Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Cult Movies

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Posted by Tom Ferreira (Member # 70) on 02-11-2000, 11:08 PM:

The thread on Rocky Horror got me thinking about other films that used to screen on Friday and Saturday at midnight during the late 70's thru mid 80's. I remember going to see Rock 'n' Roll High School(still one of my favorite films), Kentucky Fried Movie, and Dawn Of The Dead. I know Harold and Maude and King of Hearts were quite popular for a while. Wouldn't it be great to actually show some of these classics again, instead of just having them relegated to video? Anybody got any stories about cult films they may have screened during their career, and their rabid followers?

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 02-11-2000, 11:49 PM:

We ran Kentucky Fried Movie, Groove Tube, Heavy Metal, Stop Making Sense, etc. We even did a program of 35mm Warner Bros cartoons (including the ever popular "Duck Dodgers In The 24th and a Half Century and DUCK AMUCK). We also ran the Republic serial, KING OF THE ROCKETMEN in 35.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 02-12-2000, 12:59 AM:

I worked for Landmark Theatre Corp. from 1985 till 1990. We did Rocky Horror Picture Show of course. They are still running it at the Esquire in Denver. We also did Stop Making Sense and Laurie Andersons Home of the Brave.

The deal with my staff for Stop Making Sense, was that they had to bust down the stand before they could crack open the beers and go dance. What a motivator. We could close the stand, the box, do the paperwork and deposit in about 10 minutes. I never did see the first three songs until the re-release this past year.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-12-2000, 03:02 AM:

I too have run just about all the big 'midnight cult hits' in my career, Night of the Living Dead, Heavy Metal, Fritz The Cat, the 'big three' XXX cult titles (Deep Throat, Devil in Miss Jones, and Debbie Does Dallas), Pink Floyd:The Wall, etc etc...

I remember showing 'Song Remains The Same'back in 1983 at the Phoenix (where the CP50's LCR output was fed into the VERY POWERFUL (read LOUD) rock-n-roll concert sound system that was in there at the time) and playing that to a sold-out crowd at midnight (950 seats with full balcony) and having the owner come in and ask for it to be turned up LOUDER... this CP had a fader that went to '20' and it was already running about '15' so what the hell.... I cranked that sucker to 20! it was so loud that the left channel amp would thermal cutout, and after the show a couple people came and praised the sound system, caliming they have seen Led Zeppelin live and that the movie here was LOUDER than Zeppelin LIVE!! I guess that was cool back in the 80s I do miss that system, it was a lot of fun for tapes (CDs were out widely yet) as well... Oh well enough already

Aaron

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 02-12-2000, 10:20 AM:

Although cable TV and home video killed the rep market for films, there are still a few that I can bring back every year or so and they do well:
-Stop Making Sense
-The Wall
-Rancho Deluxe
-The Wanderers
-Woodstock
-The Commitments

I'm considering trying The King of Hearts, which I played 4 times a year in the late 70's, but I fear it has not aged well.....

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-12-2000, 01:40 PM:

At the now gone Roxy in Toronto other than Rocky Horror the midnight popular ones were
The Last Waltz
The Song Remains the Same
Pink Flyod the Wall
Rock and Roll HighSchool
shock treatment
The Big Meateater

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 02-12-2000, 07:44 PM:

And one of my favourites from the early 70's "Harold & Maude".

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-12-2000, 07:52 PM:

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the three that were our biggest hits (smallish college town): Princess Bride, Monty Python/Holy Grail (really crappy print from KPF), and The Graduate (a personal favorite).

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 02-13-2000, 11:17 AM:

You had to be here in the NYC area in the seventies to see ALL the cult hits, a lot of them didn't play other spots in the country. How many remember/ran "El Topo", "Flaming Creatures", the notorious "Pink Flamingos" (absolutly the single worst date movie of all time, trust me), "Basket Case", "Liquid Sky", "Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii", "A Boy and His Dog", "Cafe Flesh" and the eystrain inducing "Eraserhead" (where it is rumoured that Ben Barenholtz asked the projectionist over at the Waverly to turn the bulb current DOWN). Them was the days.

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 02-13-2000, 12:33 PM:

Has anyone looked critically at "Harold and Maude" lately? DATED!! Reminds me of when I saw "Steelyard Blues" recently. Donald Sutherland, Peter Boyle, Jane Fonda, John Savage. Boy, for a film I loved when it came out, it is certainly from another place and time.

