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El Rey
by Ed Mauget
I lived in the Minnehaha district in Spokane near the east city
limits, south of Esmeralda, north of the river. My bus was the
Minnehaha-Lincoln Park route, named after parks at either end of its
run. Unlike other bus routes that traveled Riverside, its route ran
straight through the middle of the Main Avenue skid row, so I became
familiar with the seamy side of downtown. Most busses used Riverside
Avenue, one block south. There, the good section of downtown
extended a few more blocks east than that of Main Avenue, which
really didn't improve until Howard St. and points west. Mr. Beecher
called this the historic side of downtown, but it was nasty.
Situated in the middle of skid row was the tiny El Rey Theater that
continually advertised a triple feature. The films were always old
B-movies. I wondered what it was like inside. By the time of my
sophomore year, Jimmy Wellwood and I found ourselves standing at the
El Rey ticket booth, purchasing a couple of seats to watch the
Crimson Pirate, plus two forgettable movies, a cartoon, and the
news.
The women selling tickets was a crusty matron that I could imagine
slinging beers in a roadhouse. The El Rey theater was as tiny inside
as it was outside. I remember that my shoes stuck to the floor.
Everything was sticky. There was no carpet like that in the other
Spokane theaters. The seats were not padded. They were simple formed
wood like the seats in the second balcony of the State Theater. This
didn't keep the other guests from snoring loudly. Yes, the El Rey
was also a kind of hotel.
The Crimson Pirate was a 1952-vintage Burt Lancaster movie, that we
were watching in 1957. The movie wasn't half bad. The two companion
movies were forgettable, so I forgot them. I have seen the Crimson
Pirate lately on TV. It's a good daredevil, action, adventure filmed
in the Mediterranean. Burt's good in it too. No Elmer Gantry stuff.
He wore striped capris that would be stylish on a teenaged girl
today..
There was the usual cartoon in the hiatus between movies. In it a
shark leapt from the water and did a Tarzan yell, complete with
vibrating uvula. I guess boys like Jimmy Wellwood and I really liked
such things, because we sat through TWO MORE complete showings of
all three movies, just to see the Tarzan yell. Even then, I thought
we were being a little obsessive, but we HAD to see that Tarzan yell
again. Meanwhile the other people kept snoring in the theater.
When Jimmy and I finally left the theater, things were a bit dicey.
The sun was below the horizon. Rats! Caught after dark on skid row!
Happily, a Minnehaha bus appeared on the dimming Main Avenue
horizon. We boarded that sucker and slinked home. My mom went to her
grave never knowing I was anywhere that Saturday except Jimmy
Wellwood's house.
I've recently seen that cartoon with the broaching shark doing the
Tarzan yell. I cannot fathom what I saw in it or why I would sit
through two lousy movies and one not-bad movie, THREE TIMES, just to
see its four seconds of action. I must admit, though, that it and
The Crimson Pirate outlived the El Rey Theater Flop House.
See you next month.
-Ed Mauget |
