I have a few questions about those silly little saloon doors in Western movies. You know the type I mean. Did they really exist, or are they just a hollywood invention? Did they actually have any purpose, or were they just decoration? They appear ineffective at keeping out unwelcome guests or bad weather. How did the saloons lock up at night? Or were they always 24/7 operations?
The small doors were only used to minimally block the view from outside so that ladies and children would not be exposed to the unsavory characters inside. There were real doors behind the swinging doors but the real doors would be folded all the way back to the side walls during business hours.
An early thread on the subject that comes to the same conclusion.
Thanks a lot. That makes sense.
Many, many, many years ago, I did a melodrama, whose name I think was Gold in the Hills. The audiences always got in the spirit of the play, hissing the villain, cheering the hero, etc. I played the dumb hick hero.
We had a saloon as the set, and the swinging doors were up Stage Center.
At a critical point in the play, the fair damsel found herself in dire straits. The villain had just made clear his evil intent, and poor Nell would almost rather die.
“Oh, who will save me?” she cried out.
And of course, I burst on the scene. Flinging open the swinging doors, and holding them there with my outstretched arms I bellowed in my finest heroic voice,
"I will!!!"
It brought down the house every single night. And with tht, I became addicted to community theater.
Speaking of saloons, or bars as we say today, I’ve noticed that if the bar sells just beer and wine, the street door will provide a clear view into the serving area when open. But in bars that have full liquor licenses, there’s always a little right-angle turn, or an extra door just inside the main door, as if there is some law that was designed to prevent impressionable children from being able to see into a bar from the outside.
I don’t know if there is such a law in my state, California. And unfortunately the CA codes are too difficult to search in Findlaw.
Small cantinas in Panama typically still have this kind of door, probably for the same reasons.
It’s interesting that some places require establishments like pool halls to have a big glass window with a view all the way to the back wall. This is done to expose the whole establishment to public scrutiny and presumably to prevent activities of dubious legality. The micro-town where I did my internship forced the new tatto parlor to keep it’s curtains pulled back. This was a ham-handed attempt to drive the needle-and-ink-boys away by preventing customers from getting ink done in risqué locations.