A life in pictures

In the storied history of Ville Platte’s past, there were four theaters and a drive in within the city’s limits where residents could watch movies of cowboy heroes and heroes on the battlefield. These movies also provided an escape for people during times of struggle such as World War II.
Each of the city’s theaters had a common denominator in that they were all managed by Herbert “Blackie” Guillory.
Before coming to Ville Platte, Guillory was working in Oakdale for a theater owned by Southern Amusement Company which was the same company that owned the Bailey Theater in Ville Platte that was across the street from the present day Cafe Evangeline. He was then transferred here to the Bailey in the late 1930s and soon employed his sister-in-law Earleen Launey Boyce.
“I was the popcorn girl,” Boyce said. “I made popcorn. We’d sell it for a nickle a bag.”
Boyce worked at The Bailey for two-and-a-half years in the late 1940s until she graduated high school. “During the week, I would walk from Ville Platte High School and go to work at about 4:00 p.m.,” she said. “We’d stay busy.”
She continued, “On the weekends, I stood at that popcorn machine from the time I went to work on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. until about 9:00 that night.”
Boyce recalled this was during the war years when effects of the war were felt at home. “That was right during the war and right after,” she explained. “So, candy was rationed during the war. I can remember our candy display was very small. It was like mints and gum and stuff like that. The war years, I thought, were very interesting because people loved the theaters, and it was war movies.”
Guillory’s eldest daughter Pat Guillory Billeaudeaux explained, “When the movie wasn’t on, the news came on. That’s how people would see the news because there were no TVs. They’d go to the movies to watch the news, and it would tell the whole week’s news in a short run.”
Boyce added, “That’s where they’d get their news, and they’d show pictures of the war going on. When there was a good war movie on a Sunday, the line would stretch way onto the sidewalk. People were in line to get a ticket.”
Besides war movies, cowboy movies were also popular at The Bailey. “On Saturdays, they had double features,” said Billeaudeaux. “It was a Western with like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. Then, they had the serials that would continue from week to week. It was Nyoka The Jungle Girl, and sometimes they had The Three Stooges. On weekends, there were always a big crowd.”
The large weekend crowds were attributed to three different groups of people.
As Boyce said, “On Saturday nights, buses would come from the country. They’d pick up the people who were coming to the dance hall on Court Street. They’d come early in the afternoon and go to the picture show. Then, they’d walk over to the dance hall. It was really busy. They’d come to the movies, and they’d stay sometimes for two movies.”
Another group was children. “The kids would come on Saturdays,” Boyce said. “They would say they came earlier in the afternoon and asked if they could go back in. We’d say, ‘yea, go back in.’”
The other group to make weekends busy was soldiers. “The soldiers would come in on Saturday nights and come to the theater just to kill time and to get away from Camp Claiborne and all of that,” Boyce said.
One movie goer in particular still stands out to Boyce after all these years. “There was an old lady who would come, and she loved Gene Autry and Roy Rogers,” stated Boyce. “She would sit in the last seat in the back every Saturday afternoon. She was watching the movie, and, every now and then, I would hear her shout out in French ‘Watch out, Gene! They’re going to get you!’ My popcorn machine was right near the back, so I’d hear her warn Gene and tell him to be careful.”
Billeauxdeaux said about those busy times, “When I was born, dad was at The Bailey. I remember the crowds, and I remember going there and watching just about every movie that came through. Mother would go meet him, and I’d tag along with her and bother Earleen. I just loved it.”
Billeauxdeaux went on to explain one of the marketing tools her father employed while first managing The Bailey. “When he had a good movie playing he wanted to advertise, dad painted all his advertisements,” she said. “One time, he had Little Terry Fusilier dress up in a bug costume because there was some kind of bug show.”
Toward his latter years of managing The Bailey, Guillory also managed The Tate Theater that was purchased by Southern Amusement Company from Mr. Tate. “Sometimes, I switched to The Tate Theater,” said Boyce, “They’d run second runs. If a movie already played at The Bailey, they would just run it again at The Tate.”
In 1953, Guillory left The Bailey and The Tate and went manage The Platte Theater.
“I worked a little bit at The Platte,” Billeauxdeaux said, “and I enjoyed it. I worked behind the popcorn counter, and I helped usher which was lots of fun. I loved ushering.”
She continued, “There still were pretty much big crowds. At The Platte, I had to go around and keep some of the kids quiet because they’d cut up. They’d all sit in the front seats and were noisy. We’d have to keep them quiet for the older people.”
Guillory managed The Platte for two years before leaving to own The Jan Theater. Billeaudeaux worked for her father at The Jan while in high school. “I sold tickets,” she said. “Tickets were a quarter for adults and 15 cents for children. It went up to 50 cents for adults and a quarter for kids. That was easy, and I liked that.”
Also working for Guillory at The Jan was his youngest daughter Liz Guillory Bond. “I started doing popcorn like the rest of them, and I loved it behind the candy counter,” she commented. “That’s as far as I got before daddy died.”
She continued, “I grew up at The Jan, and I’d run upstairs. The projection room was up there, and daddy had an office up there.”
Working in the projection room was Guillory’s son Wayne. “My brother showed me a secret passage,” Bond remarked. “You’d go up the stairs, and he’d open this door on the opposite side of the projection room. He’d say, ‘Look, that’s a stairway into Miss Irene’s dress shop.’ There was a secret door. It was dark, and I didn’t want to go in there.”
According to Bond, the stairway may have been a fire escape from the projection room.
Bond also recalled going to the Jan Theater on Saturday mornings to help her dad make his own advertising signs, which he started doing while at The Bailey. She said, “He would go out into the country like around Vidrine and Mamou. He’d put up the advertisements for our area to know what was showing.”
Billeauxdeaux remembered one incident when her father put up signs that caused friction within the Guillory home. “One day, daddy brought home a dog because we wanted a dog,” she said. “Daddy found him and picked him up from somewhere in the country. It was this old mutt, and my mother had a fit. She said, ‘Blackie, you’re gonna get rid of this dog. I don’t want this dog around.’”
“Mother kept on him for about a couple of weeks,” continued Billeauxdeaux. “He said he would bring the dog and leave him there the next time he would go to Mamou to change a sign. He did, and we cried and cried when he came home. He went back the next Saturday, and that poor old dog was still sitting by the sign waiting for him. So, dad brought him back home. Mother was so upset, but we kept that good old dog.”
Before his passing in 1964, Guillory also owned The Lark Drive-In while still owning The Jan. “The only thing I remember about the drive-in is we’d go after church on Sunday to eat a hot dog and get a candy,” said Bond. “We didn’t hang around there too much like at the show. We grew up at The Jan. And, it ended abruptly for me when daddy died. We sold it, and now it’s gone. So, that’s why it’s important to me to keep these memories.”
For Bond’s sister Billeauxdeaux, keeping the memories of the theaters are important because “it’s not that way today.” She added, “Those were the good old days.”
To that point, Bond said, “Parents would drop their kids off and leave them. That was their entertainment for the whole day. They would leave them until the show closed at night.”
Boyce quipped, “We were the babysitters.”