Page 41 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

Fortunately, I had a few close friends at school and where I worked at the theater. Being
one of seven or eight ushers, we learned how to serve or deal with theater patrons. And
viewing many repeats of various movies, we felt that we became acquainted with the
various characters portrayed in the movies. To convince the public to see the latest
movie, various techniques were used. The most eye-catching one was the gluing of a
3x8 foot poster to the sidewalk in front of the theater with a few coats of shellac or
varnish to protect it from foot traffic. Also, we also had large illuminated posters in the
lobby. I especially remember one Friday night when a teenage couple spotted one. The
poster had a picture of a sad young woman under huge letters that said, NOT
WANTED”. As the doorman took their tickets, the girl made a connection with the
picture, and dashed up to it saying, “That’s me!” But she quickly turned away when she
read the subtitle, “The Story of an Unwed Mother”.

There was a button on the wall near the aisles leading to the seats that connected to the
projection booth. There were certain numbers of buzzes that informed the projection
booth if the sound of the movie was too soft, or too loud. The head usher could alert the
operator to correct the problem. When seats were hard to find during a very popular
movie, the only ones available were on the very front row, or on the extreme sides. As
we showed patrons were shown to these seats, they often refused to sit there. We tried
to encourage by telling them that they could sit there until they spot someone leaving
farther back so they could switch to those seats. These were the days that moviegoers
would often enter the theater in the middle of the movie, and then leave in the next
showing when the part they had seen came up.

The St. Johns Theater had a lovely lounge area on the mezzanine. There was a large
mural of a blooming Magnolia Tree on the wall by the staircase leading up to it. On one
occasion, a couple of sparrows flew in the front door of the theater that tried to find the
way out. They made several attempts to land on the branches of the mural, failing to
catch hold. The mezzanine had several doors surrounding it. One door led to the ladies
room, others to a telephone, a men’s room, and the last one the Manager’s office. With
Jacksonville being a Navy town, I quickly learned some of the Navy lingo. A sailor
came to me and asked directions to the “head”. I showed him the Manager’s door. I
quickly learned that the Navy called the Rest Room a head!

Some movies were so bad that the theater was nearly empty. Such was the case of
“Beyond the Forest” starring Bette Davis. Most of the ushers were released for the
33