Atlanta couple reenacts first date from 1959 at Plaza Theatre

For decades, Elizabeth Strickler had heard the same story about how her parents met.

It was late summer of 1959. Anita Van Buskirk had just graduated from Emory University with a math degree. John Strickler was a trainee at a bank after a stint with the Marines. A mutual friend set them up on a blind date, and they chose to see a film, a safe first date option.

The location, they told their daughter, was the Plaza Theatre, which still stands at the corner of Ponce de Leon and North Highland avenues more than 65 years later. John chose “The Bat,” a now largely forgotten horror mystery starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead.

“I remember it being a weird choice for a romantic evening,” Van Buskirk said.

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Credit: CONTRIBUTED

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

But romance blossomed between them. Less than 16 months later, they married.

Elizabeth Strickler ― now a Georgia State University professor specializing in media innovation ― recently contacted her friend Christopher Escobar, owner of the Plaza Theatre, and asked if they could screen “The Bat” to celebrate her parents’ 65th wedding anniversary.

Escobar was happy to oblige. On a recent overcast Tuesday afternoon, the Stricklers and a handful of family members took over the main Plaza theater for a private screening.

Credit: RODNEY HO/AJC

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The couple beamed when they arrived at the theater and saw their names on the iconic Plaza marquee congratulating them on their anniversary.

“It’s why places like this staying alive matters,” said Escobar, who has owned the theater since 2017 and signed a 25-year lease in 2022. “People can retrace places that are important to them. Grandkids can go where their grandparents went on their first date.”

Memories, though, are pliable.

Both Anita and John admit they are not 100% sure they saw “The Bat” at the Plaza. At the time, there were dozens of theaters in Atlanta, each a single screen, often just a few blocks apart. Escobar’s research, along with a scan of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution movie listings from that time period, fail to find any sign “The Bat” was ever featured at the Plaza.

“We might have been confused,” said Anita, who grew up near the Plaza and watched films there as a child. “It’s just the story we’ve told for so long. And the truth is the Plaza is still a very familiar place.”

Credit: RODNEY HO/AJC

Neither had any real memory of the plot of “The Bat” until they watched it a second time. It didn’t exactly stand the test of time along the lines of 1959 classics like Oscar winner “Ben-Hur” or the comedy “Some Like It Hot.” (You can see “The Bat” on Tubi for free.)

The film revolves around a mystery writer played by Moorehead. She rents out a mansion where a killer played by Price, nicknamed “The Bat,” tries to find stolen bank money from a banker he had murdered earlier in the film.

Anita: “It’s kind of a dumb movie but funny.”

John: “The plot was simple and not very exciting.”

Elizabeth was blunter: “It was pretty awful. To be fair, it was so bad, it was good.”

She was amused the murdered character was a banker ― like her dad. And the banker went hunting, one of her dad’s favorite hobbies.

“The tagline was better than the movie itself: ‘When the bat flies, someone dies!’” she said. “That’s what my parents always said when they mentioned the movie.”

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But that didn’t blunt the joy they experienced that day.

“It was a pleasure,” John said. “It’s been fun to talk about and think about.”

The Stricklers ― who have three kids, multiple grandkids and three great-grandkids ― hadn’t been to the Plaza in many years, but they were impressed by its grandeur and history. “The seats,” John said, “were plush. And they served us free popcorn and Cokes.”

They now live in Peachtree Hills Place, a retirement community in Buckhead, and regularly see movies at the 57-year-old Tara Atlanta, which Escobar purchased in 2023 after Regal shut it down.

“We just started a movie club with about 50 people, and we’re going to go once a month,” Anita said.

Elizabeth Strickler marvels over how her parents of contrasting personalities maintained a solid marriage, dubbing her mom a bit of a “rabble-rouser” and her dad a modern-day, avuncular Andy Griffith.

Anita Strickler said the secret to their long, happy marriage is no secret.

“We’re friends,” said Anita, who was a math teacher and real estate agent over the decades. “We enjoy doing things together. We are both pretty athletic. But we also do individual things. He used to play golf, hunt and fish. I play tennis and ski.”

John Strickler, a 1958 Georgia Tech graduate who spent his career in banking, including commercial lending and trust services, answered the question with trademark Southern modesty: “We’re tolerant of each other.”

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