ONLY ON KVIA.COM: “Beatlemania,” revisited
When the Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” opened in El Paso in 1964, Rosemary Quinn (ne Morin) and two of her sisters snatched up tickets to watch it at the old Capri Theater in Downtown El Paso.
“It was at the peak of Beatlemania,” Rosemary recalled. “We had seen them on ‘(The) Ed Sullivan (Show).’ They were at the height of their career.”
The then-teen had held on to the movie ticket stub as a souvenir, to plaster it into her growing scrapbook of Beatles memorabilia.
Fifty years later, her younger sister called to tell her the movie was going to be shown as part of the Plaza Classic Film Festival and asked if she wanted to go -for memory’s sake.
“At first I didn’t want to,” Rosemary admitted. “I thought, ‘I’ve already seen it.’ But then I thought, ‘Hey, it’s been awhile, and it’s a great way to get together with my sisters.’
“Now I’m excited,” she said, laughing.
Days before the screening, Rosemary dug out the old Beatles scrapbook and found the ticket stub just where she put it. The yellow cardstock with the pictures of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr grinning under their trademark moptops was still in good condition. The date of the show in 1964 was Aug. 15, almost to the day it is showing at the Plaza Theatre in 2014.
“It brings back a lot of memories (to see the film),” said Rosemary. “It just seems like a couple of weeks ago — but then I looked at the ticket and realized it was 50 years!”
Rosemary said as the date to the screening got closer, she grew more excited.
“Not as much as when I was a teen,” she laughed, “but I know it’ll be fun.”
This time, the sisters will be lining up outside the Plaza Theater, rather than the Capri Theater, which once sat less than a block from the location of the Plaza. According to the website CinemaTreasures.org, the Capri showed films until at least 1966, when it was converted into a clothing store. The store closed in 1983 and the building was eventually demolished. A search of numerous websites turned up no exact date on when the theater closed or when the building was demolished.
Rosemary is thankful the Plaza didn’t meet the same fate as the Capri.
“I’m so happy they redid the theater,” she said. “And I think the festival is great. (Showing classic films) gives the young people a chance to understand us old people,” she said, laughing.
The Plaza Classic Film Festival’s screening of “A Hard Day’s Night” is Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Kendle Kidd Performance Hall. Tickets are $8.
The festival runs until Sunday.
