BIOGRAPH TIMES: Part One: Repertory Cinema

 Part One 

by F.T. Rea

Note: The art above depicts the way the Biograph Theatre's marquee looked on June, 28, 1974, when Roman Polanski's masterpiece, "Chinatown," premiered in Richmond. The art displayed, I did from memory 30-some years later.    

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Comment from Rebus  

Rea started getting Biograph paychecks about two-and-a-half months before the theater opened. During that time there were lots of things for him to do, all while the original construction of the building was still underway and the equipment was being installed. 

Among his most important managerial duties prior to the opening was hiring the staff, all except for the projectionists who were furnished by the local union at that time. The original full-time operator in the booth was Howard Powers. The first part-time, relief projectionist was Gary Fisher. 

The first person Rea hired was Chuck Wrenn, who started out as an usher. When Wrenn was promoted a few weeks after the place opened, he then became the Biograph's first assistant manager. Of the many personnel decisions Rea made, during his nearly 12 years as manager, there wasn't one any better than deciding to hire Wrenn.  

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Chapter One: Repertory Cinema

On what I remember as a bright morning, it was in early July of 1971, I went to a construction site on the north side of the 800 block of West Grace Street. Mostly, it was a big hole in the orange dirt between two old brick houses.

A friend had tipped me off that she’d been told the owners of the movie house set to rise from that hole in the ground were looking for a manager who knew something about movies and could write about them. She also said they were hoping to hire a local guy. Chasing the sparkle of that opportunity I met David Levy at the construction site.

Levy was the Harvard-trained attorney who managed the Biograph Theatre at 2819 "M" Street in Washington. D.C. He was one of a group of five men who, in 1967, had opened Georgetown’s Biograph in an old building that had previously been a car dealership. Although none of them had any experience in show biz, they were hip young movie lovers whose timing had been impeccable -- they caught a pop culture wave. 

The golden age of repertory cinema was waxing and they happened to be living in what was the perfect cosmopolitan  metropolis for their venture. They did well right from the start. With their success in D.C. to encourage them, a few years later the same five, plus one, looked to expand. In Richmond’s Fan District they thought they had found the right neighborhood for a second repertory-style cinema. 

A pair of local players, energy magnate Morgan Massey and real estate deal-maker Graham “Squirrel” Pembroke, acquired the land. They agreed to construct a cinder block building to house a basic single-auditorium cinema, just a stone’s throw from Virginia Commonwealth University’s academic campus for the young entrepreneurs from D.C. to rent ($3,000 a month). The "boys in D.C." then had to acquire and install the projection booth equipment, the turnstile (we used tokens, rather than tickets) and the seats, some 515 of them. 

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At the time I was working for a radio station, WRNL, so I gave Levy a few tapes of some lighthearted radio commercials I had made for what had been successful promotions. About 10 weeks after that first meeting with Levy I was offered the manager’s position for the new Biograph. Can't recall all that much about that day, except I was told I beat out a lot of competition. 

Oddly, what I do remember clearly is a brief flash of me sitting in my living room, trying to act nonchalant, so as to not to reveal just how thrilled I was at getting that offer. At 23-years-old, I could hardly have imagined a better job for me existed. At least not in the Fan District, the neighborhood in which I then lived with my wife, Valerie, and 21-month old daughter, Katey.  

This all happened three years after Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia merged to become Virginia Commonwealth University in 1968. However, in the fall of 1971, other than the school's new James Cabell Branch Library, which opened in 1970, there were few visible signs of the dramatic impact the new university would eventually have on Richmond's landscape. 

Although a couple of film societies at VCU were active on campus at that time, other than local film critic Carole Kass' History of Motion Pictures class, the school, itself, was offering little in the way of classes about movies or filmmaking. There were a few cool VCU professors who showed artsy short films and occasional features in their classes. 

Mostly, independent and foreign features just didn’t come to Richmond, pre-Biograph. The dominant movie theater chain, Neighborhood Theatres, would run a half-dozen, or so, European films a year. Thus, in 1971, the coming of the Biograph Theatre to West Grace Street was great news to local film buffs. Generally speaking, it was also seen as another positive sign the neighborhood's nightlife scene was becoming more attractive to the hip young adult market. 

Levy and I got along well. We saw eye-to-eye right away and became friends who trusted one another. He and his partners were all about 10 years my senior. 

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Comment from Rebus:   

Rea's manager’s job was good to him and lasted until 1983. For reasons he will explain in a subsequent chapter, Rea became overwhelmed by the urge to leave the Biograph that summer. So he did.  

In December of 1987, owing to unpaid rent, Grace Street’s Biograph building was seized by Graham Pembroke and the locks were changed. It stayed locked down until 1992. A hundred miles to the north, the Biograph on "M" Street went dark in 1996. A drug store moved into the space.

