Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

My all time favorite foreign film – by far – is “Cinema Paradiso” (Paradise Theater), a 1988 Italian film that was the winner of more than 19 awards, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1989 and Special Jury Prize at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.

If you are a movies lover, you absolutely MUST not only see this film, but buy it to add to your collection, however small or large, to watch over and over whenever you are in that certain  mood when no other film will suffice.

Anyone who has ever been to movies as a child and been charmed by the magic upon the screen will fall in love with this charming, nostalgic tale, chronicling one child’s journey into adulthood as a passionate lover of films.

What does this movie have to do with our Andrews’ memories tour to Cotter, Arkansas last fall?  This movie could chronicle Tom’s childhood there from the time he was 2 until he was 10 (1946 to 1954) when he, too, became a passionate lover of film at The Paradise Theater, which his dad owned.

The theater was built and opened in 1931.  Take a close look, because it’s hard to recognize today:

The theater is still there today, but not in quite the form it was then.  In fact, when Tom went to Cotter for a few hours about 10 years ago while on a business trip nearby, he could not find the “big” theater he remembered from his childhood anywhere.  Until he stood down the street on the corner and looked back to see there were two small doors in the front of a small building in the middle of the block.

Here it is now:

The ticket booth in the center is long gone, as well as the upper small windows (see it brand new, above).  The owner of the hardware store to the right in the photo owns the Paradise Theater and wants to restore it.  (It looks like a monumental task to me, and one I highly doubt shall ever be done, sadly.)  He showed us all the information he had on it and let everyone peek in from the front and back.  It is too fallen into decay and disrepair to be able to enter safely.

Here’s the historical marker on the front:

I have a photo of Tom standing next to it, but the look on his face is too sad to share.

Here’s a view from the back.  Notice the square hole in the middle of the photo that goes down to the basement.  See it?

The side wall of the theater was to the right above, and the screen just to the left in the photo, running from the top of the photo to the bottom (the theater was “sideways”  from the front of the building).  When Tom was six years old, he was in the theater with his little friends and told them he could disappear around the right side of the screen and “magically” come out the other side (which sounds impressive when you’re six years old).

He disappeared all right.  He went running lickety-split around the back of the screen and promptly fell through the open trap door to the basement, splitting open his chin on a nail and knocking him out cold.

When he came to, the movie was running and he staggered up and out, blood streaming down his shirt from his chin, crying loudly as he stumbled up the aisle.  He could have been a creature from a sci-fi/horror movie of those days.  (Another great film that those of you growing up in the 50s and 60s during the cold war/early sci-fi films must see is John Goodman’s 1993 “Matinee.”  It is hilarious, taking place in south Florida during the Cuban missile crisis when Goodman – a film promoter – comes to town to wire all of the seats in the local movie theater for a sci-fi film “Mant” – a radiation induced part man/part ant.   Rent it today!)

His mom had to take him over to Gassville to the hospital (remember those two posts here & here) to have several stitches in his chin.  To this day, he has a scar and a bit of a crooked chin (which just makes him that more endearing).

This will be it for today.  To get the full experience of Tom’s growing up in The Paradise Theater beyond what I’ve written here, rent the two movies I suggest above.  You’ll be glad you did.

Next time, we’ll further tour Cotter, seeing the houses the boys lived in there, along with the “scary’ Methodist church up on a corner near one of their homes.  Stay tuned.

To be continued . . .

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