It’s December 1963, and Mr. Hyde has a pretty young girl by the clutches in front of the Main Street Cinema. LOVE the feathered hat!
The movie on the A-Frame behind the festive young lass is “Her Awakening,” a 1914 silent movie starring Wallace Reid (below) and Blanche Sweet.
Reid was a handsome matinee idol whose career was cut short by an addiction to morphine, caused by an injury he sustained from a train wreck in 1919. In order to keep him working, the morphine was prescribed by the studio to numb his pain. He died in a sanitarium at age 31 in 1923, attempting to beat his addiction.
See more Disneyland Main Street, U.S.A. Cinema photos at my main website.
2 comments:
Once again, another amazing piece of background trivia I've never heard of before. It's just occurred to me that the Phantom of the Opera is probably the only character to have appeared in both Disney and universal theme parks, greeting guests at the entry. I can't imagine too many other characters that have greeted guests at both parks.
My memory is that the Main Street Cinema would show single reels from features -- usually the first -- and short subjects (one or two reels) in their entirety. Otherwise budding film nerds (like me) would be in there all day. I recall the opening of "Hunchback of Notre Dame", a chunk of the silent "Kismet" involving an Arabian Nights vamp, and some kind of melodrama that cut off with a gentleman shooting somebody in an office and looking unwell as a woman has hysertics.
Shorts included "Dizzy Heights and Daring Hearts", a Keystone comedy involving biplanes (which I later tracked down in 8mm), a broad parody of "The Covered Wagon" that I think starred Will Rogers (the settlers are besieged by Los Angeles real estate salesmen), and an odd short comedy about a man who fakes his death by drowning, is reduced to driving a hansom cab, and learns his wife inherited a fortune. He contrives to emerge from the sea as his grieving wife is present, pretending to be dazed, and is welcomed home.
On last visit a few years ago they were showing early Mickey cartoons. All were in B&W, including "Mickey's Polo Game" which was originally released in color.
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