Today there’s a noodles eatery in the same location that once housed the repertory cinema these stories are about. Now it’s the oldest building on what is truly a storied block -- a block of Grace that has received a complete makeover in the new millennium. Its shops and eateries in the front rooms of brick town houses look of the 1960s/'70s has faded into the mists. 

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On the evening of Friday, February 11, 1972, the Biograph adventure got off the ground with a gem of a party. In the lobby the dry champagne flowed steadily, as the tuxedo-wearers and colorfully outfitted hippies mingled happily. 

A trendy art show was hanging all over the walls. The local press was out in force to cover what was an important event for that little commercial strip in the northeast edge of Richmond's Fan District. The feature we presented to over 300 invited guests was a delightful French war-mocking comedy — “King of Hearts” (1966); Genevieve Bujold was dazzling opposite the droll Alan Bates. 

In the wake of news stories about the party celebrating the Biograph's arrival, the next night we opened for business with a pretty cool double feature: “King of Hearts“ was paired with “A Thousand Clowns“ (1965). Every show sold out. 

On the opening night's staff were: cashiers Cathy Chapman and Susan Eskey; ushers Bernie Hall and Chuck Wrenn. A few weeks later Susan Kuney was hired as a third cashier and for the first few months that team smiled and sold the tokens for entry through the turnstile and the buckets of popcorn (slathered with a butter-like product). 

The Biograph’s printed schedule, Program No. 1, was heavy on documentaries; it featured the work of Emile de Antonio and D.A. Pennebaker, among others. Also on that first program, which had no particular theme, were several titles by popular European directors, including Michaelangelo Antonioni, Costa-Gavras, Federico Fellini, and Roman Polanski. Like this first edition, each of the next several published programs covered about six weeks and offered mostly double features.

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In reading everything I could find about which movies were well-respected and popular in art houses, especially in New York and San Francisco, it was easy to gather that the in-crowd viewed most of Hollywood’s then-current product as either laughingly naïve or hopelessly corrupted by the system. The fashion of the day elevated certain foreign movies, selected American classics, a few films from the underground scene, etc., to a level above most of their more accessible Hollywood counterparts. 

In 1972, perhaps the most admired of all foreign films were those considered to be part of the French New Wave, which began in the late-'50s. Features made by Louis Malle, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard set the pace. Yet, what my first year on the job eventually taught me was how few people in Richmond at that time really cared all that much about seeing such films.

After the opening flurry of interest in the new movie theater, with long lines to nearly every show, it was surprising to me when the crowds shrank dramatically in the months that followed. Among other things, that suggested to me how important the publicity running up to the Biograph's opening had been.

As VCU students had been a substantial portion of the theater’s initial crowd the slump was chalked off by the owners to pretty weather, exams and then summer vacation. In that context, the first summer of operation was opened to experimentation aimed at drawing more customers from beyond the immediate neighborhood. 

That plan gave me an opportunity to do more with a project my bosses had put me in charge of developing, Friday and Saturday midnight shows -- using radio in particular to promote them. By trial and error Chuck and I learned what sort of movies that lent themselves to attention-getting promotion performed well at the box office. 

Early midnight show successes were “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Yellow Submarine” (1968), “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” (1971), and an underground twin bill of “Chafed Elbows” (1967) and “Scorpio Rising” (1964). No need to dwell on tailures in the midnight show experiment.

The third member of the promotion team was Dave DeWitt, who produced the radio commercials. We happily shared the copy-writing chore. We discovered there were two basic and essential elements to midnight show promotions: 

1. Wacky radio spots had to be created and run on WGOE, a popular daytime AM station aimed directly at the hippie listening audience. 

2. I created cartoonish handbills/flyers that were posted on utility poles, bulletin boards and in shop windows in high-traffic locations. Both elements had to show a sense of humor. 

In his studio, Dave and I frequently collaborated on the making of those spots with an ample supply of cold Pabst Blue Ribbons and whatnot. Most of the time we went for levity, even cheap laughs. Dave had a classic announcer's baritone voice and he was adept at physically producing radio commercials on reel-to-reel tape. Plus, he was possibly more of a nitpicker for getting it right than I was, so we brought out the creativity in one another and made a good team.

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On September 13, 1972, a George McGovern-for-president benefit was staged at the Biograph. Former Gov. Doug Wilder, then a state senator, spoke. We showed "Millhouse" (1971), a documentary that put President Richard Nixon in a bad light.

Yes, of course, I was warned by scolds -- some of them well-meaning -- that taking sides in politics was dead wrong for a show business entity in Richmond. Moreover, taking the liberal side only made it worse. 

