The Midnight Life

By F.T. Rea

Midnight Shows

In the 1970s, during what some film aficionados call "the golden age of repertory cinema," double features ruled. Perhaps the hodgepodge of double features that was central to the format of a repertory cinema had something to do with a sense of postmodern license to combine disparate elements. The presenting of midnight shows was also an integral aspect of the programming for many such movie houses.

Although films are still being shown in theaters at the midnight hour, the cultural significance of such screenings has been in steady decline since the end of the '70s. While most of what was done at the Biograph was standard practice in that era for art houses/repertory cinemas, it was somewhat of a trend-setter with regard to the methodology of promoting and presenting midnight shows.

The formula for how to do it consistently had yet to be established in Richmond when a twin bill of so-called "underground" films, “Chafed Elbows” (1966) and “Scorpio Rising” (1964), became the first special late-night attraction the Biograph presented. On April 7, 1972, the show actually started at 11:30 p.m. It was simply called a "late show." 

Then, over our initial year of operation, we came to figure out the sort of pictures that would appeal to the late crowd. So although “The Godfather” (1972) was a critical success and a popular film the year the Biograph opened, it was not the sort of movie that would draw an audience at midnight. On the other hand, “Fritz the Cat” (1972), released the same year — but barely remembered today — was a good draw. When we premiered “El Topo” (1970) during regular hours in the spring of 1973 it flopped. Later as a midnight show it did well.

A 16mm bootleg print of “Animal Crackers” (1930), a Marx Brothers romp that had been out of release for decades, played well at midnight. Some rock ’n’ roll movies worked, others didn’t. Same with thrillers and monster flicks. The most successful midnight shows needed a cachet of something slightly forbidden -- maybe not allowed during regular hours.

In that light, a Marx Brothers title that couldn’t be seen on television or in a standard movie theater had an extra luster. We rented it from a private collector who had a beautiful 16mm print.

We promoted midnight shows with radio spots on WGOE-AM and with handbills posted on utility poles and in shop windows. We relied on little or no newspaper advertising for midnight shows in the early days. We usually didn’t list them in our regular printed programs, which displayed the titles and some film notes for the movies we exhibited during regular hours.

By showing “Animal Crackers,” we may have been bending some sort of copyright laws. But the Fan District wasn’t Manhattan or Malibu, so no one who had any interest in the obscure battle over the rights to an old Marx Brothers feature film was likely to notice.

In the first couple of years of operation we occasionally rented short subjects, old TV shows and even feature films from private collectors who acted as distributors. Some titles were in the public domain, which meant no one actually had the “exclusive rights” to the rent out prints of the movie. “Reefer Madness” (1936) was such a title. Others were like “Animal Crackers,” which, due to a legal dispute, wasn’t in general release.

My bosses at the Biograph in Georgetown and I talked about the propriety of showing bootleg prints of films with murky rights issues several times. I came to agree with them that we weren’t denying the artists, or rightful distributors any money. Instead, they saw it as liberating those films for people to see. Anyway, we didn’t get caught.

A few years later the issues that had kept “Animal Crackers” out of release were resolved. So we booked a nice 35mm print from the proper distributor. It didn’t perform at the box office nearly as well as it had before, when it was forbidden.

When the Biograph started running midnight shows in 1972 the bars in Richmond closed at midnight, so there was a lot less to do at 12:01 a.m. than when the official cutoff time was extended to 2 a.m. in 1976.

Another reason midnight shows caught on when they did was that drive-in theaters, which had done well in the '50s and '60s, were going out of style fast. Some of the low-budget product they had been exhibiting found a new home as late-night entertainment in hardtop theaters. “Mondo Cane” (1962), “Blood Feast” (1963) and “2,000 Maniacs” (1964) all played as Biograph midnight shows. Once into the ’80s that sort of movie began to routinely go straight to video, skipping a theatrical run.

By the time we booked “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” in June of 1978, going to a midnight show was no longer seen as an exotic thing to do in Richmond. Multiplexes in the suburbs ran them all the time. Which ironically made the timing perfect for a kitschy spoof of/tribute to trashy rock ‘n’ roll and monster movies to become the all-time greatest midnight show draw.

The midnight show craze of the ‘70s could only have flourished then, when baby boomers were in their teens and 20s. It came before cable television was widely available and video rental stores had popped up in nearly every neighborhood.

Sometimes, a successful midnight show run came along in the nick of time to pay the Biograph's rent. On the other hand, as a promoter, there were times when I bit off more than I could chew.

On October 22, 1982, a film about a murder spree, “The Honeymoon Killers” (1969), opened as a midnight show. I had seen it somewhere and become convinced it would appeal to the same crowd that loved absurd comedies by Luis Buñuel and Robert Altman. Well, I was dead wrong, because “The Honeymoon Killers” fell flat.

Yet, to this day, I still wonder how it would have been received by Biograph midnight show devotees in our first year or two of operation.

* 

After-Hours Screenings

Still of Jimmy Cliff as Ivan.

In the fall of 1973, David Levy, then the most active managing partner/owner of the Biograph Theatres in Georgetown and Richmond, asked me to look at a film to evaluate its potential. From time to time he did that for various reasons. In this case he had a new 35mm print of “The Harder They Come” shipped to me.

In those days we had frequent after-hours screenings of films we came by, one way or another. Usually on short notice, the word would go out that we would be watching a movie at a certain time. These gatherings were essentially impromptu movie parties. A couple of times it was 1940s and '50s 16mm boxing films from a private collection.

