Memories of Movies, and Growing Up in Hammond
For generations of area residents, the Columbia Theatre was more than a movie theater. It was a place where people went on dates, families went to the movies, children spent Saturday afternoons, and memories were made that lasted long after the lights came back on. In the 1960s through the 1970s for me, the Columbia Theatre is also connected to some of my earliest memories of going to the movies.
One of the first movies I remember seeing there was The Blob, the 1958 science-fiction horror movie starring a young Steve McQueen. I don’t remember exactly what year I saw it, but it would have been a rerun shown during the Saturday matinees.
And for a kid, The Blob was the perfect movie to turn a Saturday at the theater into an adventure. There was also a challenge that went along with watching The Blob. Kids would dare each other to sit in the very front row. Why?. Because one of the movie’s most memorable sequences takes place inside a movie theater. In the film, the Blob attacks a theater during a showing, eventually reaching the projection booth and sending moviegoers scrambling for the exits.
To a child sitting in a real movie theater, that scene made the idea of the Blob coming after you seem just a little too believable.
The joke among us was simple: If you sat in the front row, the Blob would get you. Of course, we knew it was only a movie—but that didn’t stop the front row from becoming the most dangerous place in the theater. That is one of those childhood memories that probably sounds silly today, but at the time it was serious business.
Another movie I remember seeing at the Columbia was Hello, Dolly!, in 1969. My mother took me to see it because she liked Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau and wanted to see the movie. As a kid, I had no clue of the kind of movie it was or would have chosen for myself—but Mom wanted to see it, so I went along.
That’s one of the things that makes old movie theaters special. The memories aren’t always about the movies. Sometimes they’re about who you went with and why you were there.
Another thing I remember about the Columbia was how big and elegant the theater seemed to me as a kid. I remember looking up at the tall ceiling and seeing the balcony above the main seating area. Everything about the place seemed grand compared with anything I was used to seeing.
The high ceiling, the balcony, the large auditorium and the details throughout the theater gave it a feeling of elegance that you just don’t find in many movie theaters today. As a child, I didn’t know anything about the history or architecture of the building. I just knew that walking into the Columbia felt special.
Looking back now, I realize that I was experiencing a little piece of Hammond’s history without knowing it. To me, it was simply the place where we went to see movies. But the building itself made going to the movies feel like an event.
Today, when people walk into the restored Columbia Theatre, they see a beautiful historic performing-arts venue. But for those of us who remember the theater as it was, the building can still bring back something else—the sound of a Saturday afternoon crowd, the anticipation before the lights went down, and the excitement of wondering what was about to appear on that big screen.
And somewhere in those memories, there may still be a kid sitting in the front row…
