When I was a kid, the Howell Theater in Smithfield represented the excitement of the wider world, a window onto the excitement of Hollywood and the creations of its multitude of imaginations, buzzing like bees in a giant hive.
I saw my first movie there, a re-release of Disney’s Cinderella in the late 1980s, and celebrated my thirteenth birthday there with my best friend when we went to see Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. My relationship with the Howell continued through school years of movies with friends and high school dates, as it doubtless had for countless Johnston County residents before me after the theater opened in 1935. It is the longest continually running theater in Johnston County and it still welcomes moviegoers of all ages.
The history of the Howell Theater stretches back along the lifeline of its creator, Henry Paul (H.P.) Howell, who came to Smithfield from Severn, North Carolina in 1925 and established a business in the movies. He obtained Smithfield’s first single-purpose movie theater, which had opened as the Lyric in 1918 and had changed its name to the Victory in 1922.
In 1930, William Sanders opened a rival movie house on Market Street, which H.P. subsequently leased in 1932. He ran both theaters until the Sanders Theater burned in 1934. That’s when he decided to build a new theater on a lot he’d recently acquired directly across the street from the Victory. For the next fifteen years, both theaters ran simultaneously, with the Victory open only on Saturdays showing “B movies” and westerns.
When the Howell first opened, it was quite the social event in Smithfield. The first movie to run was The Night Is Young starring Ramon Navarro and Evelyn Laye. The movie opened at 6:45 with a newsreel and the feature film started at 7 pm. There was a second showing at 9 pm. In between, there were speeches from the mayor, the chairman of the county board of commissioners, State Senator Paul Grady, and wrapping up with Mr. H.P. Howell. Special music was presented by the Eddie Perkins Orchestra, which played at the end of both shows as well as after the speeches concluded.
The new theater seated 900 patrons, including 250 seats in the balcony. The exterior was brick and stucco and the interior was decorated with lush red velvet draperies, a gold maline (delicate net resembling tulle) screen curtain, and a large stage.
In addition to the latest movies, the Howell Theater hosted live acts of both local and traveling entertainment. Jugglers, dancers, and live bands entertained patrons from as far afield as Broadway and Hawaii.
In 1945, the Howell Theater hosted the world premiere of The Great Sinner, starring Gregory Peck and Johnston County’s most famous former resident, Ava Gardner. The premiere tickets were distributed by invitation only and the show premiered one day before it opened in New York City. The theater sent Ms. Gardner ten tickets but as she could not attend, she responded with a picture of herself holding the fanned-out tickets. This picture can now be seen at the Ava Gardner museum, just up the street.
In 1953, with the world of cinema feeling a crunch from the encroaching presence of television, H. P. retired to Florida to operate a motel, leaving his son Rudolph (Rudy) in charge. The Victory Theater was closed before being torn down in 1956. By the end of the decade, in 1959, the Howell set its peak attendance record with Disney’s The Shaggy Dog starring Fred McMurray. Every seat was filled, with long lines forming before each showing.
Sometime during the 1960s (various sources state 1960, 1962, and 1965), a fire gutted the interior of the building, leaving the exterior intact. The theater was restored and reopened to the public.
1974 saw redecorating of the interior of the theater with a new color scheme in blue and green. The seats on the first floor were removed to make way for larger cushioned chairs that rocked slightly (and squeaked, as I recall, by the time I enjoyed them in the 1980s).
Mr. H.P. Howell returned to Smithfield from Florida in 1978 and passed away on October 5, 1979. He left the family theater legacy, including the Howell Theater, to his daughter and his son Rudy. As his sister wanted to leave the business, Rudy took it over, selling the Howell in 1981 to Multi-Cinema Theaters Limited, a company that owned about 70 theaters across the Carolinas and Virginia. He remained an active participant in the life of the theater as he owned the majority stock in Multi-Cinema Theaters and was chairman of the board. During this time, the Howell was split into two theaters: one upstairs and one down.
On December 31, 1986, Rudy sold his interest in Multi-Cinema Theaters back to the company and purchased the Howell as well as three other Howell-made theaters in Selma, Clinton, and Ahoskie. He had been unhappy with semi-retired life and had heard that the company was planning to close several small-town theaters, which he didn’t want to see happen to the Howell.
“I want downtown Smithfield to have a theater,” he told the Smithfield Herald in 1987. “The theater here has my name on it. It’s got my daddy’s name on it. I have a lot of pride in downtown Smithfield, and I have a lot of pride in Selma and Johnston County.”
The Howell continued to transform over the years, with an enlarged lobby for more concessions and a new Dolby stereo system. In 1989, the theater split once again to form two theaters upstairs and two downstairs, its current layout.
Mickey Buffaloe bought the Howell from Rudy in 1999, running the theater for ten years before selling to Chuck and Amy Kirkman, the current owners, in 2009.
Today, the Howell Theater is still going strong. The exterior looks the same as it did when I was growing up. The original marquee is missing (it has been for as long as I can remember), but a vertical sign hanging perpendicularly from the front of the building reads “Theater” in blue letters like giant Scrabble tiles. The glass front doors open to the box office and another set of glass doors opens into the lobby.