Sometimes prints of films that were in town to play at another venue, say a film society, would mysteriously appear in our booth. In such cases the borrowed flicks were always returned before they were missed ... so I was told.

Although I don’t remember any moments, in particular, from that first screening of “The Harder They Come”, I do recall the gist of my telephone conversation with Levy the next day. After telling him how much I liked the Jamaican movie, he asked me how I would promote it.

Well, I was ready for that question. I had smoked it over thoroughly with a few friends during and after the screening. So, I told David we ought to have a free, open-to-the-public, sneak preview of the movie. Most importantly, we should use radio exclusively to promote the screening. Because of the significance of the radio campaigns for the Biograph's midnight shows, over the last year, he liked the idea right away.

In this time, long before the era of giant corporations owning hundreds of stations, a locally-programmed daytime radio station with a weak signal played a significant role in what success was enjoyed at the Biograph. For a while we had a sweet deal -- a dollar-a-holler -- with WGOE-AM, the most popular station for the under-35 set in the Fan District and environs. In the first half of the 1970s, the station at the top of the dial, 1590, owned the hippie market. 

Subsequently, on a Friday morning in November the DJs at WGOE began reading announcements of a free showing of “The Harder They Come” that would take place at the Biograph that afternoon at 3 p.m. Then they would play a cut by Jimmy Cliff, the film’s star, from the soundtrack. This pattern was continued maybe three times an hour, leading up to the time of the screening.

Note: “The Harder They Come” (1972): 120 minutes. Color. Directed by Perry Henzell; Cast: Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw. In this Jamaican production, Cliff plays Ivan, a pop star/criminal on the lam. The music of Cliff, The Maytals, The Melodians and Desmond Dekker is featured.

Of course, reggae music was being heard in Richmond before our free screening, but it was still on the periphery of popular culture. As I recall, some 300 people showed up for the screening and the movie was extremely well received.

In previous runs in other markets, “The Harder They Come” had been treated more or less as an underground movie. As it was shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for its American distribution, it had a grainy, documentary look to it that added to its allure. Upon hearing about the test-audience's approval, Levy got excited and wanted to book it to run as a regular feature, rather than as a midnight show.

While it didn’t set any records for attendance, “The Harder They Come” did fairly well and returned to play several more dates at the Biograph, at regular hours and as a midnight show. 

Levy became a sub-distributor for “The Harder They Come.” When he rented it to theaters in other cities within his region, he advised them to use the same radio-promoted, free-screening tactic.

In 1973, watching a virtually unknown low-budget Jamaican film after operating hours in the Biograph had seemed edgy, almost exotic. That night we had no idea how popular reggae music was about to become.

Over the next few years reggae music smoothly crossed over from niche to mainstream to ubiquitous. Bob Marley (1945-81) still has a huge following to this day. Reggae's acceptance opened the door for the popularity of the still-fresh fusion sound of the 2 Tone bands, like The Selecter, The Specials, the (English) Beat, Madness, and so forth, in the early-1980s.

Electability?

The more I hear about “electability,” the more it seems to be something like beauty, because it appears to be a quality that lies in the eye of the beholder. 

However, from my experience, we don't always know all that much about presidential candidates' electability until we've seen them on the campaign trail for a while, making speeches, answering tough questions, debating, etc. In other words, watching how they react to pressure.

Issues aside, does being in the spotlight flatter them? Or does it tend to reveal their worst side?

So in late-May of 2019 it's wise for Democrats to refrain from bashing too harshly the 2020 presidential hopefuls with whom they disagree with the most, or the ones they deem to be less electable than their favorite(s). By the end of the summer we'll all have a lot more to go on than we do now, electability-wise. 

After Labor Day, several of the 23 hopefuls will probably have thrown in the towel, or displayed their abundant lack of electability for all to see. Meanwhile, anything that “lies in the eye of the beholder” remains something to consider carefully.

-- Image from 538

What Trump Saw ... Perhaps

In the '80s, when greed was good, Donald Trump, the huckster/developer, saw President Ronald Reagan's popularity and he coveted it.

Watching Reagan, a man who had been a mediocre second banana movie actor charming a gullible nation with his cornball patter, Trump saw tremendous potential that went unexploited.

Trump figured that if Reagan had played his cards differently he could have become the most powerful president, ever – a little king. Already a despot-in-the-making, Trump plotted that he would never piss away such a royal opportunity to cash in.

Three days after 9/11, when Trump, the failed Atlantic City casino mogul, saw President George W. Bush at ground zero in Manhattan wielding that bullhorn, again it happened.

Looking at the potential for unchecked power that Bush II had just gained, Trump saw the opportunity to rule like an emperor … it sparkled and he coveted it.

Nobody knows how many wannabe Trumps are out there watching and thinking they could do it better. Imagining how they would be more aggressive. More powerful. Less afraid to be cruel. Trump, unchained.

A Goddess in the Fan District in 1989

Built by art students, on May 30, 1989, the Goddess of Democracy was erected in Tiananmen Square as a symbol of their call for democratic reforms in China. The gathering protest in Tiananmen Square had begun in mid-April; tension was mounting. Subsequently, on June 4, following orders, the People’s Liberation Army put an end to the demonstration. Mayhem ensued.

