Monday Main Street Marquee Medley

In the first few decades of Disneyland, the Main Street Marquee was changed as much as (if not more than) the Main Street Train Station population numbers. Before the Park opened, the marquee simply said, “Moving Pictures.” By Summer 1955, it heralded a Wm. S. Hart Western and the Keystone Kops:



Actress Gloria Swanson’s name on the left let guests know there was more than just one movie playing inside:



and Mabel Normand on the right:



1956, Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Banky:



The A-Frame at left shows an ad for “The Eagle,” which starred Banky and Valentino.



1957/58, with Mable (sp!) Normand and Fatty Arbuckle. On the right it advertises “The Heart of a Waif,” a 1915 silent film with Edith Peters and John Sturgeon.



From the same time period, Clare Booth’s name is on the left side of the marquee:



June 1958, we can just barely see Ronald Coleman in “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” a 1925 Ernst Lubitsch comedy/drama:



You can watch it here:



December 1959, D.W. Griffith’s “A Girl and her Trust” from 1912:



September 1960 had Lon Chaney in “Phantom of the Opera,” just in time for Halloween:



July 1961 had comedian Buster Keaton in “Allez Oop,” which was actually a talking picture from 1934:



October 1962 has “The Pride of Pikesville” (1927), starring Ben Turpin:



May 31, 1963 it’s back to Lon in “Phantom”:



From May 1964 you can just barely see that the Cinema is still showing a Lon Chaney thriller, “Phantom of the Opera” and a Will Rogers Western:



September 1964 proclaims “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” from MGM, which was not a silent film, but rather from 1941 with Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, and Ingrid Bergman. The silent version from 1920 was released by Paramount and starred John Barrymore. Could be a marquee screwup. Another possibility is that back in the day, Blackhawk Films released 8mm and Super8mm BW silent versions of both silent AND talkie films; if they were the source company for prints for Disneyland this could account for why some of these “talkies” were being marketed as silent films.



March 1965, “Pathways of Life” with Lillian Gish, from 1916:



September 1965, “The Great Train Robbery” from 1903:



June 26, 1966, “Phantom of the Opera”:



1968, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” with no credit to Louis B. Mayer!



February 1971, “The Great Train Robbery” returns:



May 1974, “The Rounders,” a 1914 comedy with Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin:





And then my collection goes dark until February 2006, when I captured “Steamboat Willie” on the marquee with “Traffic Trouble” on the right. The film’s actual title was “Traffic Troubles.” Somebody was too lazy to add the “s” on the end to this 1931 sound short. The worst part of this photo is that bleeping stroller blocking the entrance to the theater.



July 2006 we see “Mickey’s Polo Team” on the right. Not only was this movie originally a sound cartoon, it was also shot in Technicolor. By this time, the “movies” were being shown on TV screens and typically featured black and white versions of Mickey Mouse cartoons that were not necessarily silent.



No changes in my collection from 2006 to March 2010:



In August 2010, the cinema was featuring “Opening Day at Disneyland,” with footage from July 17, 1955:



By October though, “Steamboat Willie” was back:



The last marquee shot I took was in June 2013:



I hope you enjoyed this chronological documentation of the diverse offerings that once made the Main Street Cinema a very lively place to visit!

See more Disneyland Main Street Cinema photos at my main website.

Debbie Gives The Bird!

July 17, 1955, Walt Disney is standing on Main Street, U.S.A., proud as punch that his Park has finally opened and is going gangbusters! Here he takes a moment to chat with Debbie Reynolds. I’m sure Debbie is silently flashing the bird to her husband at the time, crooner Eddie Fisher, while she enjoys a cold bottle of Coca-Cola.

;ooking even closer (beyond the bird), you can actually read her Opening Day ticket!

Here a Keystone Kop stands guard next to the Tobacco store wooden Indian, located next to the Main Street Cinema.

Get a load of that City Police Badge that the Keystone Kop is wearing. I wonder if they were just for show or if the Kops actually handled any altercations at the Park?

