By Javier Garcia
For
many of us, movies were an escape from reality as a source of entertainment
which, before they were invented, ook the form of plays performed by actors on
a stage and to go even farther back in time, hand puppets or shadows cast on
walls to tell a story. What follows are
stories told from the perspective of one who casts shadows on the walls;
flickering images that alter scenes and set the tone for what follows from an
interview which includes images from the Bronsbil Estacion digital
archives. Whether you were raised in
historic Brownsville, Texas or not, the theater was a piece of Americana and we
believe the reader will find a connection to the anecdotes to follow.
1946 March – Raul
Davila in projector booth at Capitol Theater on E Levee St and 11th
St. where he began working as a teenager when it first opened in 1928.
It was my privilege not only to have met with the source of
these stories within stories but to have connected with others like him – some
who are still with us and others who have long passed but who shared some of
their memories from their personal photographs, some of which we’ll include
here.
1950s era postcard of
E Elizabeth St and 10th in downtown Brownsville, Texas
I met Mario Davila about fifteen ago when I became
interested in Brownsville’s earliest theaters in which his father Raul played a
major role as a projectionist who became legend among his peers for his long
experience and adaptive mechanic understanding
of all the parts and components of film projectors which had to run smoothly to
ensure the show went on. That may be the
topic for a prequel to this interview since Mario was able to share with us
stories from an insider’s view of working the business of movie theaters at a
local level.
He was born in Brownsville, Texas in 1954 and raised in the
theater business. His father was Raul
Davila who worked at Capitol Theater as a projectionist from an early age. By 1949 Raul was present for the opening of
the Majestic with Joe Trevino as treasurer and Carmen Abete as a cashier, the
latter two being names well associated in the business.
Cropped from 1949
August 17th special section of Brownsville Herald to announce opening
of the Majestic Theater
By 1961, the age of 6 or 7, Mario would spend some weekend
days with his mother and aunt seated in the balcony, while his father Raul
worked behind them from the projection room.
As a side note, his aunt worked at the concession stand at the Wes-Mer
Drive-in (on border of Weslaco and Mercedes, Texas) and was married to its
manager, Lew Bray who was the district manager for Interstate’s Rio Grande
Valley theaters.
1963 Photo courtesy of
Joe Trevino. Photo insets from 1949
August 17 Brownsville Herald special section.
On occasion, father would call to him to the “booth” and
wrap three nickels and a few pennies in a paper napkin with instructions to get
him a cup of coffee with cream and sugar across the street at Fisher’s Café. He would make his way from the 2nd
floor balcony down the stairway (past the rails he once got in trouble for
sliding down), and wall murals of tropical settings, through the concession
area and cross the street on E Elizabeth and 10th to enter Fisher’s
Café and plant himself on a stool at the counter where a waitress would ask
him, “What can I get you honey?” Then
she would pour the coffee to go, add cream and sugar, seal the cup and take the
napkin with the money and hand him a receipt while the smell of lemon merengue
pie filled his nostrils as he looked through the glass case they were displayed
in. If only his father had thought to
add a little extra change he would have enjoyed some of that deliciousness.
A “Pat” Rogers photo
from original negative film. The
restaurant was open 24-7 and later owned by the Del Kuebke family.
Cropped image from a
1952 A Rogers photo believed to include longtime employee Ninfa Cavasos.
He remembered being terrified while watching the famous
Alfred Hitchcock film, Psycho (YEAR). Other movies he especially enjoyed as a child
were Jumbo (YEAR) featuring the comedic actor
Jimmy Durante along with many war movies and westerns. By 1965, at the age of 10-11, his father
trained him basic operations such as how to reel movies at the bottom of the
projector (where the sound-head makes contact with the sound track embedded on
the reel). Once the movie was ready to
begin his father let him pull the switch to activate the opening of the curtain
to reveal the screen. Later he learned
to prepare the carbon lamps (installing a carbon rod which burned extremely hot
and bright in mirrored chamber to light image on film and project it onto the
screen).
Collage of wall
murals, terrazzo floor, stairway, neon sign and newsprint logos.
The first time he ran a show on his own was at the
Majestic. The film was “Viva Max!”
