein in 1949. By 1951 many households in America had their own TVs... and it was killing the movie houses.
The following spring, Mr. Harris announced that the LaFrance would close on May 25, 1952, due to poor attendance. But Harris was a trooper because he was back in business by that fall. I know because on November 6, 1952, I saw another iconic movie there that influenced me greatly: “King Kong”! I consider “Kong” (the original 1933 version) as one of the best monster movies ever made. I have seen it many times.
By the following spring, however, Harris again announced an indefinite closure on May 30, 1953. Not to worry! He re-opend the LaFrance again on September 6, 1953, where I again nourished my fantasies with the likes of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”, “Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein” and “Mighty Joe Young”. Are you seeing a bit of a monster fetish here?
Unfortunately, despite the flow of romantic comedies, thrillers, and westerns, movie attendance at the LaFrance kept dropping off. The ‘writing on the wall’ became hysterically obvious one week in 1955. Probably spring or summer because I recall the weather being warm.
Hopalong Cassidy was a popular cowboy hero throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s. So one of his movies was commonly paired with another western for the weekend double features. So I and many of my teen acquaintances took in that double feature at the LaFrance.
But at that time there was also a popular Sunday afternoon television show that featured old Hopalong Cassidy movies. I don’t recall the title of the TV program, but I do recall that it was sponsored by Silvercup Bread. During commercial breaks we had to endure this chubby, baby-faced dude decked out in a cowboy outfit holding a loaf of Silvercup Bread… and raving on & on about its nutritious goodness! I mean these were gag-me-with-a-spoon kind of commercials! We made fun of them, of course, but we sat through them because we were all big fans of Hoppy. Even my mom!
Well… wouldn’tcha know… the same Hopalong Cassidy movie we’d seen on TV’s Silvercup Theater (or whatever it was called) was the SAME Hopalong Cassidy movie we paid to see at the LaFrance… within a WEEK of each other! Obviously, none of us would be paying to see any more Hoppy movies at the LaFrance.
Perhaps things picked up a bit when Mr. Harris announced another big renovation to the LaFrance in November, 1955. He converted the screen to a wide Cinemascope screen and started playing major features filmed in that technology. But the theater was now closed on THREE week day nights instead of two. Also, the ads for current attractions at the LaFrance got smaller when they appeared in the back pages of the Swanton Enterprise.
Mr. Harris and the LaFrance plugged along until a final ad appeared in the Swanton Enterprise on July 11, 1957, announcing that the theater was closed due to poor audience attendance. For me personally the timing of the LaFrance’s final closing announcement was an incredible coincidence. You see, the front page of that same issue of the Enterprise also featured myself in a rather shocking news event.
But that, my friends, is definitely a whole other story!
Comments