- [Narrator] News of the World.

Pandemic.

COVID-19, the virus spreading across the globe.

What about the movies?

Theaters closing their doors.

The movies stopped.

Vaccine.

Help has arrived.

Theaters across the country reopen.

Newsline, Kansas City, the country's capitol of movie distribution, home to historic Film Row, the birthplace of Mickey Mouse, the first Multiplex theater and Jean Harlow.

Its crown jewel, The Mainstreet Theater, nearly 100 years old, home to Cinerama.

Question is, are the movies back?

Will audiences go back or will it all just fade to black?

(dramatic music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Weeks have gone by and the leader of the cave dwellers is marking on the rocks the story of the women as Angore has told it to him.

Time has healed Angore's wounds, and despite the leader's protest, Angore is determined upon revenge.

- People from the dawn of time have been gathering together to hear stories.

We gathered around campfires.

- It's dark, it's focused, it's easy for me to shut off, you know, all my phone and all my, my brain, and really, like, escape.

- You know, a theater is where community happens.

A theater is where you have shared experiences at the exact same time.

- There's nothing like going into a movie, lights go dark, the silver screen lights up, and you're enjoying movies with other people who enjoy movies in an audience setting.

- And you have two hours to just immerse yourself in the magic of the movies.

The big screen, the sound.

And all the people around you are doing the same thing.

They're laughing together.

We're crying together.

We're kind of getting the inside jokes together.

- Having a great night at the movies is, like, the best feeling in the world or like one of them.

So it's like, well, this can't, you can't get rid of this, then.

Like, it can't leave because it's too great to ever die.

- Kansas City is genuinely one of the most important film cities in the, from the historical perspective.

- It's not surprising to me to have learned a long time ago that the Multiplex Theater started here.

It's not surprising to me to find out that basically animation, the animation industry as know it, started right here in Kansas City.

It is not surprising to me that all the major studios had a hub on 18th Street, you know, known as Film Row.

(whimsical music) - From about the 1920s to the 1970s, early eighties, it was the epicenter of everything filmed.

There were 31 film rows around the country that formed a web of film distribution, because in those days, you know, film was in canisters, two big, heavy canisters with six, eight, sometimes 10 reels of film.

And they had to have an effective way to distribute that heavy load of film to manage that load, to inspect those films, to make those deals, to sell the equipment to all those theaters.

And for many years, theaters were one screen, and they were all over the place.

So we had many, many, many theaters serving three times as many patrons as we have today.

(jazz music) The Bagbys and the Bills each had little bitty circuits of theaters in the small towns dotting the Midwest.

- Well, my grandfather bought his first movie theater in 1924 and he met my grandmother, who became my grandmother.

She was a piano player for the silent movies.

- My dad, Sterling Bagby, got his first job in a movie theater in the small town of Huntsville, Missouri working for my wife Bridget's grandfather.

He was 10 years old and he was hired to sell popcorn by Elmer, Sr. And then, I think, the age of 17, he volunteered for World War II, into the Navy.

But guess what he did in the Navy?

He ran the projectors to entertain the troops.

And I remember dad telling stories where they, you know, sometimes they be in areas where there wasn't any action.

It was boring.

And so, he would radio the other ships, wherever they are, and they would meet in the middle of the ocean and switch movies, just so they had something new to watch, because they'd watch the same movie over and over.

He got out, he bought his first theater in the little town of Higbee, Missouri.

Eventually they started the Bagby traveling picture show.

He found a need that a lot of these small towns around the area, they didn't have, they weren't big enough for a full-time movie theater.

So he bought a truck, put a projector in, bought some folding chairs, the popcorn machines and candy, some bottle pop.

And he would go set up on the side of a building or inside the City Hall, and everybody in town would come for movie night.

- You know, there were 90 million Americans that went to the movies in the 1920s and thirties.

And that's because it was the only game in town.

(jazz music) - I heard at one-time, per capita, Kansas city has more screens and any place in the country.

- I lived on 59th Street.

So there was the Uptown, the Plaza, the Midland or the Empire or the Paramount or the Capri, the Fairway, the Waldo, the Brookside.

Those were my movie theaters.

- I grew up going to a 1920s movie theater in Liberty called the Plaza Theater.

It was torn down, but I got the doors and they were the original doors on my first Screenland theater.

(whimsical music) - So, Screenland Armour is one of the oldest historic operating theaters in all the Kansas City area.

This is the original theater.

Originally The Armour Theater.

Originally it opened in 1928 as a silent movie theater.

It's been a video store and theater.

You know, we were one of the first theaters to show color and sound films in the Midwest.

For almost 100 years, we've been operating as a movie theater.

There was a weird 10 year period where we were a country music Opry house.

