Saturday afternoons at the theater

renovation and possibly reopening of The Muse Theater brought back many

memories of the afternoons and nights that my boyhood friends and I spent at

the Roxy and Muse theaters.

nineteen forties and fifties in Perry, Georgia, crowds of young boys and a few

girls, riding their bicycles, would start to arrive at the local theater. Of

course, we did not think that we were going to see a movie. We were going to

see a “picture show.”

afternoon watching our favorite western star, the cliff hanger serial, a short

news reel, a cartoon and previews of coming attractions. The Saturday afternoon

“picture show” was the highlight of our week’s entertainment.

get the ticket, stopped at the refreshment stand to buy a coke (5 cents), a bag

of popcorn (5 cents), and later we usually went back to get some chocolate

covered raisins, goobers or various other nutritious candies.

aisle, sticky with the years of spilled drinks and looking for a choice seat.

Be careful when you reached to turn your seat down, the bottom was coated with

many years of chewing gum.

o:clock and opened with a short Pathe” news reel, which we boys loved because

it featured the Second World War soldiers in action. Next came the cartoons

featuring Tweety Bird, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny or MR. Magoo.

Saturday afternoon showing was called a “serial”. This was an ongoing feature

where the audience was left hanging; wondering what would happen next Saturday.

The serial would only last about fifteen minutes and the hero was always left

in a peril, such as hanging on a cliff, in a burning building or in a raging

river. We had to come back the next Saturday to see if he survived. Somehow he

always did!

really came to see-The Western. All of us had our favorite cowboy hero and most

of us owned cap guns made to resemble the ones that he wore. It seemed that

each hero had a special talent; some wore one gun, some wore two, some used a

bull whip and some packed a knockout with one swing of the fist.

with the cowboys on their horses chasing the outlaws or stopping a run way stage

coach. All of the cowboys had special horse with names that we knew such as Roy Roger’s Trigger, Gene

Autry’s Champion and The Lone Ranger’s Silver. Each cowboy also had a special

wardrobe that he wore.

Autry, Toy Rogers, Rex Allen, Johnny Mack Brown, Sunset Carson, Wild Bill

Elliott, Don Red Barry (Red Ryder), and the myriads of other western stars?

that most of the hero’s had, such as Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnette and others.

days. Our parents did not have to worry about a rating code or what their

youngster was going to see. There was never a curse word in any of the movies,

no nudity and the violence was very mild. The cowboy would never think of

kissing a girl, (that would have destroyed him in the eyes of us young boys if

he had). At that age nothing could be worse than kissing a girl. Our hero would

mount his horse at the end of the movie and ride off into the distance leaving

the girl standing there.

entertainment, we would leave the theater for home to put on our cap pistols

and relieve the action that we saw that afternoon.