Part of Music City Mondays, Nashville: A City on Film and Belcourt 100 Seminars
General Admission: $16 | Belcourt Members: $13
*Ticket includes the seminar and a screening of NASHVILLE REBEL immediately following at 8:00pm
As the Grand Ole Opry grew into a national institution, it spent seven transformative months on our historic stage — then known as the Hillsboro Theatre. This seminar revisits that brief but pivotal stretch (1935–1936), correcting long-standing misconceptions about the Opry’s time at the Belcourt, expanding our historical understanding of its meaning and presence at the theatre, and exploring its lasting impact on our past, on Nashville, and beyond. Drawing from newly uncovered archival materials, fresh research and a few surprises along the way, the seminar examines how the Hillsboro setting helped professionalize the show and elevate its cultural presence.
Topics range from the Opry’s leap from WSM’s studio to a full-fledged theatrical environment, to the influence of key figures like Vito Pellettieri and DeFord Bailey. We’ll also trace how the Opry’s legacy reverberated through later chapters of Belcourt’s history — and even how it helped shape Nashville’s filmmaking identity over generations. It’s not just a seminar—it’s a celebration: in 2025, both the Opry and the Belcourt mark 100 years of culture-making in Tennessee.
Paired with a screening of NASHVILLE REBEL (1966), the session invites you to reconsider the Opry’s beginnings — and the neighborhood theatre that helped launch it into legend.
Presented by T. Minton, Belcourt’s public historian and archivist.
NASHVILLE REBEL (35mm)
Dir. Jay Sheridan | USA | 1966 | 95 min. | NR | 35mm
One of the most ambitious of Nashville’s 1960’s “Hick Flicks,” NASHVILLE REBEL tells the story of Arlin Grove (Waylon Jennings), a young Army veteran adrift in the rural South. After a chance performance reveals his talent, Arlin’s rise to country stardom takes him from roadside hootenannies to the Grand Ole Opry. But fame isn’t easy, and behind his swift ascent lie romantic struggles, industry manipulation and personal decline.
Blending melodrama with musical performance, the film features a cameo by Sam Tarpley — Belcourt’s most prolific community stage actor — as the Justice of the Peace. It also includes appearances by country legends and Nashville icons like Ralph Emery, Tex Ritter, Porter Wagoner and Loretta Lynn in her screen debut. Shot across the city at locations including Centennial Park, RCA Studio B, the Tennessee State Capitol and the Arcade, the film offers a rare cinematic snapshot of mid-1960s Music City.
Originally released by American International Pictures, it fell into obscurity before being restored and reissued in 2004. Despite Jennings’ mixed feelings about the project, NASHVILLE REBEL remains a vivid time capsule of Nashville’s country music scene and local 1960s film industry, preserved today in one of the last known 35mm prints here at Belcourt.
“The first Nashville-made movie that really does make its namesake city proud.” —Harry Haun, The Tennessean “This entry is reminiscent of the type of musical programmer that was turned out in large quantity in the 1940’s…. In this case, it allows for country music to get in its innings, which should make a large number of viewers in the south and other areas happy.” —Motion Picture Exhibitor