And in 2008, it reopened as the Screenland, and it was a single screen theater.

A lot of people's first movie experiences ever were here in this room, these four walls.

For me, it's the, these traditional seats are where it's at.

They're comfortable.

You have good eye lines.

You don't get too comfortable, you're falling asleep.

A dream scenario, this is where I'm going to sit and bigger theaters, I'm going to probably be a little higher up.

And then now in 2021, we have four screens.

This is like our filmmakers theater.

So when you come into the theater, you see various plethora of, a plethora of different filmmakers.

Theater Four is the shining theater.

You walk through here, of course, you're greeted by the iconic flooring, now as a wallpaper.

We're all digital.

We, you know, we have a full bar, we have a restaurant, we have a little arcade, and it's still all housed in that same 1928 building.

- Can I tell you something?

Adam Roberts with Screenland is something else.

They host one of America's best genre film festivals every year called the Panic Fest.

- It's crazy.

You know, we're huge film fest.

We're internationally renowned.

So, you know, we always are on the top 10 or top 20 of best genre vessels in the world.

And we look at that list, we're like, we are up there with titans, like, what is happening?

- It is such a supportive space for independent filmmakers.

- It hasn't really clouded our judgment.

We're just doing what we do, you know?

We're just gonna keep showing the same stuff in the same way we do it.

(spooky music) - [Narrator] Previously on Fade to Black.

- My great-grandfather, Elmer Bill, Sr. started his first movie theater and married Johnny Bills, who was the silent movies piano player.

They had Elmer Bills, Jr., who swept popcorn and worked in the movie theater.

Sterling Bagby came to work for Elmer Bill, Sr. and they swept.

He swept popcorn.

Elmer and Sterling became truly best friends that lasted the rest of their lives.

They would travel together.

They both owned movie theaters.

Throughout this whole time, these families continued to be really good friends.

And Bob and Bridget were both born.

Bridget was born of Amy and Elmer and Bob was born of Sterling and Pauline.

- We were a hardworking family, but we had a lot of fun together, too.

The six of us would all go to theater conventions.

Here in Kansas City was Show-a-Rama, which was the largest theater convention in the world for many, many years.

- So, right here in Kansas City, these, like, convention type things happened, and these large meetings that were, you know, dripping with, you know, famous people, with famous directors, with famous actors and actresses.

(jazz music) - But the gist of it, the reason was to bring in the stars to Kansas City, give them awards, and allow their theater managers in these little towns in Kansas and Missouri to stand there with Clint Eastwood or with Paul Newman or something, get their picture taken.

When they got back home to Garden City, Kansas, it was on the front page of the newspaper.

Initial years, it was focused on Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, only because of the closeness.

And quite frankly, the theater circuits here, between Dickinson and Commonwealth and Fox Midwest and a few other smaller circuits and everything, they had enough clout to convince the, a couple of the studios to send their people in and to sponsor something.

That was the start of it, that was the genesis of it.

But what happened, within two or three years, it expanded out to someones from, exhibitors from practically every state, Canada, Mexico and a few other countries would show up.

I was in the limo that went to the airport to pick up Joanne Woodward.

But Paul Newman took the train.

He didn't like to fly.

So we scheduled it so that we would pick her up and then come to Union Station and pick him up and take them to the hotel.

So that's what we did.

But my main job was keeping Coors beer into Paul Newman's hands.

I've got some photographs of him with someone else holding, I think, two Coors beers just like that.

But what nice people.

The bottom line is that Show-A-Rama was hugely successful for over 20 years and brought in so many stars, but eventually the demise of it was due to the fact that logistically it was very difficult for these studios to fly their people in and out, and maybe take two days.

So someone came up with the bright idea that they held their own convention in Las Vegas, then the people wouldn't have stay overnight.

They could come in and out, in and out.

♪ Let's all go to the lobby ♪ ♪ Let's all go to the lobby ♪ ♪ Let's all down to the lobby ♪ ♪ To get ourselves a treat ♪ ♪ Delicious things to eat ♪ ♪ The popcorn can't be beat ♪ ♪ The sparkling drinks are just dandy ♪ ♪ The chocolate bars and the candy ♪ ♪ So let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat ♪ ♪ Let's all go to the lobby ♪ ♪ To get ourselves a treat ♪ (synthesizer music) - Then in the eighties, Stan Durwood and Dick Durwood were taking their father's Durwood Theaters and turning them into AMC Theaters and building what would become the largest movie theater circuit in the world.

Right now, AMC accounts for one in every four screens in America.

(synthesizer music) And then all of a sudden, a Bagby married a Bills.

- My parents were just secretly in love with each other this whole time.

