CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/84337
FEATURE L In the mid-1900s downtown movie theaters were the place to be BY MICHAEL JAENICKE Silver Screens wife of 61 years. awrence Howell is 90 years old, but he has no trouble remembering three dates he had in the summer of 1944. Still, he likes to keep two of them a secret from Mildred, his Back then Howell was railroad worker by day and movie-buff bachelor by night. "I must have went to every movie that came to Fayetteville," he said. "If I missed one it was because I had blown my money on a woman. I wasn't too proud to sneak into one, either." Howell paid for six tickets at The Colony Theater that summer. The first date was with a midwestern girl and they went to see Judy Gar- land's "Meet Me in St. Louis." A short time later he took a New York gal to see "Going My Way," which featured an Academy Award- winning performance by Bing Crosby. "That's when films were films and theaters were theaters," Howell said. "It costs 44 cents for a ticket but it was always an event. I miss those days. I held Mildred's hand and haven't let go of it since. I'm not sure what we watched. I watched her." His third movie, shortly aſter the first two, was with Mil- dred. He doesn't recall much about the other two women, but remembers both the theater and the moving picture frame of his life with Mildred as if they were yesterday. Old cinema houses in Fayetteville were packed in the hey- days of Howell and Duell. Each carries in their memories a bit of that history that is now slowly slipping away. "Going to these movies houses downtown was a big treat just wonderful." CityViewNC.com | 41 minded walking downtown to the theat- ers where you had to stand in line for a ticket. You talked to everyone in line, knew everyone and the whole theater atmosphere was ell, a French woman who came to Cum- berland County in 1948 as the bride of Col. Cliff Duell, recalls downtown mov- ies as "the thing to do." The downtown theater district was booming. "It really was a different time," said 88-year-old the widow. "We never Fellow Fayetteville resident Martha Du-