The motion picture theater experience has become so ingrained in American lifestyle and culture over the past century that even the mention of buildings that once housed by-gone theaters evoke strong memories and emotions.
What is now a ballroom facility across from the Augusta National Golf Course is remembered by many Augustans as the place they saw their first movie or as the place they scored their first kiss. In fact, the building is so nondescript that one might be surprised to learn that, once upon a time, long lines of people would brave all kinds of weather and wait to purchase a ticket and gain entrance.
No, that place wasn’t a bar, it was the neighborhood movie theater.
Movies have wormed their way into the human psyche to the degree that humans tend to use them as a reference point for recording time itself. It may be hard for some to rationalize the fact that “The Goonies” is about to celebrate it’s 40th anniversary; it is hard to believe that 1985 was so long ago when, to many, it feels like it was yesterday.
Most people who lived in the 1970s would have to think about it for a second if asked what exact year the Vietnam War ended, and they would likely say something to the effect of: “Yes, I’m sure it was 1975. I know because it was the same year that ‘Jaws’ came out.”
Where did a lot of local kids and adults go to see the summer block bluster “Jaws” when it first premiered? The National Hills Theater, of course.
National Hills Theater has been shuttered for the better part of 30 years, but many Augustans have fond memories from childhood to early adulthood of going to that theater so often that it was part of their way of life, a time when movies framed different stages in life and new releases seemed to mark the various oncoming seasons as much as the changing color of leaves.
Many longtime Augustans remember National Hills Shopping Center as being the “Saturday hang out place;” and they remember spending many a sweltering summer Saturday cooling off in the lobby of the theater before enjoying an afternoon matinee…or three.
In fact, so many people have memories of the old National Hills Theater, that it has its own Facebook fan page with nearly 1,000 followers.
Early shopping centers, such as National Hills, were designed to be a destination point that was away from the urban core and purposefully built right smack in the middle of neighborhoods or within walking distance of bedroom clusters; in fact, throughout America, by the early 1960s, living near a shopping center became a middle-class status symbol and neighborhood developments seemed to materialize out from the local shopping center.
On Saturdays, the shopping center would attract the family in the station wagon along with the neighborhood kids on their Schwinns.
In Augusta at National Hills, the parents would drop off their Kodak film at the booth in the parking lot and hand over enough money to the kids to keep them occupied for a couple of hours. After parking the grocery-getter, the adults would head over to J.B. White’s or attended a hair appointment made the week prior, while the kids would fan out to the toy store and Homefolks News and Records.
The kids arriving in cars didn’t have any trouble locating their school chums; they only needed to look for the pile of dirt bikes haphazardly thrown on the ground next to the properly secured Schwinns on the sidewalk.
After a couple of hours, the purchases would be loaded into the car’s trunk and everyone would meet back up at the theater.
By the 1960s, movie theaters were no longer built for dual purpose live action performance as well as a screen for showing motion pictures; the stage had disappeared along with the carefully sculpted facades and the classical marble mezzanine flooring.
However, just because the flair and gilt of the vaudeville look or “theater palace” design was no longer in vogue, theater decor such as National Hills’ still projected the expectation of being transported to some exotic locale or place of fantasy. National Hills sported a long koi pond on its outdoor walkway into the theater.
Inside the theater, the audience would be somewhat stratified. Mostly, families sat together, but there was always a huge cluster of tweens taking up the front rows and teenagers, seeking a bit of privacy in public, sitting at the back under the little beam of light that exploded into color on the big screen.
According to Cinema Treasures, National Hills Theater opened in 1966 and former usher and later manager Mike Rogers says that National Hills main theater projection system supported 70mm film and once had the largest indoor screen in Augusta.
“That theater was a special place. You know a lot of us that were friends back then still get together and some memory of the theater almost always comes up,” Rogers says.
By the 1980s, shopping habits had shifted towards the malls and movie theaters only gamely followed in tow.
Instead of the overall package that included the excitement of standing in line to buy tickets to the latest film to come out of Hollywood while looking at the posters of upcoming attractions, entering into a vast lobby that offered up real soda-fountain Coke, extra large candy bars and super-buttery popcorn while promising a world of escapism behind the large double doors, theater owners moved to add more screens.
Like other theaters, National Hills had to follow the trend by making the once one-screen-only theater into a multi-plex with three screens. Rogers says that he always felt that adding more screens was a mistake.
“It took away from the overall experience, you know, instead of everyone getting seats together and watching the same movie, everyone just goes in different directions to see a different movie. It’s just different than it was in those days,” Rogers said.
Local radio talk host Austin Rhodes is not just a fan of the old days of binging inside the theater and lolling away an entire afternoon in the dark, with friends, all staring and reacting in unison as opposed to binging between Netflix and Hulu on a smart phone; Rhodes collects movie memorabilia and has one of the original sets of doors going into the old theater.
Rhodes recalls that the first movie experience he had at National Hills was the first-run viewing of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” in 1968, but he says it was the horror movies that really drew him in week after week.
“My most vivid childhood experience at the National Hills Theater came in 1971, when I was six years old. It was “House of Dark Shadows” and it scared the living hell out of me and I loved every minute of it!” Rhodes said.
Rhodes says that he was in the audience in 1996 when the theater played its final showing, “Cutthroat Island.”
Wow, has Geena Davis’ career really been dead that long?
…And that is something you may not have known.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
