FORMER GRAND THEATER employees posed about a year-and-half ago with author Mike Mueller, top left, who had just purchased the theater’s venerable popcorn machine from Bob Morgan, the last owner of the now-defunct Grand Community Theater. From left: Bill Ayres, Corine Walje and Cathey Monckton. Mueller ultimately intends to donate the machine, along with other theater artifacts, to the planned Fayette Museum.

Margaret Demaree Jackson was graduated from Central Methodist College in 1942 and was recently in Fayette for the 1992 CMC reunion. She recalls seeing “The Wizard of Oz” and Jimmy Cagney in “Strawberry Blonde” at the old theater.

But the female students at CMC couldn’t get to the movies as often as the boys. In her words, “Girls couldn’t get out every night. They were able to go out on weekends but had to be home by 10 unless they had special permission.”

Earl Wilson, who married Dorothy Mueller, my father’s sister, also was graduated from CMC in 1942. Earl had a Model A car and would drive theater helpers to movie billboards outside of town so that they could put up posters advertising coming attractions. In exchange, he was given passes to the movies.

Earl and Dorothy were at the theater on Dec. 7, 1941, on a double date with Roy Werner and Katie Harris. The picture was stopped for an announcement about Pearl Harbor. Bill Vanderveer, who was also there, says Dick Jacobi, who ran the theater, delivered the following message to the audience: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a statement of the utmost gravity. Japan has just attacked Pearl Harbor.” Most people left the theater.

Back then, Bill Vanderveer ran the Dixie Grill. He remembers that the Central Methodist College Band played on the theater stage in 1941. The band members included Jack Higgins, later a justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, and Bill Hungate, later a Congressman and now a federal judge. Roy (later doctor) “Connie” Borg played drums.

Bill recalls that Bill Hungate, accompanied by the CMC band, once sang “Alexander the Swoose” on the theater stage. In case you are wondering or have forgotten, a “swoose” is half swan and half goose. Anyway, when Bill Hungate finished the song, he turned around and bent over. Attached to his backside was a sign that said “Eat at the Dixie Grill.” It was a way to thank Bill Vanderveer for seeing to it that Hungate didn’t go hungry during his college days.

In April of 1943, “The Road to Morocco,” starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, played at the Fayette Theater, the name of the old movie house back then. Other attractions that year were “Commandos Strike at Dawn,” Donald Duck in the “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” “Little Tokyo” (“A fearless man. . . a beautiful girl. . . exposing the black shadow of the axis”), Chapter 8 of “The Adventures of Smilin’ Jack” and “China,” starring Alan Ladd (“a picture to make you fighting mad”).
There were also “March of Time” newsreels and a sing-a-long with the bouncing ball. My father hated the sing-a-long. He lived out by the Dudgeon School then. During the early 1940s, John and Virginia Mueller, his aunt and uncle, would pick him up at the farm on Sunday and bring him into town so that he could go to the movies. He remembers seeing “How Green was my Valley.”

In the winter of 1951, the admission price was 14¢ for children and 50¢ for adults. Some of the feature attractions that winter were James Stewart in “The Jackpot,” Broderick Crawford in “Cargo to Capetown,” Tyrone Power and Orson Welles in “The Black Rose” and Bud Abbot and Lou Costello in “The Foreign Legion.” There was also a news short title “Nation develops defense against H-Bomb” and Chapter 3 of the serial “Radar Patrol vs. Sky King.”

On the day I was born, the Fayette Theater showed “Mrs. O’Mally and Mr. Malone.”

By January of 1955, theater ads were selling the Fayette Theater as much as the movies. “On Our Giant Panoramic Curved Screen,” the ads proclaimed. Free movies were in the bag for kids 5 to 15, as long as Mom bought Holsum Bread: “Hey Kids! Holsum Bread Show Saturday Morning at 10:00. Bring your Bread Wrappers.”

Remember the midnite shows? On Feb. 18, 1955, the midnight movie was “The Scarlet Claw,” a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The boxoffice opened at 11:00 and the show started at 11:15.

Later that year, six Davy Crockett billfolds and six Davy Crockett flashlights were given away on a Saturday afternoon “to 12 lucky kids” as part of a promotion for “Davy Crockett, Indian Scout.” There were “Free Merchant-Sponsored Christmas Shows” and baby picture competitions. One person I talked to remembered seeing Candy Reed’s baby picture at the theater in the 1950s.

On Oct. 28, 1960, the Grand Theater showed two spine-tinglers at the midnight show: “The Thing” and “Curse of the Cat People.” A Halloween special, no doubt. The box office opened at 11:30 and the show started at 11:45. You can probably still hear the screams echoing in the rafters.

On Dec. 31, 1960, there was a special New Year’s Eve Show. Four full-length features for 75 cents, including “Apache Territory” and “The Mad Magician.” Moviegoers were invited to “Have a safe and sane New Year’s.” This was long before the national movement to do something about drunk driving.

By the way, the marquee of the old Grand Theater in Fayette used to adorn the old Grand Theater of Moberly. The Fayette Theater underwent a name-change with the purchase of the Moberly Grand marquee for its facade.

(To be Continued)

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