Afternoons At The Parma

Inside it was a magic grotto, an oasis of otherness.

————

I went every Saturday afternoon no matter what was showing. I didn’t have to walk any further than the end of my street. Saturday matinees included cartoon, newsreel, and two full-length feature films - all at the cost of pocket change.

Cheapness was one reason I went to the Parma Theater every Saturday afternoon of my high school years.

The other reason was the otherworldliness of the world inside: soothing darkness, air conditioning, plush seats, the neon glow of art deco lamps, and cool jazz music blowing sophisticated ambiance until the big purple curtain went up.

It was nothing special outside,

Inside it was a magic grotto, an oasis of otherness surrounded by the dreary sameness of Parma, Ohio.

Parma, Ohio was typical of the ubiquitous post-war suburbs created after WWII: small nearly identical houses, treeless streets. The natural world wasn’t completely forbidden but it was frowned on. Color was restricted to tiny green lawns decorated with plastic pink flamingos. It was a desert made sufferable only by my weekly getaway to the oasis.

The Parma Theater was worth the ticket even without the movies.

The movies were a bonus.

Some movies were good, some movies were bad, most were indifferent. It didn’t matter all that much. The place was as important as the presentation.

One movie stands out in my mind. It was an Australian film called: Walkabout. The film was strange, exotically mysterious, not at all like the other films I’d seen. I didn’t understand what I was watching. I was captivated, nonetheless.

I saw the same film forty years later. It got better and even more interesting. It’s amazing how much a film can improve in forty years. I’ve had the same experience with many books. Apparently the simple passage of time brings out the best in certain works of art.

The Spenser Tracy film: Bad day at Black Rock also got better forty years on. Now it made sense. Some films didn’t get better. Some are worth remembering, anyway, because of the effect they had on the times. The Creature from the Black Lagoon was one of those. It was one of the first and few 3-D movies.

I remember clearly the novel experience of the Creature swimming right at me, pushing nasty flotsam from the Lagoon over my head. I think I ducked.

Green Mansions, starring Audry Hepburn was another treat I recall from a different afternoon at the Parma. That film left me with a vision of Rima that stayed with me - even when I finally got around to reading H. D. Hudson’s original novel.

The novel was better than the movie, but I doubt there will ever be a more enchanting Rima than Audry Hepburn’s.

I recall many memorable films from those Saturday afternoons: Shane; The Searchers; High Noon; Tea House of the August Moon; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Rear Window; Rebel Without a Cause; On the Waterfront; The Ten Commandments; and so many more.

I doubt I would have purposefully selected any of those films. The diversity of the movies I ended up seeing came about entirely because I watched without judgement whatever was showing on any given Saturday afternoon at the Parma Theater. Fortunately, that randomness supplied better films to me than my teenage tastes could ever have managed.

I didn’t have many friends in high school, except in the movies. The films told me things no one else did. I never seemed to belong in Parma. I missed my childhood years in Missouri. The Parma Theater didn’t take me back to Missouri, but it did take me out-of-town for a few hours every Saturday afternoon. I was grateful.

The era was short; over in three years.

Three years as memorable as a decade.

The Parma Theater I remember burned down years ago. I hadn’t thought about it until

I was reminded of it by a musical email sent to me by my friend, Tom Simon.

Tom had recently discovered the music of Rosa Passos. Rosa is pianist, guitarist and singer. Her orchestra features Brazilian rhythms, jazzy horns, and, the cool smoothness of a Latin nightclub. Tom asked what I thought of her work.

I said, ”Crisp, pleasant and relaxing”.

I might also have told him that Rosa Passos’ music reminded me of the Parma Theater.

Rosa’s music wasn’t the same as the, waiting-for-the show-to-start, music at the Parma Theater, but similar enough to make me remember it. Something in the sound of Rosa’s music clicked the memory. Not quite Daja vu, but related. Novel sensory flashes regularly trigger flickers of past events. There is no rational reason why they should.

There may be a poetic reason.

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com