Appropriately, playing at the Main Street Cinema is a Keystone Kops comedy, “The Noise Bombs,” 1914, starring Charlie Murray and Edgar Kennedy.

See more vintage Disneyland Opening Day photos at my main website.

Vintage Disneyland: The Harry Pollack Collection Pt. 3

Just one image today from Harry Pollack's collection and it features a (gasp!) typo on the Main Street Cinema marquee. Mabel Normand is the recipient of the error. Wouldn't you like to see the photos that the lady on the right is shooting?



More vintage Disneyland at my main website.

1950's Disneyland Gems, Pt. 3

Traveling down Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland we come to the Silent Screen Cinema, with headliners Mabel Normand and Fatty Arbuckle.



The two featured shorts are "The Speed Kings," a 1913 Mack Sennett comedy starring Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand:



and "The Great Train Robbery," the 1903 Edwin S. Porter ten minute short that is considered a milestone in filmmaking for its cross cutting, composite editing, hand tinting, and location shooting.



Today, memories of Normand and Arbuckle are tainted by the scandals that they were involved in. Normand had an addiction to drugs and was also a suspect (later cleared) in the still unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor. Arbuckle was accused of raping a young girl in a San Francisco hotel. Although he was cleared of all charges, his career never recovered from the headlines.

A little further down Main Street, we see a White Wing sweeping up the horse poop. Not an enviable job, but somebody's got to do it.



Zooming in for a closer look at East Center Street, with the Gibson Greeting Card Shop on the corner.



Yesterday, I received this sad email from Daveland reader Peter B.:

Last night I was informed that Disneyland removed the large tree that has been sitting on the Plaza Pavilion/Coke Corner for must be 50 plus years.

You can see the tree in this December 1968 image:



And how it looked recently, providing lots of shade to this little area of the park:



Last bit for today is on yesterday's news of the passing of comedienne Joan Rivers.



I discovered her back in the 80's when my dad took me to see her at the Valley Forge Music Fair. I thought she was one of the funniest people I had ever seen. She was brutal to a number of celebrities (Elizabeth Taylor, the Royal Family,…) but most of all, her humor poked fun at herself. Her timing and delivery were impeccable. I wore out my vinyl version of “What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most” until I could practically recite the whole album myself. She rarely (if ever) apologized for her somewhat offensive jokes which touched on such subjects as weight, religion, and the Holocaust. As she stated herself, "I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done ... You can tune me out, you can click me off, it's OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness. But you do have to learn, if you want to be a satirist, you can't be part of the party."

Whether you liked her or not, you could never say the woman was lazy. Even at the age of 81, she worked endlessly, rarely turning down a gig no matter where it was. RIP, Joan. You were a true trailblazer.

See more Daveland Disneyland Main Street, U.S.A. photos at my main website.

A Different Sort of Daisy at Disneyland, April 1956

When it comes to Disney and Daisy, normally the duck with a "hair" bow and lashes comes to mind. However, in this April 1956 photo, the Daisy in question is "Dealing for Daisy," a 1915 William S. Hart western.



Mabel Normand, a famous silent screen comedienne, is also listed on the marquee. Normand was almost as famous for the numerous scandals she found herself involved in as the Keystone Kop comedies in which she starred.



In a previously posted shot, you can see this A-Frame that was positioned in front of the theater, touting the William S. Hart film.



As a consolation for those who had expectations of seeing a different kind of Daisy, here's Daisy Duck herself:



See more vintage & current Disneyland Main Street Cinema photos on my Main Street Cinema web page.

Disneyland October 1955, Pt. 2

As we leave the impossible world of Fantasyland (Merlin's Magic Shop in the background), we exit into the land of Tomorrow:



It is an unintentional irony that the word "WASTE" is visible in the foreground; today, a shot like this might not be so unintentional. Our photographer strolled down Main Street next.



Silent Screen Star Mabel Normand is featured at the Main Street Cinema:



See more Disneyland photos at my website.