Although reports varied widely, hundreds, if not thousands, were killed. Made of chicken wire and plaster the Goddess was destroyed during the brutal routing of the protesters that had remained to the end, in defiance. As the drama played out on television, via satellite, the events shocked the world.

As their art student counterparts in China had been murdered in the shadow of their 33-foot-tall sculpture, in Richmond a group of VCU-affiliated artists heard the call of inspiration to stand with those who had fallen. The impromptu team of the willing and able worked for the next couple of days to give form to their tribute to the courage of those who had perished for the sake of freedom of expression.

While the project was not sponsored by the school, wisely, VCU did nothing to discourage the gesture. Richmond’s Goddess of Democracy (pictured above and below) stood the same height and was made of the same basic materials as the one in China had been. Thirty years ago, facing Main Street, it stood as a memorial for about a month in front of the student center. CNN had a report on it, as did many other news agencies. Its image was on front pages of newspapers all over the world.

The June 16 -30, 1989 issue of SLANT ran a story about building of the Goddess. It included mention of a handbill that I found posted at the site of the VCU memorial. Here's a portion of the text that appeared on that small poster: 

On May 13, 1989, Beijing University students began an occupation of Tiananmen Square to call for democratic reforms and an end to official corruption. The ensuing peaceful and often festive protest drew world attention and gained support from the citizens and workers of Beijing. On Sunday, June 4, at 3:30 [a.m.] Chinese time, troops of the 27th Division of the People’s Liberation Army entered the square with orders to disperse the students. At approximately 6 a.m. these same troops attacked the protestors with automatic weapons, tanks, and bayonets. According to government estimates only 300 students were killed, but local medical estimates put the death toll between 500 and 1,000.

The brutal suppression of unarmed students by a powerful totalitarian government has moved the world’s conscience. Many of the Tiananmen victims were art students who aspired to same basic freedoms which we enjoy daily. As American artists we cannot overlook, and we must never forget, the suffering and sacrifice of our brothers and sisters in Beijing. Their peaceful struggle was a cry for human rights everywhere, and their symbol, the Goddess of Democracy, was the highest artistic tribute they could pay to humanity’s noblest ideal -- freedom.

The little placards on sticks that surrounded the sculpture (see the photos) were added a few days after the Goddess was completed. As far as I know, nobody made a penny out of it. 

Thinking back on it this episode was also a good illustration of how the traditional left and right, liberal and conservative, characterizations of all things political don’t always do justice to the truth of a situation. Like, was the stubborn and heavy-handed Chinese government standing to the right, or to the left, of the upstart students calling for reform?

When communists are the conservatives clinging to the old way, how does that play out on a spectrum of left-to-right thinking? It seems authoritarian regimes are what they are, regardless of how else they wish to be viewed.

The Goddess of Democracy on VCU’s campus in the spring of 1989 was the most successful piece of guerilla art this scribbler can remember having seen firsthand.

-- Photos by F.T. Rea

Time-Warping, Again

by F.T. Rea

Intro:

In 1955 RKO, which had just changed hands, became the first major Hollywood studio to sell the exhibition rights to its library of feature films to television. Consequently, my early baby boomer generation grew up watching that studio's well-crafted black and white movies on TV. RKO plays a cameo role, of a sort, in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975).

That particular campy send-up of old science fiction and monster flicks is by far the most significant midnight show attraction of all-time. As such, it needs its own chapter in a proper chronicle of the times at the Biograph Theatre in Richmond, Virginia – a repertory cinema I managed from its opening in early-1972 until mid-1983.

 This photo of Larry Rohr riding up the aisle during a 
midnight screening of the "The Rocky Horror 
Picture Show" was shot on Mar. 1, 1980. 

At Midnight Only: 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' 

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was adapted from the British kitsch-celebrating, gender-bending stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Show.” The film version was released by 20th Century Fox in September of 1975.

The play was written in the early-1970s; it opened in London in 1973. Its thin plot cashed in on the time's freedom to pursue pleasure, expressed plainly by the hippies' liberating trope – “if it feels good, do it.”

Yet, to Fox's distribution department in 1975, the movie was weird in a way that made it difficult to pigeonhole, marketing-wise. Which couldn't have helped in the promotion for its early first-run engagements, which were disappointing at the box office. That eventually prompted Fox to give up and take it out of release.

While “Rocky Horror,” the film, became popular during what might now be seen as the punk era, it wasn't really connected to the aesthetic of punk's defiant nonchalance. Style-wise, its music, written by the play's author, Richard O'Brien, was sort of a bubble-gum knockoff of early rock 'n' roll, fused with a measure of glam rock.

Overall, as pop music goes, the songs probably didn't expand any boundaries. Nonetheless, in the context of the movie the music had it own charm.

As a movie musical, "Rocky Horror" was surely no worse than a good deal of the Hollywood musicals of the 1950s and '60s. Anyway, it didn't please critics all that much, either. So when Fox put it on the shelf, no one could have anticipated the one-of-a-kind cult following it would eventually gather as a midnight show.

Note: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: 100 minutes. Color. Directed by Jim Sharman (who had also directed the play). Cast: Tim Curry (as Dr. Frank-N-Furter), Susan Sarandon (as Janet), Barry Bostwick (as Brad), Richard O'Brien (as Riff Raff), Patricia Quinn (as Magenta), Nell Campbell (as Columbia), Meat Loaf (as Eddie), Peter Hinwood (as Rocky).

