For the citizens of Napa during WW II, as with the citizens of the rest of the country, one of the most popular outlets from the stresses of war-time living was going to the movies.

With the beginning of WW II, Hollywood geared up for war. The studios started making movie shorts having to do with civil defense, the newsreels that were always a part of the movie theater’s program dwelt heavily on the fighting on the various fronts and the support at home. Most importantly, the movie studios started cranking out movies about the battles being fought on the land and on the sea.

Virtually all of the popular movie stars of the day, male and female, became personally involved in the war effort. Stars such as Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Jimmy Stewart and many others actually joined the service and went on to play important roles in combat and combat support. John Wayne, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, and many others made movies about combat and life on the home front.

The starlets of the day spent time at Hollywood’s Stage Door Canteen or participated in War Bond drives. Hollywood’s efforts played a great part in bringing the war that was being fought on so many fronts to the home front.

During the war, Napa had two movie houses, giving locals a choice. They were the Uptown Theater and the Fox Theater. The two were only two blocks apart in what was then a very small downtown area of the city.

Unlike today’s movie houses, both the Uptown and the Fox had only one screen. (At some point in its existence, probably in the 1970s, the Uptown was converted to a multi-screen theater and operated as such until it was finally closed, sometime in the 1980s.)

The Uptown, which was opened in the late 1930s, was the newer of the two. It ran the late-release, first-run movies, so it was the most popular of the two. It was, and still is, located at the corner of Third and Franklin Streets where it is now “dark” and sits quietly undergoing restoration.

The Fox was at the corner of First and Franklin, the site of the current McCaulou’s Department store. While it usually ran older, although sometimes “classic” movies, it was still popular as a retreat, if nothing else.

The Fox (probably) opened in the early 1920s and, in its heyday, was a beautiful theater.

The Uptown had one floor with the rear half of the seats on a steeper slope and the front half on a gentle slope. The Uptown also had a section of loge seating in its upper area (and charged more for those seats).

The Fox actually had two floors, a large downstairs seating area and a large balcony. Smoking was allowed in the upper area of the Uptown and in the balcony of the Fox, so that is where most of the theater-goers sat.

As I remember, the costs of attending a movie were in the neighborhood of 10 cents for children, 25 cents for students and 35 cents for adults (perhaps 45 cents for loges at the Uptown). That may sound cheap today, but in those post-Depression days, it was actually not cheap. Candy bars were five cents, popcorn was about the same.

The two movie houses had movies every night and, for those workers who worked swing and graveyard shifts in support of the war effort, the Uptown had matinees. The same movies would run for three or four days and then new ones would arrive.

When you went to the movies in those days, you expected a full agenda of entertainment. That usually included a double-feature (two full-length movies), a newsreel and a cartoon. Sometimes they even threw in what they called “selected shorts,” which were usually 10-minute situation comedies or some sort of informational piece.

Often, a piano player would play before the start of the first movie and during intermissions. I remember that a gentleman by the name of Brown, who was a local piano teacher, frequently was the piano player of choice.

Ushers in uniforms with flashlights were ever-present and “patrolled” the theater, telling kids to be quiet and guys to take their feet off the seat backs in front of them, moving those who were sitting in the loges without the proper ticket and seeing that no one smoked downstairs. They would, with the aid of their flashlights, also show those arriving during the movies to empty seats.

Sometimes, between the two features, the house lights would come on and theater employees would go into the audience selling war stamps or war bonds to help the war effort.

Life in those days was simple — but orderly.

(“Napa As It Was” appears every other Monday, alternating in this space with Betty Rhodes’ ‘Senior Corner.’”)