The REAL First Movie World Premiere in Birmingham

Well, maybe, at least until I find another one.

In a recent blog post I discussed a film premier in Birmingham that was described as the first, a showing of Steel Town at the Alabama Theater in March 1952. In some even more recent file cleaning, I came across the article below. Seems we can push back Birmingham's first movie world premier to at least November 1947. 

This article details the work of actress Mary Anderson, who was scheduled to appear in the city at an event on November 23. She realized that her visit would come at the same time as the annual football game played at Legion Field to benefit the Crippled Children's Clinic. Senior high school players from around the state, picked by coaches, played in the all-star game held from 1935 until 1969, when the clinic closed. 

I have covered Mary Anderson's career in another blog post. Whispering City was a thriller set in Quebec City, Canada, and filmed on location there. The movie came about midway in her film career; she continued acting steadily for more than a decade afterward. Her career began in 1939; her first credited film role was Maybelle Merriwether in Gone with the Wind. Before she died in 2014 at the age of 96, she was one of three remaining credited actors from that film still living. 

The postcard below features the Crippled Children's Clinic on 19th Street South. No date is given, but the facility must be the one for which the movie premier was raising money. Groundbreaking was held in June 1949 and the clinic opened in November 1951. Today UAB's Spain-Wallace Building occupies the location; Jefferson Tower is across 19th Street.  

The article below was written by Lily May Caldwell, "Drama, Radio, Music Editor." She began working for the Birmingham News in 1921 and retired as its long-time entertainment editor in 1966. She died in 1980. Why she identified the 1952 film premier as the city's "first" is anybody's guess. 

Birmingham News 9 November 1947

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

The Empire Theater in 1937 heavily promoting the film Lost Horizon. The theater was located on 3rd Avenue North. 

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Source: CardCow.com

Description on the back of the card: 

The Crippled Children's Clinic and Hospital, at 620 South 19th Street, was established in 1929 for the orthopedic treatment of underprivileged children. It has provided help for the care of thousands of needy children from 65 counties in Alabama. Much of the money used in erection of this outstanding modern clinic was raised through the realm of sports. Proceeds of an annual football game added considerably to the necessary financing.

Finding Alabama in Oklahoma

Recently Dianne and I helped our daughter Becca and son-in-law Matt move from Tuscaloosa to Edmond, Oklahoma, where he has accepted a faculty position at the University of Central Oklahoma. Matt and his father took the U-Haul; Dianne and his mother drove one of their cars; and Becca and I drove the other one, the one with their two dogs. We left Tuscaloosa around 6:30 am and arrived in Edmond about 13 hours later. 

As we made our way across Oklahoma on I-40, Becca and I noticed something familiar. We passed an exit for "Eufaula." Some miles further on we passed an exit for "Wetumpka." This Twilight Zone feeling quickly passed as we realized why there are towns in Oklahoma with names so familiar to us in Alabama.

Those Alabama towns of Eufaula and Wetumpka carry names associated with settlements of various Muscogee/Creek tribes in the state. Several towns by those names were identified by early European traders and settlers in the area. For an in-depth look at such matters, see Amos J. Wright, Jr.'s 2003 book, Historic Indian Towns in Alabama, 1540-1838.

In the 1830's the Creeks---along with Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Seminoles---were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to the Indian Territory in the west. Naturally, some of their town names went with them. Another such name was Tuskegee, now an Oklahoma ghost town. 

Below are three maps. The first one shows the locations of the two towns south of I-40. Downtown Wetumka [without the P] is shown on the second map. There we can see some specifics that would not be out of place in its Alabama counterpart: a Diary Queen, a Dollar General, Wetumka Elementary and High Schools. Oh, wait---that Cowkickers Smokin Barbeque gives it away. You seldom see a barbeque place in Alabama that doesn't use Bar-B-Que in it's name. 

If you look at the water near Eufaula on the third map, you'll see Lake Eufaula there in the middle of the Canadian River. It's a reservoir created by a dam. Gee, isn't there one of those in Alabama, too?

These names are not limited to Alabama and Oklahoma. There is an unincorporated Wetumpka in Florida. A town of Tuskegee in Tennessee associated with the Cherokee and the birthplace of Sequoyah was covered by water in the 1970's after the construction of Tellico Dam. Alabama actually had several settlements by that name; see the book cited above. 

On our trip we also passed an exit for "Prague." And yes, the town was settled in the early 1890's by--wait for it--Czech immigrants. 





That Night Movie Fans "Besieged" the Alabama Theater

No, I'm not referring to a showing of Gone with the Wind. That film first appeared in Birmingham on January 31, 1940, at the Ritz Theatre.

In March 1952 Birmingham saw its first actual Hollywood movie premiere. Birmingham News amusement editor Lila May Caldwell wrote two articles about the film Steel Town and the stars who also appeared in the city that month. See the articles below; links are provided where you can find more readable copies.

Her second article notes that an estimated 7000 people saw three showings of the film on March 20, and 7000 more jammed the streets as the stars arrived for the 9 pm show. Fans "shrieked welcome" to Ann Sheridan, John Lund, and Howard Duff.

Steel Town was filmed at a factory in California, but local businessmen urged Alabama Theater manager Norris Hadaway to convince Universal-International executives to hold the premiere in Birmingham. He did, and the "first picture ever to dramatize the making of steel" and its stars came to the Magic City.

