Peanuts for Popcorn: A Tentative History of Corn’s-a-Poppin’

Who says there are no more frontiers?

When movie trade magazine Boxoffice asked this question in January 1954, they were referring, of course, to a new independent production in the wilds of Kansas City, Missouri. A celebration of ‘Corn and Youth,’ this new film was the product of a band of amateurs ‘pioneering in feature production … and loving it.’

The financing had been set up by Elmer Rhoden, Jr., an executive for the Commonwealth Theatres chain, which controlled several dozen screens in six states. Show business ran in the family. His father Elmer C. Rhoden spent four decades with National Theatres and was elected its president after 20th Century-Fox’s court-ordered divestment from the chain. Brother Clark Rhoden was chairman of the Popcorn Institute, a kernel-pushing trade group. Thus the production’s shift from working title Ozark Hoedown to the more industry- and exploitation-friendly Corn’s-a-Poppin’.

To come upon Corn’s-a-Poppin’ today is to glimpse another frontier—a frontier made legible by recent shifts in the archival field. Situated at the woozy (and suddenly respectable) intersection of regional cinema, orphan media, and sponsored film, Corn’s-a-Poppin’ is an expansive aberration. Never self-important enough to suggest itself as a ‘key text,’ Corn’s-a-Poppin’ nevertheless emerges to exemplify a certain kind of unaccountable film. Its production and existence still sound like a fanciful rumor, even after you’ve seen it.