The Big Show, 1936
The Art Deco buildings and Esplanade fountain of Fair Park are etched into our city’s collective memory. A young George Dahl designed the structures for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition on the site of a failed state fair and Dallas’s second public park. Working with consulting architect Paul Cret, of The University of Texas in Austin’s Main Building fame, Fair Park was transformed into a grand exposition from June to November of 1936.
Capitalizing on the success of the exposition’s popularity, Republic Pictures produced an action/comedy motion picture setting a classic western movie in dichotomy with Fair Park’s Art Deco exposition buildings. Tioga, Texas native Gene Autry, aka “The Singing Cowboy”, stars in the film. This was Autry’s fourteenth movie, having made his name nationally as a radio star. This rollicking tale follows Autry’s character as a stunt man for leading actor Tom Ford from the studio lots of Hollywood to the exposition in Dallas.
The 55-minute movie is heavy on cowboy chase scenes, mistaken identities, mob characters as bad guys, and simple comedy pranks. Fair Park’s Art Deco architecture takes a back seat to the movie’s plot but is displayed generously throughout many scenes.
It is wonderful to see buildings such as the Hall of State, Tower Building, Centennial Building, Automobile (Transportation) Building, and the yet to be named Cotton Bowl in their early prime. A parade scene around the Esplanade fountain is the first we see the fairgrounds. This happens at approximately 18 minutes into the movie. Seeing the exposition in its original glory is a treat. Small details emerge that have since been lost to the decades. The buildings were decorated with deco murals and smaller individual paintings of stylized animals. Loudspeaker towers were an Art Deco delight, statues long gone emerge on film, and exposition sponsors, such as Gulf Oil and Ford give the true spirit of the exposition at the time.
Around the 27-minute mark, the Tower Building is featured. It serves as the radio station broadcasting Autry’s cowboy songs nationwide. As with all western action movies, it concludes with a stagecoach chase scene starting at “The Cavalcade of Texas,” an outdoor wild west stage set, one of the exposition’s most popular attractions. The chase continues from the Cavalcade, located just east of the Cotton Bowl on the racetrack grounds, then moves past the Midway rides to the Lagoon ending in a literal splash. Bad guys are rounded up by Autry, handed over to the Texas Rangers, “The Singing Cowboy” gets his girl, and he saves the day.
It’s a black and white look at Fair Park’s grounds for much less cost of a ticket to The State Fair of Texas. Enjoy the movie but make sure to pause it along the way not only to eye the simplicity of the time, but the grandeur of the exposition buildings of Fair Park.