The El Rancho Theater
By: David L. Norris
Topics: Arvin, 1950's, comedy, El Rancho Theater
Posted by Sloigo Mon Oct 1, 2007 12:10:00 PDT
Viewed 2131 times
0 responses 1 comment
Growing up in Arvin, California in the 50’s was fun. Twenty-one miles from Bakersfield and only seven miles from the famous Weedpatch, Ca. mentioned in the John Steinbeck’s book “The Grapes of Wrath”. We considered ourselves the town located south-of-the-tracks of a known poor-ole Okie town.
The summers were unbearably hot, usually more than 110o, and for us kids running around barefoot in this temperature, it was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, there were not too many concrete sidewalks and you got use to your feet getting hot as they buried themselves in the sand with each step, or hot tar stuck to your feet from the melted asphalt streets as you ran across them, not to dodge traffic, but to keep from getting stuck to the tar.
It was a special treat to get to the El Rancho Movie Theater. If your momma was kind and your family was “well–to-do,” she would give you the 25 cents to get in and sometimes another 50 cents to get some candy, popcorn and a soda.
Most of my friends lived in the farm labor camp on the next street over from our house and their parents either worked seven days a week or still could not afford to give them the money to get in. They would go out, collect refillable pop bottles, returning them to the local markets for their deposit so that they had money to come also. I would go along and help them look for pop bottles which had been discarded along side of the road. We would often walk miles before we could get enough unbroken bottles to cash in for money for all of my friends to get in to the show. Most of the bottles were worth five cents each.
Now the El Rancho Theater was run by a grouchy, rutty faced old man named Ernie Martinez who chain smoked cheap cigars. The popcorn smelled pretty bad and had a smokey flavor, but what did we kids know? Each Saturday Ernie was faced with an endless line of kids who were perpetually 12 years old, because the rate tripled to a unbelievable high 75 cents at age 13.
Poor Ernie was faced with the undaunting task of asking each kid his age and trying to trap them by also asking them for their birthdates. After all, you can’t expect 12 year olds to carry drivers licenses – though a few of them had been driving for several years and offered to show their Draft cards as proof they were only 12 years old. He finally got smart and started keeping a list of all the kids’ names and ages. He probably had a more comprehensive list than the information at the schools. More than once, Ernie threatened to tattoo our birthdates on the center of our foreheads, since they seemed to change each week. Go figure!
Gary S., Gary N, Pogie and I met there every weekend, along with all my Camp friends and we would play tag and war in the theater. Heads bobbing over the seats, throwing popcorn, jujubes, Dots or what ever we could find. Then the noise of kids scurrying back and forth on our hands and knees trying to get a better vantage location Black Dots candy would be stuck all over our clothes after people had put them into their mouth and then spit them wet onto the floor.
In a town with only a thousand residents, there were not that many kids and a lot of vacant seats between the older teenage couples huddled together in a three hour long embrace. Ernie would shine his light on anyone who got too frisky within either group. We finally figured out that the main reason most of us were sent to the movie theater was to allow our parents several uninterrupted hours where they could make more kids.
This was the era of the cheap Japanese horror flicks and California surfing movies. Usually each week was the same scenario, you would go into a semi-dark theater with a Hi-Fi playing scratchy classical selections, the action would start with a serial such as BUCK ROGERS; News of the Day showing the latest news from the battle front in Korea; a first rate Disney cartoon; the “A rated” movie; intermission; then a prize drawing MC’ed by Ernie-complete with his cigar; a second rated Looney-Toon cartoon; and the second “B rated” movie. Twenty five cents was a lot to pay, but it was marginally worth it with the prize drawing.
As I got older, the weekend adventures with my boy type friends changed as I noticed that some of them were developing bumps on their chest. From that point on it was sort of a pre-drivers education, where you learned to be a contortionist, trying to kiss while seated with a chair arm between each other and not be too obvious. If you got too frisky Ernie would shine his light on the offending couple which would illicit general cat calls by the other couples laughing as the light was trained on you, as clothes was straightened and we sat up straight and tried to deny ever having met the person sitting next to us.