About a year after its original release the second life for “Rocky Horror” is said to have begun at the legendary Waverly Theater (now the IFC Center) in Greenwich Village. At midnight screenings a few audience members began calling out sarcastic comeback lines to the film's action and dialogue. The funniest remarks were appreciated, imitated, then eventually topped by an attendee at a subsequent screening.

Thus, it wasn't originally some adman's brainchild. It just happened.

It should also be noted that midnight shows had been popular in New York City since the late-'60s. As well, they had been running at cinemas in other cities and some college towns for a good five years or more. Basically, if a midnight screening went well, it would be held over to the next weekend, which was a departure from calendar house programming. So the midnight show format had already been developed and was well established when “Rocky Horror” came along.

In the Richmond Biograph's first couple of years of operation midnight show screenings frequently helped keep the lights on. Some of the midnight show features that were popular enough to run for multiple weekends then were: “Performance” (1970); “Reefer Madness” (1936); “Deep Throat” (1972) w/ “The Andalusian Dog” (1929); “Night of the Living Dead” (1968); “El Topo” (1970); “Putney Swope” (1969); “Magical Mystery Tour” (1967). They were promoted using handbills (small posters) and radio spots on WGOE-AM.

During 1977 at the Waverly the role the audience played in the midnight shows enlarged to make the screenings into events with costumes and choreography, as the traditional wall between the screen and the viewers continued dissolving. When that unprecedented interaction phenomenon jumped from Manhattan to other markets where “Rocky Horror” was playing as a midnight show, such as Austin and Los Angeles, it became even more puzzling.

By the winter of 1977/78 “Rocky Horror” was playing to enthusiastic crowds in several cities. Yet, curiously, it had not caught on at others. What would eventually become a popular culture marvel was still flying below the radar for most of America.

As the spring of '78 approached, Alan Rubin, one of my two bosses at the Biograph in Georgetown, asked Fox once again about booking it for Richmond's Biograph. It was already playing at the rival Key Theatre in Georgetown, because Rubin's ex-partner, David Levy, had beaten him to the punch. But Alan was told there still weren't any prints available.

Then, during a trip to Los Angles in May, I heard about the elaborate goings-on at the Tiffany Theatre to do with “Rocky Horror.” Upon my return to Richmond I told Alan and his partner, Lenny Poryles, what I'd learned about its growing popularity in LA. Subsequently, during a conference call with one of the guys at Fox, Alan, Lenny and I were told there was just no enthusiasm at his end for the picture’s prospects in Richmond.

To be fair, in those days Richmond was generally seen by most movie distributors as a weak market – not a place to waste resources. Besides, no one at Fox seemed to understand why the audience participation following for the picture had blossomed in the first place, or more importantly – what was making the movie's cult following catch on in some cities, but not at all in others. So they were holding off on ordering any new prints. Which meant there was no telling how long we might have to wait. It does seem funny now to recall how unconvinced the Fox folks were they had something that was new and old rules didn't apply.

Alan, Lenny and I continued our telephone conversation after the distributor's representative got off the line. That led us to agreeing to a plan: We would offer to front the cost of a new 35mm print, some $5,000, as I remember it, which would stand as an advance against standard film rental fees. There were two provisos: 1. The Biograph would continue hold the exclusive rights to exhibit “Rocky Horror” in the Richmond market as long as we held onto that print. 2. That I would promote it as I saw fit, creating my own materials, rather than rely on Fox's standard press kit stuff (which I was accustomed to doing when situations called for it).

When we called the Fox distributor's office back, it went smoothly. With nothing to lose, they went for the deal. After all, if anything, the Biograph had earned a reputation for being a good venue for midnight shows.

Next, for research, I questioned a couple of publicity people at Fox a little more about how it had been promoted in various situations. Strangely, there was no consensus about what had prompted the successes or failures. However, Fox had encouraged a few exhibitors to call for attendees who would recite certain lines and dance in the aisles, etc. But when they tried to prime the pump in that way it hadn't worked.

After viewing the film, I decided it would be better not to over-promote it. That way there would be less risk of drawing the sort of general audience which might include too many unsatisfied customers – folks who might leave the theater bad-mouthing it. My strategy called for first getting the attention of the kids who had already been seeing “Rocky Horror” screenings at the Waverly or the Key, as well as a few of the most determined of local taste-makers who must see anything edgy first, so they can opine about it.

Accordingly, at WGOE's studio I produced a radio commercial using about 20 seconds of the film's signature song, “Time Warp.” The only ad copy came at the very end with a tag line. The listener heard my voice say, “Get in the act … midnight at the Biograph.”

There was no explanation of what the music was, or what the 30-second spot was even about. At that time the soundtrack for “Rocky Horror” still hadn't become all that well known. The hook was that the spot didn't offer listeners as much information as they expected, which hopefully added somewhat to its underground allure. The same less-is-more approach was used in the print materials.

The Floor Show

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opened in Richmond on June 30, 1978. It drew a decent crowd, but it was well short of a sell-out. Some of those who attended did occasionally call out wisecrack lines. Most did not. As I recall, a handful of people dressed up in costumes. As hoped, over the next few weeks a following for “Rocky Horror” steadily grew, as did the audience participation.