 

However, the two most active partners who were my bosses, Levy and Rubin (who was a geologist turned artist) were delighted with the notion of doing the benefit. They were used to doing much the same sort of shows up there. So with the full backing of the boys in D.C., I didn't hesitate to reveal my left-leaning stances on matters touching politics.  

Also in September “Performance” (1970), a somewhat overwrought but well-crafted musical melodrama -- starring Mick Jagger -- packed the house at midnight three weekends in a row. Then a campy, docu-drama called “Reefer Madness” (1936) sold out four consecutive weekends. We were clearly on a roll. 

The midnight shows were going over like gangbusters. To follow “Reefer Madness” what was still a little-known X-rated comedy, “Deep Throat” (1972), was booked as a midnight show. The Georgetown Biograph was already experimenting with playing naughty midnight shows, so we chimed in. In Richmond, we had played a few films -- like "Midnight Cowboy" (1969) -- that had earned an X-rating, but they had been more artsy than vulgar. 

Thus, this was our first step across the line to hardcore porn. As “Deep Throat” ran only an hour, master prankster Luis Buñuel’s surrealistic classic short film (16 minutes), “Un Chien Andalou” (1929), was added to the bill, just for grins. The staff referred to it as, "The Dog."

It should be noted that "Deep Throat," like Buñuel’s first film, was also called totally obscene in its day. Still, this may have been the first time that particular pair of outlaw flicks ever shared a marquee.

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A couple of weeks after “Deep Throat” began playing in Richmond, out of the blue, a judge in Manhattan slammed down the gavel and ruled it to be obscene. Suddenly the national media became fascinated with it. The star of "Deep Throat," Linda Lovelace, appeared on network TV talk shows. 

Watching Johnny Carson tiptoe around the premise of her celebrated “talent” made for some giggly late-night television in 1972. Thus, we found ourselves on runaway train of a cultural phenomenon. 

A couple of weeks later, in Richmond's Fan District, to be sure of getting in to see the Biograph's midnight how, savvy patrons began showing up as early as 11 p.m. It became the thing to do. Standing in line on the brick sidewalk for the trendy X-rated midnight show frequently turned into a party. There were nights parts of the queue resembled a folding-tables tailgating scene at a pro football game. 

 

To issue bullhorn-amplified warnings of hellfire to the patrons waiting in the midnight show line that stretched west on Grace Street, a determined band of Jesus Freaks took to standing in a parking lot across the street. Of course, it only added to the edgy milieu. The midnight show at the Biograph became the chic after-party destination for adventuresome couples. And, don't forget, in this time bars in Richmond closed at midnight. 

Playing for 17 consecutive weekends, at midnight only, “Deep Throat” and the Buñuel short subject grossed over $30,000. That was more dough than the entire production budget of "Throat," which was America’s first skin-flick blockbuster. Those timely midnight show grosses conveniently made up for the disappointing performance of an eight-week program of venerable European classics at regular hours. It included ten titles by the celebrated Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman. 

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On the theater's first anniversary I made a list of all the titles we had presented in our first year. A few noteworthy short films were on the list, such as Chris Marker's "La Jetée" (1962), but I omitted most shorts. The list, which I had printed as a handbill to hand out, was over 200 titles long. 

In 52 weeks, to establish what kind of movie house we were and what "repertory" meant, Richmond's Biograph had presented a lot of films. With all that, what had the management team learned? 

 

Our formula for repertory cinema, patterned after the typical format popular in some of the nation's large markets -- split weeks with doubles features, plus midnight shows -- sure chewed up a lot of product. 

 

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Note: Here's a small sample of the first year's double features. In this case, I chose to have 12 double features on the list, because that's what was on many of the Biograph Theatre's calendar style programs published that first year.

Feb. 12-14, 1972: 
“King of Hearts” (1966): Color. Directed by Philippe de Broca. Cast: Alan Bates, Geneviève Bujold, Pierre Brasseur. Note: The first movie to play at the Biograph was a zany French comedy, set amid the harsh but crazy realities of too much World War I.
“A Thousand Clowns” (1965): B&W. Directed by Fred Coe. Cast: Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam. Note: A social worker investigates the rules-bending circumstances in which a boy lives with his iconoclastic uncle, an unemployed writer.

Feb. 21-23, 1972:
“Z”  (1969): Color. Directed by Costa-Gavras. Cast: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas. Note: A political assassination’s cover-up in Greece spawns a compelling based-on-truth whodunit, with sudden plot twists, all told at a furious pace.
"The Battle of Algiers" (1966): B&W. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. Note: This account of the cruel tactics employed by both warring sides during the Algerian revolution is part documentary, part staged suspenseful recreation. Unforgettable.