(1969), a comedy starring Peter Ustinov which was a midnight showing. He can recall this because it was New Year ’s
Eve 1968 and at 12 AM everyone in the theater began shouting “Happy New Year!” The film ended at 1:45 AM. At the time, Mario was living near the
Cameron County courthouse on E Madison St.
Without a car or a bicycle for that matter, he had to walk home alone
that night. For any teen walking the streets
of a poorly lit downtown at 2 in the morning, it would have been a harrowing
experience.
From promotional
brochure courtesy of Joe Trevino.
One midnight the Majestic screened FM (YEAR) and Mario was sitting in his chair too close to
the projector. He bumped into the film
reel which misaligned it and caused the film to be split in half (incidents
like these were common back then but in the digitized era it no longer
occurs). Mario had to quickly open the
sprocket to correct the error but some film was damaged which caused him to
panic and worry about what kind of penalties might be incurred against the
theater by the film distributor which he also feared might cost him his
job. However, to his relief, no
complaint ever reached the theater long after shipping the reels out. Inspection of reels were done when they were
received to check for any damage and to make any repairs that were needed
before exhibiting them. This reduced the
risk of shows being interrupted. For
example, the reels would be put on projector and fed onto another. A projectionist simply placed his fingers
along the edges of the film to feel for “nicks” or very small tears in film
that had to be visually inspected. Film
would be “spliced,” that is, a small section of film frames would be cut out of
the real and glued back together. A
small section of dissected film was hardly noticeable on playback but if the
same section of film was re-spliced then it would affect the continuity of the
scene.
1969 Eddie Abete III inspecting film to feel for
any nicks that might cause film to split so he can make any repairs before
screening at El Charro Drive In on Boca Chica Blvd. The Abete family also played a significant
role in theater exhibition since the 1940s which lasted 30 years to include the
Majestic Theater, Grande Theater, Fiesta Drive-in (renamed Ruenes Drive In) and
Charro Drive In. Photo courtesy Eddie
Abete III.
When Pink Floyd’s The Wall (YEAR)
was released Mario was there to screen that too! Another famous rock film he screen was The
Song Remains the Same (YEAR), Woodstock (1969),
and horror flicks such as Friday the 13th. The last midnight show he remembers playing
was The Rocky Horror Picture Show (YEAR) and
when the lights came on there was talcum powder, popcorn, coke and butter
stains, all over the theater! Some
people might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol which had been
consumed in the parking lot before entering the theater. One guy had the audacity to urinate out in
the lobby as movie goers were exiting the show.
A burly Kevin Krieger [sp?] who was the manager at the time, grabbed the
man by the shoulders, opened the door and tossed him out of the sidewalk.
1963 Palmetto
Brownsville High School yearbook photo
Another time, Ruben, a police officer Ruben who was working
as a security guard that night when two guys got into a fight, got between them
to break it up. One of the guys
connected a wound-up punch on Ruben’s
face who, unfazed and in control of his temperament, simply took him outside to
deal with him.
There was also one hot and breezy summer day Mario recalls
when he and his father were in the parking lot (behind the Majestic) and
noticed a foul odor in the area which was later discovered to be the dead body
of the owner of a nearby bar. A crowd
of people had gathered as the body was being removed and caught a whiff the
smell of death which was so strong they gagged in unison. One of them was a taxi driver who ran into
the Majestic to vomit in the restroom.
Davila, or “Mr. D” as he would later be affectingly called
by his underlings years later, was officially hired after he graduated from
high school in 1973, a year before Amigoland and Northpark Cinemas opened. When the Sunrise 1-3 opened (YEAR) he also worked there part-time but the total
years he worked at Northpark totaled seventeen years until the Movies 10 opened
in 1991 and was promoted as an assistant manager by the mid 1980s. By 1990 he was transferred to Amigoland 1-2
as a manager until 1994 where he accepted the position as an assistant manager
at Movies 10 where he stayed from then to the present (2019) before retiring.
2005 photo of Movies
10 Theater on 77/83 marquee covered in cloth
material which had been changed from the original. Photo by Javier Garcia
While the industry has modernized projection equipment
(bright lamps are now used and prisms are used to refract light) the same
principles still apply. Also, as Davila
explains, the lamp house is encased within another lamp housing. Gloves are required to handle the glass bulbs
not only to protect hands form heat but also to prevent contamination of glass
which can explode if it becomes dirty from trace amounts of oily hands and can
blind a person not wearing protective eye gear.
