Dear Editor;

WHAT ?? !! Tear down the State Theater, NO, I say NO !! How could you ? I stole my first kiss
in the back row of the State Theater from Joan Cardarelli….or was it Janet (Cox) Ellis ??
No more State Theater? How could you ??

For all of us who grew up in Milford and Hopedale between 1920 and 19?? The State Theater has
been a major part of our lives. My first awareness of the State Theater was on a summer night in 1945.
I was seven years old, my sister eight. With our parents and hundreds of others, we had come to cheer and celebrate the end of World War II. It was V-J Day and New Years Eve all in one. I remember the great noise of car horns, church bells and crowds cheering; of dancing and parading in the streets; of chaotic exuberance. Why we were there in front of the State Theater, I do not know. Perhaps we were there because that was the source of much news about the war through the movie newsreels. Whatever the reason, maybe good parking, we were at the State Theater. You can’t teat down this historic site!

My mother, Hilma (Collier) Goff, along with her childhood friend, Miriam Graham, threw flower petals down the aisles at the grand opening event, presided over by the Grand Dame of the time, Queena Draper, circa 1922. As a teenager, my dad, Mady Goff, in 1926 was the assistant in the projection booth, having been “certified” as a projectionist helper from some important government agency in Boston. His job was to switch the projectors at the end of each reel of film. Dad liked to
tell of the times that he mounted the first reel of the second feature onto the projector and dutifully made the fast switch at the end of reel one of a three reel first feature movie. Ben Lanccizzi, playing the piano in the pit, frantically signaled the projection booth with his “panic button” buzzer. However, it was not until the “manager” stormed into the projection booth, that the16 year old assistant, Mady Goff, and the senior projectionist realized that Tom Mix had galloped onto the silver screen, right in the middle of a Charlie Chaplin feature.

Tear down the State Theater?? NO WAY….

That was where we spent our Saturday afternoons and sometimes into the evening. For the $.12 price of admission, one could sit through a double feature TWICE, including the Movie Tone News, previews, at least two cartoons, AND the “serial”, usually Superman, Hopalong Cassidy, or the Lone Ranger. How could the Lone Ranger ride his horse Silver right up to the edge of the cliff at the end of the show, and next week pull up just short of the precipice? That always guaranteed a return trip to the State Theater the following Saturday. No instant relay then. Close the State Theater….REALLY.

And how about those talent shows? I guess it was in the late ‘40’s or early ‘50’s when we would go to the talent shows at the State Theater to see Miss Mackey’s dance troop perform. Ron Lapworth, Bill Thayer and I would go just to see if any of the girls would mess up or pop out of those tight dance costumes during the strenuous routines. My classmate Maureen Sullivan had to dance a few of those grand events, doing the basic ballet stuff. But it was Shirley Diana who always astounded us with her amazing tumbling and acrobatic moves. How anyone could (or would want to) put their feet behind their head or bend over backwards and walk like a crab with head and hands on the floor, was, and remains today, a great curiosity. And then there were the aspiring twelve year old comedians, the impressionists and the improves. Johnnie Rice did a great impression of John L C Savoni. Eat your heart out APOLLO, the State Theater was right there also. CLOSE the State Theater?? NEVER !!

Why that was where Dick Bresciani, the big cheese with the Red Sox these days, got into the movies at the kids rate until he was a senior in high school. Because of his height and his audacity, Dick could bluff his way in for $.12 well into the high school years. Surely there is some historical significance in that…enough to save the State Theater as a local landmark??

Surely they are not going to tear down that emporium of technological entertainment where we first experienced 3-D cinema, the original virtual reality. What an exciting day, filled with wonder and apprehension as we traded our ticket in to the head usher for a pair of cardboard glasses filled with blue-green cellophane lenses. How silly everyone looked with the little square spectacles on, waiting for the theater lights to dim and the curtain to go up on the first 3-D movie, right there in Milford. No one knew what to expect. And then as the first 3-D movie got rolling, who will ever forget the shock and fear as that long hypodermic needle came right out of the movie screen at you? It was twenty years later when the Disney establishment recreated the wonder of the three dimensional movie at Epcot. And someone is going to tear down the State Theater??

Oh well, I guess that’s progress. I just hope that someone will keep a picture of the old State Theater on the wall somewhere, so that when I come back to visit that wonderful hometown of my youth, I might be taken once again on a sentimental journey to the days of my youth and the grand old State Theater.

Best wishes and fond memories to all the “old timers” in Milford and Hopedale.

Russell Goff HHS ‘56