The summers were unbearably hot, usually more than 110o, and for us kids running around barefoot in this temperature, it was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, there were not too many concrete sidewalks and you got use to your feet getting hot as they buried themselves in the sand with each step, or hot tar stuck to your feet from the melted asphalt streets as you ran across them, not to dodge traffic, but to keep from getting stuck to the tar.
It was a special treat to get to the El Rancho Movie Theater. If your momma was kind and your family was “well–to-do,” she would give you the 25 cents to get in and sometimes another 50 cents to get some candy, popcorn and a soda.
Most of my friends lived in the farm labor camp on the next street over from our house and their parents either worked seven days a week or still could not afford to give them the money to get in. They would go out, collect refillable pop bottles, returning them to the local markets for their deposit so that they had money to come also. I would go along and help them look for pop bottles which had been discarded along side of the road. We would often walk miles before we could get enough unbroken bottles to cash in for money for all of my friends to get in to the show. Most of the bottles were worth five cents each.
Now the El Rancho Theater was run by a grouchy, rutty faced old man named Ernie Martinez who chain smoked cheap cigars. The popcorn smelled pretty bad and had a smokey flavor, but what did we kids know? Each Saturday Ernie was faced with an endless line of kids who were perpetually 12 years old, because the rate tripled to a unbelievable high 75 cents at age 13.
Poor Ernie was faced with the undaunting task of asking each kid his age and trying to trap them by also asking them for their birthdates. After all, you can’t expect 12 year olds to carry drivers licenses – though a few of them had been driving for several years and offered to show their Draft cards as proof they were only 12 years old. He finally got smart and started keeping a list of all the kids’ names and ages. He probably had a more comprehensive list than the information at the schools. More than once, Ernie threatened to tattoo our birthdates on the center of our foreheads, since they seemed to change each week. Go figure!
Gary S., Gary N, Pogie and I met there every weekend, along with all my Camp friends and we would play tag and war in the theater. Heads bobbing over the seats, throwing popcorn, jujubes, Dots or what ever we could find. Then the noise of kids scurrying back and forth on our hands and knees trying to get a better vantage location Black Dots candy would be stuck all over our clothes after people had put them into their mouth and then spit them wet onto the floor.
In a town with only a thousand residents, there were not that many kids and a lot of vacant seats between the older teenage couples huddled together in a three hour long embrace. Ernie would shine his light on anyone who got too frisky within either group. We finally figured out that the main reason most of us were sent to the movie theater was to allow our parents several uninterrupted hours where they could make more kids.
This was the era of the cheap Japanese horror flicks and California surfing movies. Usually each week was the same scenario, you would go into a semi-dark theater with a Hi-Fi playing scratchy classical selections, the action would start with a serial such as BUCK ROGERS; News of the Day showing the latest news from the battle front in Korea; a first rate Disney cartoon; the “A rated” movie; intermission; then a prize drawing MC’ed by Ernie-complete with his cigar; a second rated Looney-Toon cartoon; and the second “B rated” movie. Twenty five cents was a lot to pay, but it was marginally worth it with the prize drawing.
As I got older, the weekend adventures with my boy type friends changed as I noticed that some of them were developing bumps on their chest. From that point on it was sort of a pre-drivers education, where you learned to be a contortionist, trying to kiss while seated with a chair arm between each other and not be too obvious. If you got too frisky Ernie would shine his light on the offending couple which would illicit general cat calls by the other couples laughing as the light was trained on you, as clothes was straightened and we sat up straight and tried to deny ever having met the person sitting next to us.
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Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:37:40 PDT
I remember growing up in Arvin and attending the EL Rancho Theatre in the 70's that was something we looked forward to doing on Friday nights.