When I visited on a Saturday afternoon in March of this year to speak with the Kirkmans, I was immediately transported back to my childhood as I walked in. The lobby layout is the same as I remember it, though perhaps a little brighter and shinier. I smiled as I inhaled the scent of fresh popcorn in a building more than 80 years old. It’s a lovely scent—the smell of the past blending with smells of a very active present.
On my entrance, several smiling teenagers waiting behind the concessions counter greeted me. Amy Kirkman broke away from conversation with her employees to greet me herself, shaking my hand and showing me to an office, where she introduced me to her husband, Chuck. I settled down in a chair to talk with Chuck about his and Amy’s time at the theater while Amy headed back out to the lobby to oversee the hosting of four matinee audiences.
Curious about their background, I asked where he and Amy were from. Chuck smiled and leaned back in his chair.
“Amy’s from up North—she’s a true Yankee. I’m from California. We came out here about ten years ago. We don’t live right here,” he continued. “We live up in Wake Forest.”
Wake Forest? How on earth had they wound up buying the Howell?
“Through business brokers,” Chuck explained. “I had no interest in running a theater, frankly. But my broker told me, ‘You’ve got to go down and look at this old theater’. So I came down here as a customer.” His gaze wandered over my head as he smiled again, remembering.
“I came in two or three times and saw a movie, and then struck up a conversation with the owner (Mickey Buffaloe). I told him I’d seen it for sale on this brokerage site and we started talking. Next thing you know, I’m buying it.”
I asked what it was like when they bought it.
His eyes returned to me as he said, “Well, we had old analog film projectors and antiquated sound systems. Do you remember those old metal frame chairs? We went through and took out all the seats and re-did all the hardwood floors—gosh, we were shut for days doing that. We re-varnished the floors. They have so much character; the wood is so cool.”
The Kirkmans have spent a lot of time lovingly updating the old theater.
“We’ve tried to keep the look the same,” Chuck said. “I’m trying to keep the look and feel and nostalgia of it. The façade is one of the coolest things. I think next summer—God willing and the water don’t rise—we’ll re-do the façade and make it look fresh and clean again.” He paused, thinking. “We’ve replaced five of the seven air conditioners. We’ve put on a new roof, put in new carpet—what haven’t we done?”
They also updated to digital projectors, which was no small expense.
“Digital conversion, which happened in the last ten years….all theaters are now digital,” Chuck explained. “Film just doesn’t exist anymore. The new movies that are coming out are only coming out digitally so you have to have the digital projectors and digital hard drives to play them.”
One of the theater’s film projectors from the 1940s is on display on one of the stair landings inside the theater. It’s a large, intimidating piece of metal that innately commands the respect of age and experience. One of the other projectors was donated to the Ava Gardner museum. Reputedly, Ms. Gardner developed her dreams of stardom watching movies in theaters owned by Mr. H. P. Howell.
Since the Smithfield Cinemas opened, the Howell became a second-run theater, but that doesn’t mean second-rate—not by a long shot.
“We are a discount house, but I wanted to be more boutique and better for my clientele,” Chuck said earnestly. “So that when you came here, you had better popcorn than you do at the bigger theaters, and you had a better, more comfortable seat, and you had a better sound system and a better picture.”
He raised his eyebrows as he continued, “When you walked in the door, I hope somebody greeted you and thanked you for coming in and when you leave, I hope the same thing happens.” (They did and it did.) “That’s what I expect from my staff.
“I get nothing but compliments on my employees and they come back year after year,” he said. “The ones that go away to college, they come back in the summertime and at Christmas and work for us because they like being here.”
Chuck went on to explain that he and Amy employ anywhere from five to six people in the off-season and anywhere from eleven to fifteen employees during the summer.
“We’re really a kid’s house so when the kids are out of school, we’re busy,” he said. “We know our customers and so we try to always have one or two kids’ movies, meaning G or PG. And then we’ll have one or two action or one or two ‘grown-up’ movies.”
I asked if he and Amy watched a lot of the movies they played. Chuck laughed.
“I bet I haven’t seen, start to finish, ten movies in eight years,” he said with a smile. “I can never sit down long enough to see a whole movie—I always get pulled out. So I see thirty minutes of every movie.”
I had another question I’d been curious about since I was a kid. Is the Howell Theater haunted?
Chuck smiled again. “I’ve heard that, but I’ve not seen any evidence to support that. I had two employees that used to work here that swore they saw stuff upstairs at night when they were cleaning.” He shook his head and looked up to the ceiling as if looking into the rest of the theater. “Old buildings make a lot of noises.” He smiled fondly.
As the conversation wound down and I prepared to leave, we moved back out into the lobby, which was quiet during movies. Muted rumbles and snatches of music drifted out from the four theaters and I sampled some of the best popcorn I’ve had since I was a kid (Chuck tells me the secret is coconut oil). The young men and women behind the counter were smiling and attentive and the whole scene had the air of a well-loved home.
I had commented on this to Chuck earlier in our conversation. He smiled as we looked around. “I love the quaintness of the old place,” he said. “And it’s still solid as a rock.”