A LOOK BACK:

There are big things happening around Huntington High these days. You might have noticed the school’s tower is encased in scaffolding to be repainted.

The auditorium will be getting new seats and an overhaul that will make its interior look as if it’s 1926 again.

With all the noise and remodeling going on inside I wonder if it has frightened away the ghost that some believe haunts the tower.

I doubt that I’ll ever witness the ghost since rules of the Ghosts, Goblins and Spirits union forbids its members from haunting before the hour of midnight, and by then I’m sound asleep.

Over the auditorium’s 81-year history many an actor has “died” onstage, but this week we’ll look at a murder mystery that was played for laughs.

On Nov. 15, 1940, Mrs. Condon’s drama class staged “320 College Avenue” inside the auditorium.

The students preformed this fast-moving mystery that combined thrills, chills and sidesplitting laughs.

“And now he’s gone! Murdered! Who killed him?”

These were some of the startling lines spoken by the players as the curtain slowly opened for the first act.

Shop teacher Charles Brisco and his stage crew worked hard to build sets that looked like a college sorority house’s dining room.

Eerie blue lights illuminated the actors who were dressed in evening gowns for the girls and tuxedos for the boys. In one of the opening scenes a student’s body is found during a school dance. The murder weapon appears to be a hatpin.

At first detectives consider the girls suspects because of the hatpin. But after a search of the body for money that was missing from a pool the boys participated in, the investigators turn their attention to the boys.

Joseph Fadler was perfect as the sarcastic, hard-boiled police detective who knows a lot more about his stomach than the murder.

Each act was crammed with laughs, thrills, horrors, puzzles, surprises, romance, and the action was fast and continuous with each act beginning where the last one left off.

The play’s ending was even kept secret from the actors when Mrs. Condon, the director, tore out the closing lines of the script and the identity of the murderer was hidden from the cast and audience.

When the most popular college girl, Judy (Lorraine Mauldin), is about to find the victim, another murder is committed right under her nose.

The detective and his assistant began questioning the suspects, including Omar Paxson as a loquacious, backslapping college student.

Doris Hager portrayed Lucy, the temperamental poetess. Her flights into poetic realms provided many of the laughs for the audience.

The detective now questioned the freshman wallflower Mossy, played by Eileen Howard, and the piano-playing crooner Wallace Perry, but to no avail. The detective was still in the dark.

Barbara Jean Bristol played the sentimental Dean of Women who teaches “yellowcution” and Robert Heil portrayed the romantic college heartthrob.

Other students in the play included medical students Phyllis (Marjorie Smith) and Ken (Donald Harding), romantic poet Ronny (Richard Cowdry), and another wallflower, Ernie (Bill Janes).

Chester Hemstreet portrayed the college football hero who was awkward when it came to romance and women.

Dorothy Sork played Minna, the athletic amazon, and Alberta Horton played a college law student Nan along with Dick Claus as law student Hap.

Now if you think I’m going to tell you who the murderer was, I’m not, you’ll have to find someone who was in the audience at the time to find out.

When “320 College Avenue was performed,” it was said it was the funniest murder mystery the audience had ever seen.

Now if you see a ghost with a hatpin sticking in his body, don’t worry, it’s just our murder victim searching the halls for his killer — we hope!

JERRY PERSON is the city’s historian and longtime Huntington Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.