Henry Bellamann
Brick District Playhouse
Fulton, Missouri
By Alex Dzurick
The 1940 novel Kings Row once so offended residents of Fulton, Missouri, that you couldn’t find a copy on the shelves of the local library. You could, however, in the very same town, find a copy on my mother’s bookshelf. She was a history teacher who taught classes on Missouri history, so even as a child, I had heard the rumors: Kings Row was based on Henry Bellamann’s life growing up in Fulton, and his frank portrayal of the darker side of life in my hometown did not earn him admiration by its social elites.
With all my mother’s connections to the book, I’m not surprised her copy occupied such a prominent place in our home, next to heirlooms and family photographs. In middle school, I asked if I could read it to complete a book challenge. She said that I could as long as I was careful with her copy, and I remember stretching out on the living room sofa, devouring the novel over just a few days. It’s a shocking story, exploring topics like euthanasia and incest, so looking back I’m surprised that I was trusted enough as a young teenager to handle the material.
Take a drive down Fulton’s Court Street today, and you’ll still see the Victorian-style homes that those elites once lived in. It’s easy to imagine how young Mr. Bellamann must have felt seeing those homes and knowing it was their occupants who bullied him, ostensibly for his German heritage and friendships with kids from the poorer, industrial neighborhoods. In Kings Row, on the other hand, Bellamann’s alter ego Parris Mitchell is quite well liked by everyone. Still, he discovers the sinister side of those wealthy residents while apprenticing under the secretive Dr. Tower, who is likely based on a real local doctor.
A bit further down Court Street, you’ll find the Brick District Playhouse, which served as the town’s only movie theater from 1928 to 2006. My mother worked there part-time for decades, and I followed in her footsteps when I turned 16. The small cinema had just two screens, with one built into a former balcony, and the lobby doors opened directly onto the brick streets of downtown Fulton. The brick building’s marquee was changed by hand even in its last years, and it wasn’t unheard of for birds and bats to swoop down from the ceiling during a film. Today, the building has been converted into a live performance venue, hosting plays, concerts, and lectures.
The theater itself is part of Kings Row lore, thanks to a 1942 film adaptation starring Robert Cummings as Parris Mitchell and future president Ronald Reagan as Drake, one of Parris’s wealthy friends. The movie did little to appease Fulton’s residents, exposing their town’s secrets to an even wider audience. Tensions had eased by the later part of the century, however, and several cast members came to Fulton in June 1988 to celebrate their source material (Reagan did not attend, as he was busy politicking). My mom had the opportunity to meet them at the theater. Her copy of Kings Row has a red autograph inside the front cover — “To Beautiful Lola. Love, Bob Cummings.”
Later, I had the chance to watch the film, which brought characters like Parris, Drake, and Dr. Tower to life in new ways for me. The novel’s darkest themes were removed to satisfy film codes, but it remained a tale of small town hypocrisy. And the film’s visuals are eerily reminiscent of the older parts of Fulton, as evidenced by the historic photos and sketches that hung in our home. Despite the passage of some 50 years between the film’s release and my own youth, it became apparent to me how easily Fulton’s residents would have seen themselves in Bellamann’s work.
I now live just outside of Philadelphia, where Bellamann was a dean at a prestigious music school before writing Kings Row. When I return to Fulton these days, and I pass those grand old Court Street homes just a few blocks north of the movie theater, I can’t help but look at them through Bellamann’s eyes, seeing the town in its honesty, with all its grandeur and all its faults.
Alex Dzurick is an educator and writer originally from Fulton, Missouri. He has published in The New Territory, NSTA’s The Science Teacher, and NAAEE’s Urban Environmental Education. Currently living in the Philadelphia region, Alex spends most of his time (when he’s not teaching) writing quizbowl questions, building crossword puzzles, or reading random Wikipedia articles.
