Biographies: Ottis Paul, Venus Theater, 1977, Winn Parish, LA. Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: February 9, 1977 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American Neighbors By Tony Shelton He says TV did it. "TV got everybody except the younger people. As people got more TV sets, the business got worse." TV "did it" to the movies. For 28 years, Ottis Paul watched movies over and over as theater manager for Southern Amusement Co. Paul, of 1006 Center Street, managed the Venus Theater in Winnfield from 1956 to 1970 when it closed. "The ball games killed it, too," he said. "In summer there was Little League and football in the fall. "If the business was here, there'd be an indoor movie here now, but there's not," Paul said. From the Forties to the Seventies, movies and audiences changed. "Back in the Forties, the movies were perfectly clean. You didn't ever hear anything off-color. They almost had to cut 'Gone With The Wind' because Clark Gable said, 'I don't give a damn'." In the Forties audiences were large and enthusiastic. "During the war all you had to do was open the doors and get out of the way." Pictures like "The Longest Day" were big hits all through the Forties, Paul said. "People wanted to see them because they showed our side, the winning side." They came to see the stars, too-Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, James Cagney, Betty Grable, Roy Rogers. By the 1960s the only big box office star was Elvis, Paul said. On Saturdays the Venus ran a Western, a serial, and a cartoon, maybe Roadrunner or Bugs Bunny (Paul's favorite) for the kids. "We always ran a head-em-off-at-the-pass Western. The good guys really did wear white hats and the bad guys wore black hats." By the 1960s, there was a lot less of Bugs Bunny and Roy Rogers. Paul said he would usually examine a film for flaws, but didn't preview the movies before he showed them. "It got to where we didn't know what was going to come on the screen. When I started, it was a pleasure to stand in the lobby and have people come out and tell me they enjoyed the movie." "But later people would come out saying, 'Where'd you dig something up like that?'" Paul didn't "dig them up". He had to take the films booked by Southern Amusement. "Sometimes people would ask me to get good family-type shows. I'd go all out to get one for them and it would lose money. They wanted family shows all right, but more people showed up for the other types." Paul said movies began to include more sex, dirty language, and violence because that's what people seemed to want. "The reason they have the pictures they have today is that the public plunks money down for them. As long as they pay for it, that's what they're going to get." Paul decided to go out of the movie business in 1970. He didn't know Southern Amusement planned to close the Venus on his last night of work, September 24, 1970. "I kept it open for two weeks after I gave my notice. On my last night, they called and told me to pay off the help and close the movie down." After that, Paul went to work for Olinkraft. He will retire from his hot as a veneer grader at the end of this year. Then he'll have more time for trapping, squirrel hunting and his seven grandchildren. Paul and his wife Erlene have three children: Gerald, a realtor in Conway, Ark., Eddie, a business major at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond; and Mrs. Carolyn Bramlett, a teacher at Westside Elementary. Paul will also finish a 16 x 24 foot guest house he's building in his backyard. "I've always been handy with tools and I just wanted to build something," he said. But motion pictures won't be part of his retirement. "I just don't go to movies anymore."