At the center of that following was a troupe that became the regulars who turned midnight screenings into performance-art adventures. John Porter, a VCU theater major, emerged as the leader of that group; they called themselves the Floor Show. Outfitted in his Frank-N-Furter get-up, Porter missed few, if any, midnight screenings for the next couple of years.

Plenty of crazy things happened in dealing with the “Rocky Horror” audience twice a week. There was the Saturday night an entire full house was thrown out, because some bare-chested roughnecks had run amuck. They were hosing down the crowd, using our fire extinguishers. Fights were underway. So after a stern warning from me to the crowd, to stop-or-else did no good, I pulled the plug. One by one, they all got their money back.

Interestingly, after that night we never had much trouble with violence to do with “Rocky Horror” again. The Floor Show kids helped to monitor the situation, to make it uncool to go too far. Porter’s leadership was a key to keeping it fun, but not out of control. For his part, John was given a lifetime pass to the Biograph.

There was no stranger episode than the night a man breathed his last, as he sat in the small auditorium (Theatre No. 2) watching “F.I.S.T” (1978). Yes, that lame Sylvester Stallone vehicle was hard to watch, but who knew it could be lethal?

Sitting upright in an aisle seat the dead man’s expressionless face offered no clues to his final thoughts. His eyes were open. He was about 30, which was my age.

The rescue squad guys jerked him out of his seat and threw him onto the floor. As jolts of electricity shot through the dead man’s body, down in Theater No. 1 “Rocky Horror” was on the Biograph’s larger screen delighting the audience. Walking back and forth between the two auditoriums, absorbing the bizarre juxtaposition of those scenes in the same building, was a strange trip, to say the least.

A brief item about the death appeared in the newspaper. It said he had been in bad health. Don't remember his name.

Looking on the bright side, after six-and-a-half years of showing screwball comedies, French New Wave films, rock 'n' roll movies, film noirs, and so forth, the Biograph had earned the chance to have what any theater needs to become fully-fledged – a ghost.

Chasing Dignity

On one of those busy nights early in the run of “Rocky Horror (I can't be sure of the date) a battle broke out in the middle of West Grace Street in front of the theater. Rocks, bottles and whatnot were flying back and forth between two factions of young men. Both squads consisted of four or five participants.

As I later discovered, the fight was between members of a VCU fraternity and an Oregon Hill crew. The most alarming angle of the fraught incident was that it was unfolding a perilous 30 yards from the Cinemascopic, all-glass front of the Biograph. Yikes!

The box office had just closed and the cashier was in the midst of count-up duties. At the same time a small group of friends was in the lobby. Some of them were my Biograph Swordfish softball teammates. A few of us were playing a pinball machine. As the manager of the theater I felt obliged to fend off the danger. Accordingly, I asked the cashier to call the cops and opened one of the twin exit doors, to step onto the sidewalk and yell at the kids.

In so many words I told them to scram. As an incentive I mentioned the cops were already on the way. That was good enough for the frat-boy team. They scampered off.

Meanwhile, rather than pursue their enemies the Oregon Hill gang simply switched over to aiming their missiles at me. A rock hit the curb. A tumbling bottle shattered on the sidewalk, which prompted me to duck back inside.

A second or two later an incoming piece of red brick crashed through the door's lowest glass panel. It struck my right shin. That particular moment of this story stands out sharply in my memory.

There were seven, maybe eight men running in the impromptu posse of employees and pinball players that went after the scattering hooligans. However, my focus was totally on the guy who had plunked me. I chased him as he headed west. Suddenly hemmed in by three of us in a public parking lot at the intersection of Shafer and Grace, he faked one way, then cut to the other.

When his traction gave way in the gravel paving he stumbled to regain his balance. That was when I tackled him by the legs. The others in his group got away.

With some help from my friends – two of them held his arms – we marched the brick-thrower back toward the theater. During that trek I suppose there was some conversation. Don't recall any of what was said, but something the captured culprit said as we passed Grace Place (an excellent vegetarian restaurant) provoked one guy in my group to punch him in the jaw without warning.

One of the policemen in the assembled group of cops in front of the theater sarcastically complimented the puncher for his prisoner-escorting “technique.” Shortly thereafter the punchee was hauled off in the paddy wagon. Back in the lobby I told the puncher he had overreached in hitting the kid unnecessarily, especially while he was helpless.

Caught off-guard by my reaction, my softball teammate laughed. He disagreed, saying essentially that his summary punishment would likely be the only price the guy would ever pay for his assault. Another in the group quickly agreed with him. Others saw it my way, or said nothing.

Then we probably resumed the ongoing pinball game. More importantly, it's quite likely I went across the lobby to the theater's refrigerator in a closet and pulled out enough cans of cold beer to say, “thank you” to each member of the posse.

They had helped protect the Biograph from a menace. And, yes, it was satisfying to have at least caught the one who had just bloodied my shin.

It wasn’t long after that night I found myself poring over a 1931 essay by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Echoes of the Jazz Age.” Here is the last paragraph of that evocative piece:

“…Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth. Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that swings me back into the early twenties when we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better, and there was a first abortive shortening of the skirts, and girls all looked alike in sweater dresses, and people you didn’t want to know said ‘Yes, we have no bananas,’ and it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were — and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more.”

During that reading, seated at my desk in the theater's office, it hit me that the shattering of the Biograph's glass door had been the sound to accompany the hippie era ending. Its trends, causes and distinctive styles had arrived in the late-'60s and they soon would be seen as nostalgia. In some ways the hippie decade had been similar to the Roaring ’20s.