They would always talk to each other and kind of dating other people, and yet would somehow manage to still always find each other.

- She's my bride.

I mean, no one else would ever understand how to change a speaker at the drive in.

And I think from then on, we knew we were meant for each other.

- And Bills Family Theaters and Bagby Theaters joined together for B&B Theaters, Bills and Bagby Theaters.

- B&B has already exceeded anything I ever dreamed of, because I dreamed of just running a theater with Bob, and now we're this large company.

And even if we get bigger, we keep that family feeling.

- They've become, in screen count, I believe they're the sixth largest circuit in the country, not in revenue, but in screen count.

And they're coming up with innovations that make that movie going experience so much fun.

- Kansas City has had more screens per capita, both traditional, big screens, you know, than AMC and B&B and the old Dickinson chain.

But at the same time, we had a dozen screens dedicated to art films.

You had the Fine Arts Theater in Marion.

You had the Rio coming up.

You had the Tivoli on Westport Road.

- People would walk by the little Tivoli and go, oh, that's a porn theater.

It was like, no, we're not.

We're an art theater.

Rocky Horror Picture Show showed Friday and Saturday nights at 11 and one, sold out every time.

That's what kept that theater going.

- If you ever been to an art theater, not quite sure what that is.

I always say it's like a restaurant, you're not sure what's on the menu.

If you sample some of the independent movies, and you like a good variety of movies, you'll get hooked.

(jazz music) - If you find something you can love to do, which we do, obviously for 39 years, you get such gratification from that, whether you're making money or not.

But we are on hands owners.

We do a lot of the work ourselves, and that's probably one of the reasons we've been able to still be in businesses, because it's less expensive that way.

It takes us a little longer.

(jazz music) - I started going to the Fine Arts Theater, believe it or not, probably close to 40 years ago when Ben and Brian and myself were all youngsters.

We're all the same age.

- The original Fine Arts was the Dickinson Theater.

We had that in 1982 to 2002.

Before that ended, we started the Rio Theater.

We bought the Rio Theater in 1991, but since we owned that building, we took our time to restore it.

Normally when we didn't own the building, it would take a 16 to 18 months to renovate a theater and get it opened up.

And we opened that in 2000.

(jazz music) We both specialize in certain areas of the business, and I do what I do and he does what he does, but it takes both of us to do the whole thing.

I tell him what to do.

- That's not true.

I'm the president, he's the vice president.

Enough said.

- Brian and Ben and I were always fighting off the big boys.

And we were always competing with each other.

- That's always been the story of the movie theater.

I mean, in the 1950s, television was supposed to take movie theaters out, but guess what?

They made the pictures wider, more encompassing.

In the 1960s and seventies, everybody thought the movies were too old, but then they started with surround sound.

- There's been all of these, the sky is falling.

And then VHS coming along, the sky is falling.

It's gonna, everything is gonna change.

- If you were to think that, like, movie theaters were already struggling pre-COVID.

- What's really happening inside hospitals in our community as more and more people are getting infected with COVID-19.

- It was devastating.

- We're not sure what we're going to do.

- We really want people to understand that this is an emergency.

- I don't know what's gonna happen.

- It was panic mode.

What do we do?

How do we survive this?

= We were, like, freaking out, 'cause it was like, how can we survive?

And the president got on TV and was like, it's real.

We're pretty much shutting it down.

Get ready.

- You know, all of a sudden, we were shut down.

All of our, the studios pulled all the movies.

- Two or three hours later, the mayor came on.

- It relies on folks to follow the rules.

It relies on us to enforce the rules.

- Effective immediately, we're all closing down.

- The state, the counties all shut down all of our theaters.

- When it was hitting and hitting hard, and they said we're gonna be closed, what'd they say, like, two weeks?

It was really tough.

I mean, but you have to look at the safety of not only the customers, but our staff.

- COVID has been very scary and very sad.

- Some of the worst days we had is when we had to call every single employee and tell them we've got a furlough you.

- That day that we had to lay everybody off, furlough them, was truly one of the most gut-wrenching days of my entire life.

- It was like a 100 hour, you know, race in my head of, like, me emailing studios, all the studios, no one knew what to do.

It was crazy.

It was pure chaos.

- The Drafthouse is closing its iconic location on Main Street.

Opened a century ago after an extensive rehab, it was brought back to life, but the pandemic forced the theater to close temporarily last March.

And this morning, Alamo Drafthouse posted on Facebook saying nearly a year later, we are incredibly sad to tell you that because of the ongoing impact of COVID, we will not be reopening Mainstreet.

(soft music) - So March 10th, we flipped on a bunch of new procedures, you know, fogging theaters, wiping down extra spaces, you know, limiting our auditoriums to 50% capacity.