The bulbs cost about $600 each.
In the early days, the biggest danger came from the
mishandling of nitrate film which was highly combustible. For a bit of irony, Mario said the skin on
his father’s had been burned “white” and he asked him why. His answer was that while he was working at
the Capitol Theater, they screened “Dante’s Inferno” (YEAR)
and the film broke. A detached piece of
film made contact with the heated lamp which ignited it like a fuse. Raul tried to extinguish it with his hands
but as the spinning reel unraveled more film it caught aflame in his hands,
causing third-degree burns. After he
finally let go of it the rest of the reel lit aflame and was destroyed. Such is the highly combustible nature of
nitrate film which was the root cause of many theater fires and later replaced
with “safety film.”
Mario once tested the safety film in the 1970s. He spliced a piece of nitrate film about four
frames in length and held it over a bathroom sink and lit a match to it. This was a young man satisfying his curiosity
to see for himself how quickly the film caught fire, which it did,
instantaneously! He then tested a piece
of “safety film” and noted that it did not ignite, therefore living up to its
name. Modernized projector rooms were
designed to be enclosed areas to reduce amount of oxygen that could be consumed
by a fire thus reducing ability of fire spreading throughout the theater. For example, the porthole (opening for
projector) was held open by a chain which could be pulled to cut off source of
air in case a fire broke out in the projector room. In Mario’s early experience, these were
remnants of old industry standards as safety film had already been in use when
he began operating projectors.
c1950s – Sometimes the
small stage at the Majestic was used for live presentations. This appears to be a squad of junior high
school cheerleaders. Photo courtesy Joe
Trevino.
Also old to the industry but still in use when he was an
early teen and fortunate to have a single experience with, were carbon
spotlights (which stood on a stand and were much heavier and brighter than what
we are used to seeing today). There was
a band playing on the stage of the Majestic Theater and what was thrilling
about the experience was that the spotlight had three lenses (red/blue/green)
which could be placed over the lens to add colorful visual effects to the show.
During the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s the Majestic would
present stage shows and midnight screenings of films. Local rock bands could showcase their talent
for a half-hour show as their peers filled the seats before a midnight
matinee. One show Mario recalled was
Maddog and the Englishman [YEAR] featuring Joe
Cocker and Monterrey Pop.
1975 - Hard Times was
one of several local bands which made an appearance on the Majestic Theater
stage. Albert Abete 2nd from
left. Photo courtesy Albert Abete and
Glenn Jackson.
The industry had utilized a magnetic format on film by this
time to improve sound quality and the Majestic Theater was said to have had the
best sound of any local theater of its time.
Other theaters such as The Charro Drive-in could play these films but
the sound quality would not be as good since they might lack the latest
technological modifications to their projectors or actually, the stereo
magnetic sound system created in theaters could not be reproduced on mono-sound
speakers which fit on car windows.
Drive-in theaters later converted to short-wave radio transmission so
drivers could use their car radio to greatly improve the sound experience. This also eliminated the need for speaker
placement on car windows but they were still an option in case some older model
vehicles lacked an FM radio.
Mario specifically remembered watching Woodstock, Dr Zhivago, Ice Station Zebra and Mary Poppins in which magnetic format was
used. Woodstock played for a whole week
in 1969. The sound quality was greatly
enhanced as the technology continued to improve and theaters adapted to it or
became bargain theaters.
From 1974 October 7 Box Office Magazine
By 1974 shopping centers and mall theaters across the United
States began to replace the old downtown theaters which were smaller in size
and required parking spaces without parking meters. Interstate Theaters became ABC Interstate Inc and adapted to the growing changes by
announcing that the Majestic would soon be closed but that another larger venue
would replace it at the newly developed Northpark Plaza. That is where we’ll continue in the next part
which will include reminiscences by others about the 1980 production of Back
Roads (1981) part of which was filmed in the Rio
Grande Valley, downtown Brownsville, Texas and featured Sally Field and Tommy
Lee Jones. Mario will also relate his experiences
with the famous Rutledge Burger and ever memorable Mac’s Toys with photos and
more our local theaters!