Moreover, the peace-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment elements of my generation hadn't changed the world all that much in enduring ways. Ending the Vietnam War and getting rid of Nixon just hadn't solved as many problems as our slogans had promised.

In the summer of '78, it was also time to admit to myself the neighborhood surrounding the Biograph was getting meaner. Which made little sense, even at the time, since it was adjacent to VCU's burgeoning academic campus. Still, for whatever reason the university didn't seem to care then, or for years after this.

A month later, in the General District Court I agreed to a proposal to drop the assault charge, provided the brick-thrower was convicted of a misdemeanor for breaking the glass and that he would reimburse us for the cost of the repairs. A payment schedule was set up.

As we spoke several times after that day in court I came to see the 19-year-old “hooligan” wasn’t really such a bad guy. His payments were made on a timely basis. With his last payment he asked for the name of the man who’d punched him.

While withholding the name, I agreed with him that regardless of my friend's intentions his adrenaline-fueled punch had mostly been a cheap shot. With the money aspect of the debt paid, we shook hands.

Debt and Irony

About a year later, during a Wednesday matinee the Biograph cashier, Gussie Armeniox, was counting a stack of one dollar bills when an opportunistic thief snatched them from her hands. Although I was only a few feet away, behind the candy counter in the lobby, my back was turned. When I looked around, it was alarming to see the robber bolting out the front door. Gussie's wide-eyed, frightened look was unforgettable. It boosted the intensity of the sense of violation.

As I got to the sidewalk the thief was already a half-a-block away. Nonetheless, in spite of his foot speed it turned out he wasn't so good at avoiding capture. Instead of just running to the west, to put plenty of distance between us, he ducked between the buildings, trying to hide. He did it a couple of times, then, when I would find him and get close, he'd take off again.

During the chasing and searching I received some unexpected help from a total stranger. A young man slammed on his brakes and jumped out of his pickup truck. After that reinforcement it took less than five minutes to corner the thief in the men's room of a fast food restaurant. By then a policeman in a cruiser had showed up. Fortunately, that meant I didn't have to go into that men's room to drag the perpetrator out. The cops did it for me.

Of course, I thanked the volunteer and asked him why he’d stopped to help out. He told me he knew I was the Biograph’s manager, because a buddy of his had recently pointed me out to him. His friend?

It was the same Oregon Hill street-fighter I’d tackled a year before. My assistant thief-chaser said his friend told him the story about the broken glass and the assault charge being dropped. Then he said I'd dealt fairly with him. Consequently, a favor was owed to me.

Before he got back in his truck, my collaborator said that in his neighborhood the guys tend to stick together. Thus, he had supported me in my time of need, because of his friend’s debt. I was grateful and flabbergasted.

It now seems to me the sort of obligation he felt and acted upon has been evaporating out of the culture for some time, maybe since the time of this chase scene. The thief turned out to be a repeat offender, so the judge gave him six months for stealing 37 dollar bills.

Looking back on this story what connects those two chase scenes has become increasingly more satisfying. No doubt, that’s partly because in dealing with bad luck and other ordinary tests of character, too many times I’ve done nothing to brag about – even the wrong thing.

Maybe in this two-part adventure I came close to getting it right. In my view, both chases had something to do with pursuing justice and preserving something. Dignity perhaps.

The Exploding Motorcycle

On Friday, March 1, 1980, with its 88th consecutive week, “Rocky Horror” established a new record for longevity in Richmond. It broke the record of 87 weeks, established by “The Sound of Music” (1965), during its first-run engagement at the Willow Lawn Theater.

To celebrate Porter and I dressed in tuxedos to stand before the full house. He held up a “Sound of Music” soundtrack album and I smashed it with a hammer. It went over quite well.

The record-breaking ceremony prior to the screening.

In a nice touch to underline the special night‘s theme, a couple of the regulars came dressed as Julie Andrews. The late Carole Kass, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s sweetheart of a entertainment writer/movie critic, wrote up a nice feature on what was basically hokum.

That same night Larry Rohr rode his motorcycle through the auditorium’s aisles at the point in the movie when Meat Loaf’s character in the film, Eddie, rides his motorcycle. Rohr’s careful but noisy rides happened only on a few special occasions, such as the record-breaking night. Fortunately, nothing bad ever happened.

A few months later, I had a dream that the motorcycle exploded and blew the roof off of the theater. The nightmare scared me so much the motorcycle rides were discontinued. Anyway, that's what I told people about why we stopped. Yes, now it seems crazy as hell that I ever facilitated such risky shenanigans. Maybe I was somewhat carried away by the aforementioned wide-open permission that went along with the '70s.

With no more motorcycle rides, various Floor Show members sometimes rode a tricycle up and down the aisles. The way members of that group adapted playfully to whatever was said or done in previous weeks was an integral aspect of the fun. They were like players in a story that had new chapters being written for it, on the fly, each weekend.

However, while “Rocky Horror” had an underground cachet in the first year, even the second, eventually its status began to go sour. That was especially so in the eyes of the staff and Biograph regulars who hung out there. The rice, toast and all sorts of other stuff that got tossed around had to be cleaned up each and every time by the grumbling janitors, who naturally grew to detest the movie. To keep the peace they got “Rocky Horror” bonuses — a few extra bucks for their weekend shifts.

