Flashbacks

LITTLE ROCK — Movies show in bigger and bigger multiplexes of 10 screens, 12 screens ... 16 screens at the Fiesta Square in Fayetteville, 18 screens at the Rave in Little Rock.

Left behind is the little movie house where it all started - where everybody in town went to the same picture that opened Friday night on the single screen that seemed as big as the world.

Some people remember old movies. And some remember movie theaters that were new when the Marx Brothers were young: How the curtains opened in a grand gesture of purple and fringe (and popcorn swept up in the fringe). How the show started with a brand-new cartoon and a newsreel. How the bill was a double feature.

The candy counter was stocked with Necco Wafers and Charleston Chews, remember? And you left with huge expectations for the coming attractions that were described in such words as, “Blazing!” “Sizzling!” “Next week!” “See! - See! - See!”

Arkansas remembers those bygone days with equal parts nostalgia and new thinking. At least a half-dozen vintage theaters around the state still run new or second-run movies. Seth Rogen stars as The Green Hornet in places as old as the masked avenger’s origins on radio in the 1930s.

Even more old theater buildings in Arkansas defy their age with fixed-up faces of new paint and plaster, restored as community theaters and other sorts of venues.

In Batesville, for example, the more than century-old Landers Theater has been set to rights as Fellowship Bible Church - but a church with a movie screen. Part of the Ozark Foothills Filmfest, March 23 to 27, will be held at the former Landers for old-time’s sake.

“It has a beautiful screen at the back,” says festival organizer Bob Pest, glad to see the once vacant and sad-looking structure find a way to beat the odds against an old movie house in the age of instant Netflix.

This story, too, is complete with coming attractions:

See! - People who love old movie theaters keep doing all they can to save the flickering past.

See! - History served with buttered popcorn.

See! - How some of the state’s oldest cinemas still manage thanks to generally lower prices than the big competition, smart management, sheer determination, and maybe the love a town has for the movie house that seems to have always been there.

“Merry Christmas, movie house!” - James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Down Batesville’s Main Street, the 71-year-old, single-screen Melba Theater still opens onthe weekends - another cinematic light like a candle for all the others that didn’t make it.

The trend for the last 40 years has been more screens in fewer movie houses. Downtown and neighborhood theaters gave way to multi-screen theaters in shopping malls, and now to movie “megaplexes” that stand by themselves.

In 1995, the National Association of Theaters owners counted 26,995 screens in 7,151 theaters. By 2009, the numbers shifted to 38,605 screens in 5,561 theaters.

But Arkansas retains some of the longest-lasting temples of endurance against changing times, including these:

The Rialto, in Searcy. The single-screen theater opened in 1923. Its neon glow is from more recent times - around 1940. Second-run movies show at 7 nightly, along with weekend matinees. The city owns the movie theater.

“People are very passionate about it,” outgoing Searcy Mayor Belinda LaForce discovered in her eight years in office. “It’s really important,” she says, but a challenge to maintain.

Beyond such basic repairs as roof work, she expects the building might take millions to restore as fully as she would like to see it, brought back with a performance stage as well as the movie screen.

For now, she testifies as a movie ticket-buyer, “two dollars to get in is a great price.” The Malco, in Hot Springs. Home of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the Art Deco-style theater opened in 1946. The site was a movie theater and vaudeville palace even earlier, back to 1910. This year’s film festival is set for Oct. 14-23.

The Gem, in Heber Springs. The Gem goes back to the 1940s - burned, rebuilt, restored, rethought. Screen removed, it was a country music stage, a community theater, arts council office and art gallery.

“It had no projector, no screen, no sound, no popcorn machine,” says owner Sid King, describing The Gem when he bought it five years ago. He replaced the works, upgrading as well to reclining seats and digital sound to show first-run pictures nightly, a matinee on Sunday.

Nostalgia won’t keep a theater in business, King says. Clean floors do more to attract an audience.

“It’s a beautiful theater,” he says, “and we want to keep it like that.”

The Ritz, in Malvern. The Ritz opened in 1938. It retains a rare touch from the 1940s - a crying room, where parents can take their wailing babies and still watch the first-run movies that play on the weekends.

“We’ve tried to keep a lotof character of the old building,” owner Marla Nix says. She and husband Marty even had the theater’s vintage restroom signs rewired. “They’re so beautiful.”

Three years ago, the couple had a problem with noisy teenagers, she adds. They closed the Ritz for that and other reasons, but “people begged us to reopen,” and so they did - with a new rule: No more dropping off the youngsters at the movie theater. Mom and dad have to sign in with a phone number for the manager to call in case of misbehavior.

“A few of them thought I’d never call,” Marla Nix says. Once the troublemakers learned better, the old-fashioned rule “has worked out to be a great thing.”

Other old movie houses, still showing pictures on weekends, include The Main Theater in Berryville, Savage Theater in Booneville and Scott Theater in Waldron.

“A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he remembers.” - Everett Sloane in Citizen Kane (1941)

Old theaters commonly had performing stages as well as movie screens, a heritage of vaudeville and other traveling acts. A historic theater, restored, can be just the place for a theater and arts center. These are among theaters turned to other uses in Arkansas:

The Rialto, in El Dorado. Built in 1929; come and gone and restored over the years, the brightly lighted and said-to-be-haunted Rialto is where The West Edge String Quartet played accompaniment to the silent skulkings of the 1922 vampire classic, Nosferatu, one cold night in January.

The Royal, in Benton. The Royal opened in 1922. In 1995, the old movie house approached its 75th anniversary as Benton’s oldest family business in one place. “Quirky, creaky, frayed,” the newspaper described it, but the popcorn cost just 50 cents a bag.

Today’s Royal lends its name and stage to the Royal Players, whose productions to come include Godspell, March 10-20.

The Victory, in Rogers. Built for a then-fabulous sum of $75,000, the first movie house in Northwest Arkansas opened Dec. 5, 1927, with a showing of The American Beauty, a romantic tale of a hat-check girl starring Billie Dove.

Restored, the Victory’s stage is home to the Rogers Little Theater, and still the place to check stylish outerwear. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the players’ current production, continues through Feb. 27.

Other movie theaters remade as community arts centers and music halls around the state include The Ritz in Blytheville, The Rialto in Morrilton, The Lyric in Harrison, The Collins in Paragould, The Forum in Jonesboro and The Perot Theatre in Texarkana.

Saenger Amusement Co. billed its early-day movie house in Texarkana as the “Gateway to the West.” Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot chipped in to restore the 87-year-old building on the Lone Star side of the stateline that runs through Texarkana, and the theater is named for his parents. On display this month: “Grass Roots: A Regional Celebration of African-American Ingenuity.”

Movie theaters with information about show times and ticket prices online include The Rialto in Searcy at webertheaters.com, The Gem in Heber Springs atgemmovietheatre.com and The Ritz in Malvern at theritzmalvern.com.

Ritz owner Marla Nix asks for help in finding a lost documentary about Malvern, around which she hopes to build a special screening. The missing artifact is a 16-minute movie, made around 1940, featuring the citizens of this Hot Spring County community, last shown at The Ritz in 1975.

“Somebody knows were it is,” she expects. The theater’s Web site has contact information, and the box-office phone is (501) 332-2451.