The story follows a mill owner's son who has gone to work in the facility to learn the ropes. He's also living incognito with a steelworker's family; the daughter just happens to be played by Ann Sheridan. Her boyfriend played by Howard Duff  and the son played by John Lund vie for her affections as the steel is made.

I haven't seen this Technicolor film, but will now have to search it out. The Internet Movie Database identifies the film's tagline as "Men of steel! Women of flesh!" What more could a movie fan want?

 This article appeared in the Birmingham News on March 9, 1952.

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections



A second article appeared in the Birmingham News on March 21.

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections



Birmingham Photo of the Day (47): Ladies of the Club

The photo below can be found in the digital collections of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The description there reads, "'Miss Bland Tomlinson, Miss Mary Munger and Mrs. Henry Howze at the Country Club.' From the rotogravure section of the Birmingham Age-Herald, Sunday, October 31, 1915." From June 1942 until September 1945 Henry R. Howze served as Probate Judge of Jefferson County. He was also an early trustee of the Birmingham Historical Society. I did not find a Mary Munger in Birmingham in the 1910 U.S. Census, but I did find a Mary "Manger" who was 16 at the time. No one named Bland Tomlinson or anything similar turned up in the 1910 census. A photo of the Country Club as it looked in 1915 can also be seen below. The history of the organization can be found at the BhamWiki site. Rotogravure is a type of printing process developed in the late nineteenth century. Reproduction of art and photographs benefited from this method. The Age-Herald apparently ran a Sunday feature of such reproductions. You can read some history of women's golf attire here.       

"The Climax" at the Tivoli Theater in Montgomery in 1930

I was looking for something else recently at the wonderful Alabama Mosaic site and stumbled across the advertisement below. The ad appeared on May 8, 1930, in the Alabama Journal and the Times, a newspaper published in Montgomery from 1927 until 1940.

The "all-talking" film being promoted in its last showings at the Tivoli Theater was The Climax. By the early 1930's sound films were very popular in the U.S. and around the world.

The movie was based on a comedy that first ran on Broadway in 1909 and had four revivals there by 1933. None of the film's cast appeared in any of those versions.

You can learn more about Jean Hersholt, Kathyrn Crawford and LeRoy Mason at their Wikpedia pages. I assume "Universal News" is the Universal Newsreels released to theaters between 1929 and 1967. I have no idea what "Screen Song" is, although like the newsreel it's probably a short film. Presumably the two prices listed are for the floor and cheaper balcony seats.

The only thing I could find about the theater is that the Tivoli Theatre, Inc., was registered as an Alabama Domestic Corporation on December 4, 1928.

Pondering Alabama Maps (6): A 1913 Highway Proposal

The main map below was developed in 1913 by the National Highways Association, a private organization founded two years earlier by businessman Charles Henry Davis. The group's motto was "Good Roads Everywhere" and it supported a national road system developed and maintained by the federal government. This map illustrates the proposed 50,000 miles of roads. The partial map shows Alabama's share in better detail. 

The NHA's proposal was never adopted by Congress, but the idea of a national highway system lived on. A "Good Roads Movement" had actually begun in the 1870's, long before automobiles needed them. Bicyclists were behind that idea. 

You can read about the U.S.'s national highway system here and the country's numbered roads system here.    

Martin Olliff's 2017 book is an excellent history of these matters with a focus on Alabama.

 

 

Charles Henry Davis [1865-1951]

Source: U.S. Federal Highway Administration

Alabama Natives on the Cover of TV Guide

I stumbled into the TV Guide magazine cover archive again recently and decided to look for some Alabama natives who have made one or more over the years. Here's what I found; comments are below the covers. Some of these individuals appeared on more covers than shown here.

TV Guide began national weekly publication in April 1953. I have limited these choices to people born in Alabama; I'm sure there are many with other Alabama connections. Maybe I'll do a post on some of them in the future. I've probably missed some Alabama natives, too. 

December 7, 1957

Well, a photo of actress Tallulah Bankhead didn't make this cover, but her name did! By this time Tallulah was famous for her stage, film and radio appearances.

September 25, 1976

Kate Jackson was born in Birmingham, but attended school in Mountain Brook. She started college at the University of Mississippi, and left before graduating to study acting in New York City. She has had a long career, especially in television. After a supporting role on The Rookies, she starred in two very successful programs, Charlie's Angels and Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

February 11, 1984

 

By 1988 Jackson had appeared on at least four more covers of TV Guide.

November 18, 1989

Courtney Cox is another Mountain Brook girl who grew up to become a well-known actress, especially for the television series Friends. She has appeared in numerous other TV programs and theatrical films.

 

June 8, 2002

July 25, 1970

Hiding behind the kid on the left and the piece of watermelon is George Lindsey, who played "Goober" Pyle on the Andy Griffith Show and its followup, Mayberry R.F.D. His character was a cousin of Gomer Pyle, played by another Alabama native Jim Nabors. For the record, we have a cat named Goober. 

March 21, 1964

Jim Nabors was born in Sylacauga in 1930. A few years after graduation from the University of Alabama, Nabors ended up performing an act in Los Angeles in which he could use his talents for both comedy and singing. He was soon discovered by Andy Griffith and made an appearance on the Andy Griffith Show as the character of Gomer Pyle. Intended very as a one-shot, the character turned out to be popular and became a regular. Nabors eventually moved the character to another very successful show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. 

November 21, 1964

September 20, 1969

Nabors' long career in entertainment has included television, films, touring stage productions, nightclub shows and the release of 28 albums featuring his rich baritone. Nabors has appeared on the cover of TV Guide at least eight times.