Mar. 17-20, 1972: 
“Gimme Shelter” (1970): Color. Directed by Albert Maysles and David Maysles.  Performers: The Rolling Stones, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Tina Turner and more. Note: A documentary with much concert footage and one murder.
“T.A.M.I. Show” (1964): B&W. Directed by Steve Binder. Performers: the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Lesley Gore and more appear in concert footage.

Apr. 12-13, 1972:
"Bell Du Jour" (1967): Color. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli. Note: Beautiful Severine loves her successful husband. With him she’s frigid. Her kinky fantasies lead her to the oldest profession … only by day.
"A Man and a Woman" (1966): Color. Directed by Claude Lelouche. Cast: Anouk Aimée, Jean-Louis Trintignant. Note: A widower and a widow meet by chance at their children's boarding school. As they struggle to deal with their attraction to one another, neither has gotten over their loss.

  

June 1-7, 1972: 
“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1969): Color. Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie. Note: With Altman, the routine gambling, prostitution and power struggles in the Old West take on a different sort of look. More grit. Less glory. All random.

"Klute" (1971): Color. Directed by Alan J. Pakula. Cast: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider. Note: Fonda grabbed a Best Actress Oscar for her convincing portrayal of a damaged prostitute who helps a dogged private detective solve a complicated missing person case.

June 14-18, 1972:
“Putney Swope” (1969): Both B&W and color. Directed by Robert Downey Sr. Cast: Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell. Note: This strange but hilarious send-up of Madison Avenue was Downey’s effort to crossover from underground to legit. Probably his most accessible work.
"Trash" (1970): Color. Directed by Paul Morrissey. Cast: Joe Dallesandro, Holly Woodlawn. Note: It was billed as "Andy Warhol's Trash," as he was credited with being the producer of Morrissey's series of undergroundish films. This one reveals the down-and-out urban lifestyle of an oddball couple.

June 29-July 2, 1972: 
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964): B&W. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens. Note: This nuke-mocking black comedy raised eyebrows at the height of the Cold War. Still a laugh riot.
 “M.A.S.H.” (1970): Color. Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman. Note: This cynical comedy about doctoring too close to the pointless battles of the Korean War is funnier than the long-running TV show that followed it.

Sept. 21-24, 1972:
"Citizen Kane" (1941): B&W. Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore. Note: The meaning of a powerful, lonely man’s last word enlarges into a mystery. Flashbacks reveal a large life driven by obsessions. This classic film is about as American as it gets. 
"The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942): B&W. Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter. Note. This truncated-by-the-studio version of what the indulgent director had intended follows the meandering story of a prominent family's shifting fortunes.  

Oct. 9-11, 1972:
“The Third Man” (1949): B&W. Directed by Carol Reed. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli. Note: This elegant film noir mystery, set in crumbling post-war Vienna, is pleasing to the eye and stylishly cynical. Hey, no heroes here, but great music. 
"Breathless" (1960): B&W. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg. Note: An opportunistic thief on the lam becomes irresistible to a pretty American journalism student in Paris. Uh-oh, the guy is dangerous. How long can their living in the moment romance last?

Nov. 17-19, 1972:
“Duck Soup” (1933): B&W. Directed by Leo McCarey. Cast: The Four Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo), Margaret Dumont. Note: With Rufus T. Firefly as dictator of Freedonia and flush from a fat loan from Mrs. Teasdale, what could hilariously go wrong? How about war?
"Horse Feathers" (1932): B&W. Directed by Norman McLeod. Cast: The Four Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd. Note: The Biograph's secret password that opened doors was "swordfish." The scene that spawned that tradition is seen in this gag-filled send-up of campus life and football.

Dec. 7-10, 1972: 
“The Producers” (1968): Color. Directed by Mel Brooks. Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn. Note: Brooks’ first feature film laughed at Nazis with what was then a fresh audacity. Mostel and Wilder are so funny it ought to be illegal.
“The Graduate (1967): Color. Directed by Mike Nichols. Cast: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katherine Ross. Note: The mores of upper middle class life in the '60s are laid bare, as a recent college graduate's idleness leads to an affair with the beautiful, but wrong older woman.

Jan. 25-28, 1973:
"The Conformist" (1971): Color. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, Gastone Moschin. Note: A visually stunning look at fascist Italy, with Mussolini in power and old class distinctions melting away. Betrayal is in the air.
 “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1971): Color. Directed by Vittorio De Sica. Cast: Dominique Sanda, Lino Capolicchio, Fabio Testi. Note: With WWII approaching, why did wealthy, well educated Jews stay too long in Germany and Italy? This film provides some answers.

  

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All rights reserved by the artist/writer, F.T. Rea.

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