With summer upon us, the summer blockbusters are coming out. Films these days are so drastically different from the movies of the older days. Here is what my dad had to say about movies, and what made Westerns what they were.

-Sue Stewart

January 25, 1979

Saturday Night at the Movies

Recently, San Antonio’s Majestic Theater reopened, and much publicity was directed to that event. In its heyday, the Majestic provided a tremendous amount of entertainment for many San Antonio residents. Back in the big movie days, many Devine folks spent leisure time there not only enjoying movies, but also the big bands. I’ve spent my share of time there, but San Antonio wasn’t the only city with a Majestic. Ya see, Devine also had its Majestic which provided much entertainment.

Next door to Schott’s Model market and across the street from Winn’s, the Majestic still stands, although not now so majestic as it once was. Often when passing there, I reflect on the Saturday nights of long ago. Saturday nights- even in mid-Depression- ya went to the Saturday night movie. And that means Westerns, and Westerns in those days meant Johnny MacBrown, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers, and other such types. Now in those days, movie makers paid little attention to technical aspects and sometimes strayed from the plot. In almost every movie, there’d be the white hatters against the black hatters or cowboys against the Indians, but regardless of who was pitted against whom, they could be flat in the middle of a horrendous gunfight when all of a sudden they’d draw up them steeds, gather together with a guitar and a coupla fiddles, and break out in song. After a song or two, they’d resume their fight.

Of course the setting for many of these Westerns would be Texas. They’d be coming in to Del Rio, and in the background, there’d be these huge mountains- snow-capped peaks and all. Funny, but I never could locate those peaks around Del Rio. Another thing about technical factors was that when a fella made ready to fire his six-gun, he’s raise the barrel to a vertical position and then sling it downward when ready to fire as if to throw the bullet outta the barrel. Those six-guns were something else, too; it wasn’t uncommon for a fella to fire them ten or twelve times without reloading.

There were a few other aspects of those Westerns that were somewhat questionable. I mean, there weren’t nary a Western made in those days that the hero wouldn’t be up on the second floor of a two-story building (usually the town saloon0, and he’d be in a tight spot. No sweat- he’d leap from on high, legs spread, and hit right smack dab in the middle of his saddle, which just happened to be on his horse, which just happened to have the reigns back over its neck, ready to go. Another method often used to mount a horse in a hurry was to approach the horse from behind in a leapfrog fashion and land in the saddle. Finally, another way was to have the horse take off in a dead run and then the actor would grab the saddle horn and swing up into the saddle- very impressive.

Another strange thing about those ol’ movies was that buggy wheels always ran backwards. Today, buggy wheels still run backwards, even though there have been some technical advances in the state of the art. But even more weird than that was back in the ol’ days, dirt and dust weren’t dirty. Really- take ol’ Tom Mix; he never had a speck of dirt on his white hat, and his white neckerchief was always spotless, and so were Gene Autrey’s and Hoot’s. They simply didn’t get dirty.

Forgetting the technical aspects for a moment, in those days, a fella under twelve could get in to the movies for a dime. For that fee, you’d see the following; a newsreel with two pieces of week-old news, a comedy, a serial, previews of coming attractions, and finally the feature movie. Now the serial was a movie in itself, and each Saturday, there’d be ol’ Buck Jones fighting it out with the black hatters. Everyone knew when the serial was about the end, because the hero would be in his fistfight with the black hat guy, and our hero would be just barely hanging on to some rocks before falling off this cliff. The bad guy would be stomping his knuckles, and it’d end for that week. You’d have to come next week to learn how the hero got hisself outta the fix. Those were the original cliffhangers.

One thing I liked about the old movies was the Gene or Roy would never hold a girl’s hand, much less kiss her. We could use a return to something more entertaining than graphic depictions of folks in the sack. Overall, today’s movies have fantastic photography and make the most of all kinds of technical innovations. On the minus side, they offer too much gratuitous sex, use more foul than fair language, and have little to no plot. There are some exceptions, but few. For me, given a choice between the lousy movies of the Depression-era Westerns and today’s lousy movies, I’d choose neither. To me, the great era of movie-making was the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. In those years, movies were made without tremendous amount of violence or pointless sex- no profanity, good photography, and a plot. What a great source of real entertainment. I’d like to see a return of that kind of movie. I might not view them with the allegiance I have for Hoot and his buddies back in the Depression days, but I’d appreciate having the option to see a great movie every now and then.