my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Has Porn Saved A Lot of Old Theatres? (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Has Porn Saved A Lot of Old Theatres? Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 02-17-2003 05:24 PM                    John remarked: Sad to think those projectors went from "Ben Hur" and "My Fair Lady" to "Debbie Does Dallas" and "Deep Throat". I suppose one could say those were all classics in their respective fields. The big Norelco's were truly All Purpose projectors.  |  IP: Logged Per Hauberg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 883 From: Malling, Denmark Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-17-2003 07:44 PM                        I think, porn prolonged the life of threatened theatres - at these parts at least two suburb theatres ran almost constant after new law, giving free all picture pornography from 1969. But the same theatres never succeeded in cleaning the facade (or back of seats, for that matter...)after the porn wave was over. Video took over, and people, not watching sexfilms did not go to those places, whatever they showed after that time - They gave up and closed... During my time as independent distributor en miniature, i had the reissue of My Fair Lady, and was asked to deliver it to the Copenhagen Cinema, which had been running - Yeah exactly: Deep Throat for more than a year. 4 days with all empty seats - and that was it ! Porn was pissing in the boots to keep warm... Per  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 02-17-2003 10:18 PM                  Wow Bob! I'm sorta dismayed at your post. In the 80's, I did a lot of work in the "adult" ***film*** industry...until the cheap video sleaze took over. I worked in production, not in distribution or exhibition. I was a cameraman, director, film-editor, director, did bit parts (ummm… clothed "extras"), and wrote some of the cheesy lyrics to some of the music. (I said director twice cuz I really liked that!) While there were many sleaze operations, I was involved with a group of sincere people that took their work seriously. My life and the group of people I was with at that time was like the film "Boogie Nights" but without the drugs…we didn't believe it that and we were ALL clean!...even the actors/actresses we hired! I worked with a producer exactly like the part Burt Reynolds plays. We NEVER did any bestiality or S&M or B&D or anything of that nature, but we did do some of the most well-known and CES awarded "adult" films. We were trying to make an adult statement of freedom of speech to adults and break through the puritanical and religious biases. I cannot defend or condone what the industry has turned in to. It's now very much different from when I was there. I'm glad not to be there anymore, but I'm grateful for the experience it gave me in my life's travels. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Jeffry L. Johnson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 809 From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 02-18-2003 12:18 PM                        The theater currently known as the Madstone Centrum was for years the Heights Art Theater, part of Louis K. Sher's Art Theater Guild. Another Sher company, Sherpix, distributed motion pictures. "Originally built in 1916, the theater has been under the control of several theater circuits over the years. It was restored and expanded to three screens in the early 90's by owner Charles Zuchowski and former partner Morris (Morrie) Zryl. The Madstone Centrum is located at 2781 Euclid Heights Boulevard (at Coventry Road). The web address of the theater is www.madstonecentrum.com and the phone number is 216-321-1000." Author Harlan Ellison, in the introduction to his collected essays on film, Harlan Ellison's Watching, ©1989, ISBN 0-88733-067-3, describes visiting this theater on pages v-xvi, "Crying "Water!" In A Crowded Theater: Part One: In Which The Critic Blames It All On A Warped Childhood." An excerpt: "The Heights Theater. "It was one of those small neighborhood cinemas built during the moviegoing explosion of the late Twenties/early Thirties. In retrospect, I know it was a modest house of movies, but it was glorious and gigantic to me at age seven. Out front the display windows held not only one-sheets and lobby cards in full color, but at least four scene cards in black and white from each and every film showing or coming. The ticket booth resembled a private stateroom on Cleopatra's barge, tenanted (as I recall) by a young woman so gorgeous and platinum blonde that merely laying down a dime for a ducat became an act of sexual congress intense enough to send the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart to the eighth and innermost