Like, we really went head first into that, before any mandates, before anything.

- You know, you want to block off a certain number of seats, you know, that means less ticket sales.

So it is hard for them.

- You know, we did try to open up last October and went through Thanksgiving.

But I mean, people are very cautious to get into a room with a lot of people, even though we do, you know, limit the number of seats that for each theater, and we do everything that most people are doing to keep it safe for the customers.

- We're doing an outdoors, the Tivoli Under the Stars, we're doing that.

And that's been very successful.

(piano music) - Welcome to Tivoli Under the Stars.

- It's such a wonderful opportunity to be outside and enjoy what the museum has to offer.

(piano music) - I'm absolutely thrilled.

This is the best thing that's happened all summer.

(piano music) - You had to order five per pod and it's four people in a pod.

So, we have five people, so we ordered two pods, but that's fine.

- Put the first set of dates out one day in April, was sold out in one day.

- We haven't seen movies much.

- Little did we know that this was built for movies outside.

And we just learned that part of the history.

So, we're taking advantage of that right now.

(whimsical music) (dramatic music) - I think it's a little bit inspiring that, you know, through everything that's been happening with the pandemic and all that, that we're still able to kind of like come out on top with being able to showcase our art and still have, obviously, as you can see, tons of people out here to support it and support us and them.

And I think that's great.

- Hi, guys.

- Hi.

- So, masks are required if you leave your vehicle.

- Okay.

- Just parking one car in the center of two speaker poles.

And if you brought lawn chairs, put those between your car and the screen, not to the side of your car, okay?

- Okay.

- Thank you, enjoy the movie.

- As a family, we worked through it.

We just worked probably harder than I ever have in my life this last year and a half, trying to keep this company together.

Yeah, Jesse, if we can have you for a minute.

If the press is in the first in the building, they will come anyway.

If they find out something's going on.

- This business isn't just a job for us.

It's not something that we do.

It is everything.

It is such a history and a heritage that comes with it.

And the weight of that is profound.

- It's the first time we've had this many people back in the office for the, since COVID.

So, yay, very exciting.

- People that are even newer to our sort of family came together in a way that was, it's inspiring and it's humbling.

And I think the future's really bright, as long as we can all stick together, - Hi.

Hi, buddy, how are you?

- We all live within, like, half a mile of each other.

And we see each other every single day.

The kids, our kids are so funny, because you would think they only saw each other once a year, they're so excited to see each other and they see each other literally almost every day.

And my mom is an amazing cook and is always cooking these awesome, gorgeous meals.

My dad almost always plays music.

(upbeat piano music) ♪ We're going to Kansas City ♪ ♪ Kansas City I come ♪ ♪ Kansas City ♪ ♪ Kansas City I come ♪ ♪ They got some crazy little women there ♪ ♪ And I'm gonna get me one ♪ ♪ I'm gonna stand on the corner ♪ ♪ Of 12th Street and Vine ♪ ♪ Stand on the corner ♪ - I'm really, I'm so, so, so relieved and excited that B&B is taking over what used to be the Alamo, right here on Main Street.

- No better company in the city to operate that theater.

- I mean, the B&B people are really incredible.

They know what they're doing.

I have confidence that I can go and be safe.

- We are so excited.

You realize it was built in 1920?

And our company began in 1924.

So, obviously, we've had a great history together, but we didn't, haven't been together.

- It is so cool to be in downtown Kansas City in that iconic building.

(upbeat piano music) (orchestral music) - We have worked so hard to get to this point and it feels so good to finally be open tonight.

(orchestral music) - There we go.

- Thinking about all the work that my grandparents did, I'm going to choke up, to get us to this point, it feels really special.

- Tonight it becomes a B&B Theater, and we're very excited.

(audience applauding) - We run into people all the time at the theaters who are telling us, oh, it's our first time back, and we're so happy to be back and we love movies.

- You know, the idea is that it is okay to go to a movie.

It is a safe place to be.

- I mean, thank God we've got some long-time and loyal customers that help fund us through this downtime.

- But we just kept fighting forward.

And then, you know, we're still here today.

I dunno, it's crazy.

- We can manage it with masks and with vaccinations and you know, we can get along, we can cope with it.

- I missed Stray Cat so much.

And I all of a sudden have to go, whenever we, the first night we reopened, I was like, this is a great decision.

We sold out our opening night coming back, which isn't saying a lot for the size of our theater, but we sold it out.

And it was like everyone was just so supportive and just beyond happy and excited to be there.

- My grandpa always said everyone has a kitchen table, but they still go out to dinner.

And I think that experience of leaving your home is something that doesn't change.

(dramatic music) (upbeat jazz music)