Jim Bradshaw: First talkie viewers were curious but fickle

 Ville Platte might lay claim to being the first small town in South Louisiana to offer high quality talking movies.
The Gazette said the opening of the Evangeline Theater in the summer of 1930 put the town “on the amusement map,” right up there with the big cities.
“Talkies” had been seen regularly in the big towns since the debut of the “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, but small towns had to stay with silent films or use scratchy phonograph records that were supposed to be synchronized with what was on the screen, but seldom were.
 Cless Fontenot, manager of the Evangeline, said at the time of the theater’s grand opening, “The invasion of sound into the motion picture industry presented a great problem … particularly to the small-town theater owners.” He said many of them rushed to get whatever sound equipment they could, and most of it didn’t work very well.
 When Fontenot made up his mind to put sound in his theater, he also made up his mind to “await developments,” spending a good bit of time and money traveling across the country to see “the various types of sound reproducing equipment in operation in various theaters.”
He settled on the R.C.A. Photophone system because, he said, it was the best to be found.
It was used in big theaters in New York and other cities and had just been installed on one of the fanciest ocean liners plying the Pacific.
“The Love Parade,” a musical starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, was the feature film when the Evangeline unveiled its new technology, and it wowed the audience.
“Crowds of parish and Ville Platte citizens attended the opening performance,” the Gazette reported. “Manager Cless Fontenot, in giving the amusement-loving public the benefit of the best projection apparatus extant, has spared neither time nor expense in making the new Evangeline theater on a par with movie buildings of large cities.”
The expensive apparatus worked just fine, the Gazette said: “The projection kept pace with the talking and what is more the pictures were clear and full of action.”
But Fontenot soon wondered if he shouldn’t have saved some of his money.
It appears that the amusement-loving public came as much for curiosity as for the clear, action-packed features. Once they’d seen and heard a talking film, they turned fickle. Only six months after the much-touted grand opening, Fontenot told the newspaper that “unless more patronage was extended the … the movie picture house would have to be closed for an indefinite period.”
That happened on Aug. 1, 1931, and the fancy projection equipment was sold, but a week later a new manager, Emile Ludeau, took charge and announced that a new projector (presumably less expensive) had been ordered.
But his optimism also waned as too many theater seats stayed vacant.
He said in December 1931 that the sound and picture synchronization of his new equipment “were perfect and stood without peer in movie circles,” but that “patronage was not up to the mark.”
Ads for the Evangeline ran in the Gazette during the spring of 1932, but it was closed well before a fire in April 1934 ravaged its successor, The Joy, which was also owned by Emile Ludeau.
The Joy fire began when, “by some inexplicable chance the picture machine … burst into flame when the celluloid film ignited. The celluloid blazed with a speed almost equal to gunpowder.” The Gazette may not have realized how truly it had spoken. Most of the movie film in those days was made using nitrocellulose, which was so combustible that it was in fact used as gunpowder.
Ludeau tried to reopen the Joy in a big tent “equipped with the best in tent theater conveniences and machinery,” but that only lasted until December, when the town council, perhaps thinking of the fire that swept through the original Joy, outlawed “operation of moving picture shows in buildings or structures not constructed of non-combustible materials.”
Finally, in June 1935, movie fans began to “notice with pleasure” “the work being done in the large brick building just opposite the old First National Bank, where the Bailey interests are planning to construct a modern cinema house,” according to the Gazette.
“The Big Broadcast” starring a young Bing Crosby was the feature film when the Bailey Theater opened on Oct. 31, 1935, and, the Gazette said, theater-goers once again “enjoyed the comforts and advantages of a real modern picture show.”
 You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.