circle of Dante's inferno. The candy counter traded in ambrosia and nectar, Chuckles and Forever Yours, popcorn freshly erupted every half hour and slathered with real butter. The scent of it could have distracted warring armies. "And the seats...and the usherettes...and the screen...and the ceiling mural...oh, how I loved that movie house, as I loved the Lyric and the Utopia and the RKO Palace..." Grindhouse : the forbidden world of "adults only" cinema, ©1996, ISBN 0-312-14609-4, states: "Louis K. Sher was a malt distributor from Columbus, Ohio who loved movies so much that in 1952 he opened an Adults Only theater in his hometown. Not to show sex films, but to prohibit squealing babies and kids rampaging in the aisles. It was so successful he expanded into Cleveland, then Akron. From there he created the Art Theater Guild, a whole chain of movie houses showing only imported fare. His success was duly noted by theater owners such as Dewey Michaels, who transformed his Buffalo, New York burlesque house into an "arthouse," exhibiting films from France, Italy, and Sweden. Soon, grindhouse owners all over the country were going continental." "In 1957, Lady Chatterly's Lover, a Gallic version of the infamous D. H. Lawrence novel (outlawed in the U.S. until 1960), was banned by New York state censors, a crushing blow since as much as 30 percent of a foreign film's gross rentals were expected to come from that state. The following year, Nico Jacobellis, the manager of Lou Sher's Ohio Art Theater, was arrested for projecting The Lovers, the Louis Malle film that made a star of actress Jeanne Moreau. Both films were considered dangerous because they presented stories of adultery in which the cheating lovers went unpunished. "Both cases ended up going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Potter Stewart struck down the ban on Lady Chatterly's Lover, writing a majority opinion that declared the film not obscene, and that any subject matter, no matter how controversial, was protected by the Constitution's First Amendment. In The Lovers case, Lou Sher, at his own cost, battled the case through a series of appellate court decisions which upheld the Jacobelli conviction, until the Supreme Court, in a decision of historical significance, overturned the earlier rulings. "Wrote Judge William Brennan: "...material that deals with sex in a manner that advocates ideas, or that has literary or scientific or artistic value or any other form of social importance, may not be branded obscenity." Asked what would constitute obscenity, Judge Stewart uttered his now-famous retort: "I know it when I see it."" The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry, ©1998, ISBN 0-8108-3426-X: Sherpix was founded by Louis K. Sher, president of the Art Theatre Guild Circuit (established in 1954) in the summer of 1965 to distribute theatrical films of an adult or pornographic nature. The New York-based company quickly became known as America's leading distributor of better class pornographic subjects, such as A History of the Blue Movie (1970), Adultery for Fun and Profit (1971), Meat Rack (1971), The Stewardesses (1969), Mona (1970), and The Nurses (1972). The company also distributed Alex De Renzy's marijuana documentary, Weed (1972); a British lowbrow comedy, On the Buses (1972); Arch Oboler's 3-D feature, The Bubble (1966); and Andy Warhol's Lonesome Cowboys (1968) and Flesh (1969). Following Sher's conviction on obscenity charges, in Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1973--charges that were eventually dismissed on appeal in August 1975--Sherpix ceased operations on March 1, 1974. LOU SHER AND THE START OF SHERPIX here similar distribs and films  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 02-19-2003 08:13 AM                     If not for porn, the FINE ARTS Theatre (1947) would be long gone. It ran alot of Monogram, and Allied Artists product, until it went "art" in 1962. In 1981, the owners gave it to the city of Asheville, who planned to use it as a performing arts center. All I could find that they did was burn holes in the shutters, and leave the house sound system on for weeks... In 1988, the present owner got it. He replaced the roof first thing. From 1992-1996, work progressed slowly. It re-opened in 1997. It plays alot of independent films that nobody else here will touch. The building looks great, and the interior looks great. They even played "Pink Flamingos" and there was not one word of complaint from the people that got the original theatre closed in the '80's. Now, it is the only downtown theatre left. I have fond memories of the Plaza, Imperial, and the Majestic. They were REAL palaces. They are all gone.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.