Once into the winter of 1980/81 the turnout for the screenings of “Rocky Horror” began a gradual withering. By then many of the originals had stopped coming every weekend. Much of the audience seemed to be made up of sightseers from the suburbs. The fast crowd in the artsy, black leather jacket scene were ignoring it, although the movie was still doing enough business to justify holding onto that original print.

In the summer of 1982 “Rocky Horror” celebrated its fourth anniversary at the Biograph. That same summer, for Program No. 60, I booked a six-week festival offering 12 RKO double features.

The Biograph's record-setting midnight show run of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” ended on June 25, 1983. Although it had helped pay the rent ($3,000 a month), no one was happier to see that well-used 35mm print shipped out than those of us who had lived warped by the “Rocky Horror” experience for five years.

Outro:

In the Biograph lobby I always got a kick out of listening to enthusiastic new film buffs tell me why the old movie he or she had just watched was cool. Still cool! Of course, in agreeing with them I was just doing my job. Anywhere, any time, stimulating a greater appreciation of good films made in previous times was an important aspect of the manager's duties. I've never gotten over it.

Speaking of time warps, here are the titles for that 1982 RKO fest, listed in the order in which they played: “Top Hat” (1935) and “Damsel in Distress” (1936); “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939) and “The Informer” (1935); “King Kong” (1933) and “Mighty Joe Young” (1949); “Suspicion” (1941) and “They Live By Night” (1948); “Sylvia Scarlett” (1936) and “Mister Blandings Builds His Dream House” (1948); “Murder My Sweet” (1945) and “Macao” (1952); “The Mexican Spitfire” (1939) and “Room Service” (1938); “Journey Into Fear” (1942) and “This Land Is Mine” (1943); “The Thing” (1951) and “Cat People” (1942); “The Boy With Green Hair” (1948) and “Woman on the Beach” (1947); “Citizen Kane” (1941) and “Fort Apache” (1948); “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944) and “The Body Snatcher” (1945).

--  Photos by Ernie Brooks

– 30 –

The Power of Repetition

We expect the lights to come on when we flick on the wall switch. With usually brief weather-related exceptions, we've learned that's a reasonable expectation in Richmond, Virginia. We've been conditioned by repetition.

Upon seeing anything happen in the same way, time after time, naturally we tend to expect the pattern to continue. For the sake of keeping order we generally rely upon those patterns.

Lock her up!

When we watch college basketball games on television, we expect timeouts to interrupt the live action approximately every four minutes. Then we expect a series of commercials to play out during the break. The same goes for between innings of Major League Baseball games. Experience has conditioned fans of such sports to expect those predictable breaks, chock-full of ads, to last long enough to replenish game-watching supplies from the kitchen without missing a second of the game.

Well, some folks like to argue about how much influence such repetition has on any one individual, but the advertising industry knows that repetition is money in the bank. The repetition of logos, slogans, jingles, claims, etc., aimed at the target audience, sells the ad agencies' clients' products. There's no doubt whatsoever about that. With repetition comes normalization.

No collusion!

Speaking of normalization, give a thought to how many television programs most of us have watched, including movies, that have featured stories with con artists as the charming protagonists. No need to name a list of them, we've all rooted for the scamming rouges to get away with it too many times to count.

My angle here is that in the marketplace of ideas, the repeated words and images have a decided advantage. The significance of repetition in advertising was taught to me by a man named Lee Jackoway. He was a master salesman, veteran broadcaster, and my boss at WRNL-AM in 1971.

Lock her up!

One day Jackoway found me struggling with the writing of some copy for a radio commercial. At the time he asked me a few questions and let it go. But later, in front of a group of salesmen and disc jockeys, Jackoway explained to his audience why what I was doing was wrong. Basically, he said that instead of stretching to write good copy, the real effort should be focused on selling the client more time, so the ad spot would get additional exposure.

Essentially, Jackoway told us to forget about trying to be the next Stan Freeberg. Forget about cute copy and far-flung schemes. What matters is results. If you know the target audience and you have the right vehicle to reach it, then all you have to do is saturate that audience with repetition. If you hit that target often enough, the results are predictable.

No collusion!

Jackoway told us most of the large money spent on production went to satisfying the ego of the client, or to promoting the ad agency’s creativity. While he might have oversimplified the way ad biz works to make his point, my experience with media has brought me to the same bottom line: When all else fails, saturation works.

Take it from me, dear reader, it doesn’t matter how much you think you’re ignoring the commercials that are beamed your way; more often than not repetition bores the message into your head. Ask the average self-absorbed consumer why he chooses a particular motor oil or breakfast cereal, and chances are he’ll claim the thousands of commercials he paid no heed had nothing to do with his choices.

Lock her up!

Meanwhile, good old Lee Jackoway knew that same chump is pouring Pennzoil on his Frosted Flakes because he has been influenced by aggressive advertising all day long, every day.

OK, if repetition works so well in television’s advertising, why would repetition fail to sell whatever messages stem from the rest of its fare? Television has taught many of its viewers that guns will solve problems. Think of how many shootings of threatening bad men the average American has watched on TV.

No collusion!

So why wouldn't a president's words repeated, ad nauseam, brainwash his devoted fans, like Pavlov's dogs. They have come to expect the repetition of slogans and are comforted by them.

