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SATURDAY MORNING ON THE STREET OF
DREAMS
by
Dr. Charles R. Wicke
NNHS Class of June 1945
Saturday morning was the time to head for the
Street of Dreams. In Newport News this was three blocks of Washington Avenue
holding four movie houses. Plunking down a dime at the
Warwick Theater allowed a frail child
to enter a heroic world of daring deeds amid perfidy. The feature film was
invariably a "cowboy show" starring Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Roy Rogers or
Gene Autry. Accompanying this fare was the episode of a "serial," perhaps
Buck Rogers in contest with the evil oriental-featured Ming - or Tarzan
lording it over benighted Africans. But first came the Kiddy Club.
At center stage a contemporary would belt out favorites of the moment: On
the Good Ship Lollipop, invariably sung by a Shirley Temple
look-alike rubbing her midsection while phrasing ". . . or you'll get a
tummy ache," or Red Sails in the Sunset, rendered perhaps by a lad
who demonstrated difficulty in reaching the low notes.
The more sophisticated fare at the
Paramount Theater attracted an older
audience with a higher ratio of girls. Here one could see, for example, the
"Road" pictures of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, as in The
Road to Zanzibar (1941) and The Road to Morocco (1942). The live
entertainment before the picture was more sophisticated, too. As the lights
went down, the faint notes could be heard as if in the distance. The music
gradually increased as the organ slowly rose from the pit – music matching
movement. As if by magic, spotlights popped on, their beams lighting upon
the slight musician and mistress of ceremony at the console. She accompanied
the singer soloists on the sonorous pipe organ. Her name: Gladys Lyle.
Once a year the live magic show with Harry
Blackstone, Sr., played at the Paramount. The organ background that Gladys
rendered added so much to the show that one year Harry persuaded her to go
with him on the road: a real road. And so she left us, and things were
never the same.
At the other end of the strip the
James Theater competed with the Warwick for the
young viewer. Here was experienced The Popeye Club, with the theme
song I'm Popeye the Sailor Man and a Max Fleisher Thimble Theater
Popeye cartoon with its feature. Before the films it offered the usual
singers interspersed with boxing matches between volunteer pugilists who,
like the vocalists, received a free admission ticket for their performance.
The remaining cinema, the
Palace, had no children's show, but depended
on higher quality MGM movies to attract an older audience. Shirley Temple,
the most famous female in the world, starred there in pictures with the word
"little" in their titles: In 1935, The Little Colonel and The
Littlest Rebel; and in 1939, The Little Princess. Members of the
NNHS Class of 1945 identified with the cute curly-head as being of the same
age: someone they grew up with.
Indeed, as we left childhood we gave up the
Warwick and the James for the Paramount and the Palace. Putting aside
childish things, we began to wrestle with the mysteries of puberty.
Glandular changes produced new and mysterious longings.
The silver screen came to the rescue with a
timely series of motion pictures that dealt with our problems. Offering us
didactic vicarious experiences at the Palace were the Andy Hardy films,
considered by their producer, Louis B. Mayer, as his contribution to the
strengthening of America's family values.
As adolescents we perceived the Hardy films
differently from Mayer's intent. Girls on observing the female leads saw
the growing power of their newfound nubility. Boys readily identified with
Mickey Rooney's bumbling approach to dreamlike, chaste, co-stars such as
Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland, and Ann Rutherford in pictures with
descriptive titles such as: Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939);
Andy Hardy Meets a Debutante (1940); and Andy Hardy's Private
Secretary (1941). Lewis Stone played Judge Hardy, the sagacious father,
whose "man-to-man" talks invariably resolved each impasse of Andy's
misadventures with worldly ladies. Oh that we could have fathers as
understanding as Judge Hardy. Oh that a boy could have a girlfriend as
good-looking as Judy Garland. Oh that a girl could become as lovely as
Kathryn Grayson.
And then came that grand moment of revelation
and, perhaps, confusion; an instant when life imitates art. The fortuitous
event came to pass on January 10, 1942. Our freshman class had entered high
school in September of 1941 a few weeks before. On the following Friday
afternoon the school newspaper, The Beacon, carried the headlines
"Mickey Rooney Weds NNHS Grad."
1942 - Mickey Rooney and Ava
Gardner
A future member of the class of 1945 had to
wonder who was the girl-wife of the story, Ava Gardner? She was a member of
the class that had graduated the previous year. The older Potter girl,
Virginia, the cheerleader, was her friend and had visited her in California
-- she knew and could tell us. And she did.
Ava Gardner was from Smithfield, NC. She had
arrived with her mother and father, but soon after the father abandoned
them. Her mother had to support herself and daughter by running a boarding
house. Ava had dated older, and presumably more sophisticated "apprentice
boys" from the local shipyard. In Hollywood she was working as a Goldwyn
Girl while taking speech lessons in order to erase her southern accent. Sam
Goldwyn wanted to cast her in speaking parts. But now Mickey Rooney -- Andy
Hardy -- had married the beautiful girl next door, next door to us.
What was real and what was fantasy in all
this? As we viewed Ava's magnificent face in wide-screen color close-ups
over the years and followed her stormy career, broken marriages, bouts with
alcohol, those questions remained unanswered. Fact? Fiction? That which
had seemed to us simple and romantic on our Street of Dreams now
appears to be more complex.
Dr. Charles R. Wicke is
Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Victoria, Canada. In
summer he lives at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; and in winter at
Cuernavaca, Mexico. Charles maintains a web site:
http://www.angelfire.com/bc3/gringoviejo
From Fred W. Field -
". . Street of Dreams" was originally published in 1992 in the Classes
of 1945 Newsletter. This version is Dr. Wicke's May 2005 update.
In March 1946 I gave a copy of the original
version to the late Parke Rouse, Daily Press feature writer. Parke quoted it
extensively in his June 1996 article ,"Cruising Avenue of Dreams."
Parke died March 5, 1997.
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