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The acting was terrible, the soundtrack was lame and the scenery was obviously fake. What a great movie!

This could be said about most of the movies I saw as a kid growing up in Red Wing during the 1960s. We didn’t know any better. Hey, it was a chance to go downtown on our own without adults herding us.

There are long tracts written about theaters that existed in Red Wing. But, to cut to the chase, during my youth, Red Wing had two downtown movie theaters and that’s all that was important to me.

I’m sure the theater my contemporaries most remember is the T.B. Sheldon Memorial Auditorium. We called it the Aud. Today, after extensive remodeling and renewed focus, it is called the Sheldon Theatre (the “re” ending is much more refined than “er”).

To a fourth-grader, the Aud was the most ornate place I’d ever entered, even though it had seen better days. Looking down from the balcony was like looking into the Grand Canyon. If the balcony was open, we tried to get seats in the front row. Second choice was any of the front rows of the main floor. I always wanted to sit where there used to be box seats on either side of the balcony nearest the stage but they were closed off a long time earlier.

The other theater was the Chief Theater on Bush Street. It was smaller, maybe half the size of the Aud. But it was special in its own way. It also had a balcony but it was not as compelling as the Aud’s balcony unless you were there with a date. I wouldn’t know about that but I do know that it was dark up there. The balcony later became a separate theater, so small that it was known as “The Closet.”

I sensed that the theaters, especially the Aud, were special places of historical note. But I didn’t care about that back then. To a tow-headed youth they were just a couple more old buildings in a town well stocked with them. The seats were ripped and even the screens had marks from all the candy thrown at them. 

The draw for kids my age was that there were a lot of movies coming out geared toward kids. Disney was the main draw, of course, but we sometimes preferred the shorts shown before the main show. There were many, including Looney Tunes and The Three Stooges. The previews of coming attractions were often better than the feature.

We usually went to movies on Friday nights. The folks were happy to be free of us for a few hours and we could sleep in on Saturdays. During the summer we sometimes got to go on other nights. Some Saturday afternoons you could see an old movie by donating a can of corn or peas.

At one point I remember that it cost 30 cents to see a movie at the Chief. I earned only 25 cents a week drying breakfast dishes so I was already short. As Mom gave me the extra nickel, I reminded her that it sure would be nice to get a bag of popcorn and a pop. I had 45 cents when I headed out the door.

There were many more good reasons to attend movies. Back then, good TV shows were in short supply. Viewing them on a tiny screen in black and white was no comparison to a movie theater screen. We attended with our siblings and friends, expecting to be overwhelmed. The sound was much louder, especially the bass, which could jar you from your seat. We would completely forget about anything relating to the real world for two hours. That became obvious when the show was over and we stepped back outside to face the August heat or a  January blizzard. Air conditioning was worth the price of admission since we did not have it at home. Theaters back then even advertised it.

Having two theaters competing in town had its benefits and pitfalls. There were a few times we’d stand in line for tickets hoping we’d get in before the previews started when suddenly someone realized we were at the wrong theater. Luckily, they were only about a block and a half apart. Catherine remembers a time that she and her older sister Ann weren’t allowed to go to see a Disney movie at the Chief because their father was on the city council when the Chief’s owner had a lawsuit against the city, which owned the Sheldon.

We grew up in the age when the movie rating system started. It was G (general), M (mature), R (restricted), and X (adult). We hated those labels because they precluded us from viewing a lot of good movies. G was for little kids. M became PG (parental guidance) which to us meant Pretty Good. 

Some of the Disney movies I remember seeing include Mary Poppins, The Castaways, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Parent Trap, Old Yeller and Savage Sam.

Other movies I remember seeing over the years were How The West Was Won, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Bullit, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Dirty Dozen and The Birds. There were many more.

Now I can watch those old movies at home. The acting is still terrible, the soundtrack is still lame and the scenery is still obviously fake.

But it’s just not the same as seeing them at a theater downtown.