101 Years Ago
The November 12, 1925 Colorado Transcript described a controversy that was running through the Golden community. City Council had been approached by the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist ministers of the City, asking that the Golden Gem movie theater be closed on Sundays. Several people in their congregations had signed a petition seconding the request. They referenced an 1879 “blue law” saying that shows could not be performed on Sundays.
Another group of citizens signed a counter-petition. That group said the old ordinance should be repealed. They felt that Golden’s young people would be better off seeing a clean picture show “than they would be in Denver, or dancing at some roadhouse, or parked in an automobile along some lonely highway.” The ministers dismissed the pro-theater petition, saying that effort had been led by students and Catholics.
An officer of the P.T.A. testified that the movies shown in the Golden Gem were always clean–particularly The Ten Commandments, which was a better sermon than any minister could preach. She added that some of the churches showed movies on Sunday nights, sometimes with live orchestras, and sometimes “there is some pretty jazzy stuff, even in Golden churches.”
The Chamber of Commerce came out in support of the movie theater.
The debate went on over several weeks. In the end, City Council said the 1879 law had been written for stage productions and didn’t apply to movies. Alderman Richard Broad summarized the affair as “much ado about nothing.”