Thus, for Democrats to now try to unwash all the brains that have been saturated by Trump's repeated phrases and folderol is mostly a waste of time. Moreover, arguing with one of his trained lap dogs at happy hour or on Facebook just won't hasten Trump's departure from the White House. Democrats simply need to focus on efforts aimed at turning out the vote.

Lock her up!

Woof! 

-- 30 --

The Birth of the Blockbuster: Or How Margot Kidder Made My Day

The movie business changed during the summer of 1975, which was my fourth summertime serving as manager of the Biograph Theatre in Richmond. As it happened a new style of creating, promoting and exhibiting feature films was minted when “Jaws” opened on June 20 on 465 screens and became a box office smash.

In those days major releases typically opened in the most popular movie houses in a handful of large cities. It was simply the way it had always been done and that meant the advertising buys were all local. 

So the unprecedented marketing strategy for “Jaws” required enormous confidence in the new scheme. Its distributor, Universal, not only had to spend millions on national advertising, it also had to strike enough prints of the film to serve all of the theaters playing the film in simultaneous runs. Before the summer was over "Jaws” had already broken some all-time Hollywood box office records. 

Washington D.C. was a regional hub for film distribution. Part of the strategy for releasing “Jaws” was that Universal chose not to screen the film for booking agents and exhibitors in the usual way.

Ordinarily, a feature about to be released would be shown a couple of times in a small screening room downtown. Run by the National Association of Theater Owners, it seated about 50 people. Bookers for theater chains would see the new films to help them weigh how much money should be bid, if any, for the rights to exhibit the picture in a given market. But security on admission wasn't tight, so any industry insider, entertainment writer, etc. might have been in the audience on a given day.

My bosses were located in Georgetown and I saw several movies in the D.C. screening room over the nearly-12 years I worked for the guys who oversaw the Biograph on "M" Street.

The prior-to-premiere screenings of “Jaws” took place a few weeks before it was to open. It was shown to theater owners and their guests in selected cinemas in maybe a dozen cities. As I remember it, the screenings were all on the same night. 

As a treat my bosses gave me four of their allotment of tickets to the special screening of “Jaws” at the old Ontario in DC. My ex, Valerie, and I were part of a full house; the show itself went over like gangbusters. The audience shrieked at appropriate times and applauded as the movie’s closing credits were lighting up the screen.

Not only was I knocked out by the presentation, I came back to Richmond convinced “Jaws” would be a gold mine. It was the slickest monster movie I’d even seen. The next day, still caught up in that mania, I tried to talk my bosses into borrowing a lot of money to support a bid on “Jaws” that would include a substantial cash advance.

That summer I wanted to bet everything we could borrow to out-bid Neighborhood Theatres for the Richmond market. I even convinced a neighborhood branch bank manager to try to help us borrow the dough. 

Well, we didn’t get the money, but it was privately satisfying upon seeing that “Jaws” went on to set new records for its box office grosses. Its unprecedented success put its director, Steven Spielberg, on the map.

After “Jaws” Hollywood hustlers aplenty rushed out to try to duplicate the formula its producers and distributors had used. Thus, in 1975, the age of summer blockbusters with massive ad campaigns and widespread releases began.

Another thing “Jaws” did was make young men who were sometimes too self-absorbed feel intimidated by Spielberg’s outrageous success at such a tender age. I can still remember reading that he was younger than me.

Although I had a great job for a 27-year-old movie-lover who liked to work without a lot of supervision, it offered no direct connection to filmmaking. At this time I had one nine-minute film and one animated sequence in a 30-second television commercial, both shot in 16mm, to my credit. 1975’s Boy Wonder, Steven Spielberg, made me feel like I was on the wrong track. That might have been the first time I gave much thought to how and when to leave the Biograph. 

Fast-forward 34 years to when I watched a BBC-produced documentary, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood,” about filmmaking in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Directors and other players from that time were interviewed. Made in 2003, it was thoroughly entertaining. I saw it on Turner Classic Movies in 2009.

Among those who made comments in the documentary were Tony Bill, Karen Black, Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, László Kovács, Kris Kristofferson, Arthur Penn and Cybill Shepherd.

Dreyfuss, who was one of the stars of "Jaws," spoke of attending one of those pre-release screenings. He said he got caught up in the experience of seeing it for the first time in a crowded theater; he totally forgot himself as the actor on the screen. 

Actress Margot Kidder (best known for her Lois Lane portrayals in the Superman series of movies and who died today) appeared on camera several times. She made a joke out of how Spielberg had begun to fib about his age, once he became famous. She had known him before his sudden notoriety, so she noticed it when he went from being older than her to being younger. Kidder claimed Spielberg was fudging his birth date by a couple of years. 

Well, flashing back on my absurd jealousy to do with Spielberg’s rise to stardom, when he was supposedly younger than me, I had to laugh out loud. Then I looked up Spielberg’s age; he’s older than both Margot (who has since died) and me.

So, I searched for more on the age-change and found some old articles about “Jaws” and Spielberg. Yes, it looks like Kidder was right. Back in the ‘70s, perhaps to play up the Boy Wonder aspect of the story, Spielberg’s birth date was being massaged. Somewhere along the line, since then, it looks like it got straightened out.

Laughing at one’s own foolishness is usually a healthy exercise. Yes, and when the laugh had been waiting over three decades to be realized, it was all the sweeter.

After all, nothing has ever been more integral to Hollywood’s special way of doing business -- before or after “Jaws” -- than making up fibs, especially about one’s age.

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