TALES FROM OLD ASINGAN

Part One

One of the war movies shown in the  old Asingan Theatre. Westerns, costume movies with swordfights and cliffhangers ( serials ) usually would attracted a big crowd of local patrons.

In the '50s, Asingan was the only municipality without any movie house. Until that day when Asingan Theatre came to town.

It all started when the owners of Ely Theatre in Binalonan ( I am sure this moviehouse does not exist anymore ) came and asked my parents if they could rent the unused rice mill building behind our house for the duration of the coming Town Fiesta which would take place in a few days. My dad ( who was easy to negotiate with ) immediately said yes. "Yessss!" I said. Then I do not have to go to Dagupan anymore to see a movie. And I do not even have to pay for a ticket.

The agreement was only for only a week or two, but later it was extended for almost 4 years. Other theatre owners took over. One from Urdaneta and another from Rosales.

The building, originally a rice mill was constructed with galvanized aluminum sheets nailed on strong wood beams.. the four sides were also covered with aluminum sheets. For a few days, the inside was cleared of unnecssary debris until an area was cleared to accomodate a good crowd of movie goers.

The day came when a big truck unloaded a few equipments in our backyard: two 35 mm movie projectors, a big portable generator to provide electricity, wirings, amplifiers, one main boxed speaker for the inside ( near the screen ), a horn speaker for the outside so people would hear the soundtrack of the movie being played. The horn speaker was placed in a tree beside our house. This horn speaker has a very long wire connected to a powerful amp inside the projection booth. Every night, just before the showing of a movie, one of the hired hands named Celino would climb up the theatre roof. A relative of the manager would talk about the movie being played, four times, once in each direction. One way of advertising the joint.

The other way is to hire a carromata. 3 movie posters would be strapped to the sides of the rig. The carromata would go around the town,sometimes with a person inside again talking about the movie( he could have been a good politician because he talked well ) telling how nice the movie was..The main pitch is that the movie "is full of action, fist fights, sword play, shooting, etc". A  battery operated amplifier and a microphone is used. If the  amp was not available,  they used a bass drum to attract the kids to come watch carromata go by..

Townspeople just loved to watch action movies. Drama? They do not give a hoot.Not unless it is a Tagalog movie. You see most of the patrons were kids. Many adults ( especially the rich people in Poblacion ) did not like to patronize the theatre. It was too hot inside. It was also smelly. There was only one toilet. Women or girls who wanted to urinate prefer to go outside and do it behind a bush somewhere in the premises. It was night time anyway.There was no toilet bowl at first. Just an old fashioned hole in the ground. Just squat over the hole and let it rip. After a few months, when a new management took over, a toilet bowl was placed over the hole.

Pity the patron who got a seat near the toilet. Well, I guess his nosetrils would get used to it after a while. And he has to look up at the image since he/she was already close to the screen.

When the movie was good, it was well attended. Never mind the smell and the sauna atmosphere. There are two big blowers in front, but it was just to circulate the air. If the air was warm and stinky, well that was that. The huge fans could not make the air smell any better.

But some loyal fans would always come back. It was the 50s, and folks from the barrios who had no home entertainment loved to come and watch a movie. They do not have to pay a fare coming from and going back to their homes. They would come in groups. Sometimes they come early an hour early to get good seats. At 5:00 pm, there are already people in our backyard, milling about waiting for the box office to open.

Our dog would sometimes bark at the people and I would tell him to shut up. I did not make his job of guarding the house any easier. Barking was his job. So after a while, he just lie down and watch the people come and go. But after I left his side, he would start barking at the people once again.. But after supper, every night, seven nights  a week, I would go down and watch whatever was being played. I seldom studied my lessons anymore.

At that time, I did not understand much of the dialogue yet. One reason is that the sound sometimes get so bad. And I was still in the elementary school. Sometimes it rained and you heard nothing but raindrops falling on the galvanized iron roof. And when the film broke and the movie was interrupted, the patrons would scream bloody hell. They shouted BULOK! Closest English translation is garbage.

So in this place, I developed my love for movies. I learned the titles, stars, plots as well as the releasing studios.

I remember that the first movie shown was THE MASKED CAVALIER a costume action picture based on a poem. by Alfred Noyes, THE HIGHWAYMAN. It starred Wanda Hendrix and Richard Greene. It was in Cinecolor where the hues are predominatly green.At daytime, everything is green. Night scenes, the colors are still green.. The rousing music in the opening title credits was a composition by Mozart ( I learned this trivia years later when I was already into serious music ) . I saw the movie several times, even if I already knew what it was all about. That the hero would be shot by British guards just the same during the climax even if he was warned by a gunshot inside the tavern where he was about to visit. The shot came from a rifle which was positioned under the heroine's breast. The heroine was tied to a post with a gag in her mouth. But her hands were able to reach the rifle's trigger. She died instantly, then the hero got away, but the next day, he was gunned down by a group of riflemen waiting at his usual route. He heard about the death of the heroine, his lover and he went beserk and wanted to tkill some of the those responsible for her death.

Well the climax of the movie showed both of them: meeting each other just like in the beginning of the movie. Only this time, they were ghosts. They met again in the tavern. Very happy and sad. Neatly done with the technique of camera double exposure.

And before the theatre closed down after 4 years, I would have seen hundreds of classic US and Filipino movies and up to now, I could still remember most of the titles and its stars.---#