Once Upon Some Wartime Shows ...

Twenty Years Later When The Texas Theatre Made History For an 11/22/63
Arrest Made Outside Its Doors

When Service Folk Were VIP's At The Boxoffice

Here then, is another 4th, and again there is Yankee Doodle Dandy on Greenbriar's marquee, only this time do note policy of Dallas' Texas Theatre, where service personnel got in for prices under (nights) or just over (matinees) half of regular adult admission. I Love A Man In Uniform was a song on lips of showmen everywhere through the war. Service to country translated to red carpet laid at both hardtops and, as shown below, the Buffalo Drive-In (Cheektowaga, NY), where members of the armed forces were admitted free. This was mid-April week of 1945, V-E Day just around a corner (May 8), and play-off of two from 20th Fox that were heavy on war themes, and morale boost via Betty Grable. Fresh spring nights those must have been, with aroma of coming victory in the air ...

The Texas was getting Yankee Doodle Dandy right behind roadshow engagements where pricing was kite-high by comparison with change it generally took to get into movies. To sell tickets for an attraction like this for under a dollar was news outlying patrons had waited for, Dallas getting YDD seventeen weeks into the New York opening engagement where ducats topped at $2.20. Warner Bros. had three hits spun off the war that were truly monumental: Sergeant York for a start, having arrived ahead of the declaration, but playing to packed housing well past Pearl, Yankee Doodle Dandy a, no the, must-see musical celebration of home and flag, then This Is The Army, forgotten and amounting to less when seen today, but one that stretched lines back blocks. Add runners-up Casablanca plus all the combat money-spinners to know this was truly Warners' war.