Last fall, the New Yorker opined about "Blair Witch:" "If it doesn't play at midnight on every campus in the US, then midnights aren't like they used to be." Well? Is "Blair Witch" playing anywhere? I guess everyone is just waiting for "Blair Witche Deux."

"Disposible product" is the term for it.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-13-2000, 05:33 PM:

I ran Harold and Maude just the other day as a double with Manhattan. A very good crowd came along for that double.

Harold was made in the early seventies and, yeah, it looks and sounds like it...but dated? Well, I kinda like the idea of going back to that time when a film could be made and released and 'find' an audience. In a few years, all that was to change with 'Star Wars'. From then on, if it didn't cost at least 20 million to make and then go on to make 2 billion dollars in its opening weekend, it was a flop and unworthy of even being made.

'Koyaanisqatsi' was probably the biggest late show we had. We used to have a 6 monthly calendar and every Friday night for years was 'Koyaanisqatsi'. Then out came the sequel, 'Powaqqatsi' and THAT grabbed the Saturday spot.

To this day I can still smell the odd odour in the auditorium.

And on that topic we ran a double once of 'Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii' and 'A Film About Jimi Hendrix'. I started up the show and checked everything. A few minutes later I walked inthe auditorium to check the sound and was stopped dead in my tracks by marijuana smoke so thick you could cut it with a knife. Honestly, SOooo thick. Of course, the sound needed an AWFUL lot of checking that night.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-31-2001, 11:58 AM:

Just exhuming this thread for Matt Elzie, or any others who were interested in midnight movies

-AS

Posted by Mark DeLettera (Member # 125) on 05-31-2001, 12:56 PM:

Here is my personal "cult" film list that a lot of our friends and relatives get together for and re-visit quite often. Of course, you have to yell out the next line in the movie before anyone else does!

YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN
BLAZING SADDLES
M*A*S*H
BONNIE & CLYDE
OCEANS 11
FRENCH CONNECTION
DUCK SOUP
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

A few of these (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN for sure) have had some midnight runs here in the Rochester area.
These flix age quite well, and would get me into a midnight showing in a split second, just to see them on the big screen once again!

------------------
Mark DeLettera
Eastman Kodak Co.
Worldwide Technical Svs.
Rochester, NY
mark.delettera@kodak.com
716-588-4189

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-01-2001, 02:08 AM:

I wonder if Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy is still available?

Posted by Peter Berrett (Member # 672) on 06-01-2001, 03:32 AM:

Here in Melbourne (Australia) we have one film that has true cult status. The Blue Brothers - and the place to see it for many years was Friday night at the Valhalla Cinema. These legendary sessions now continue at the Westgarth cinema.
http://blues.squidly.org/Blues/melb/Welcome.html

The sessions are legendary in themselves.

cheers Peter

Posted by Mark DeLettera (Member # 125) on 06-01-2001, 07:24 AM:

Peter: YES >>> BLUES BROTHERS must actually be a great midnight cult film.

I'm sorry I didn't think of that on my list. The sing-a-longs would be fantastic!
Hope a theatre booker in my area is reading this thread, so we can get some of these flicks happening around the upstate New York area!

------------------
Mark DeLettera
Eastman Kodak Co.
Worldwide Technical Svs.
Rochester, NY
mark.delettera@kodak.com
716-588-4189

Posted by Geoffrey Weiss (Member # 882) on 06-01-2001, 05:51 PM:

Greetings! I'm new to film-tech, but will soon be begging for technical help with a Super Simplex projector and SH-1000 soundhead. I got my love of movies at the midnights at the Vogue Theatre, a single-screen theatre in Louisville, KY. There was much drinking and smoking of pot (though not by me) in the auditorium. We did quite well in the early eighties with both Caddyshack and Animal House. The Vogue was practically the only place where students from the two crosstown-rival Catholic schools could meet in harmony!

Posted by Mike Jones (Member # 522) on 06-02-2001, 03:57 AM:

Our theatre has started running Midnight Classics last year in the summer. We've had more recent cult hits. We've had about 25 so far and the best performing one was the 1986 kids movie, The Goonies (awful print).

We've also shown: Raiders of the Lost Ark (GREAT PRINT!), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (bad print), American History X (good print), Boogie Nights (good), Ghostbusters (awful print), Beetlejuice (awful), Ace Ventura (awful), Enter the Dragon (GREAT PRINT), The Matrix (great print), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (bad print), Barton Fink (bad print), The Silence of the Lambs (bad print), Fight Club (great print), Pulp Fiction (awful print), Shawshank Redemption (poor print)....just to name a few.

I'm just baffled how some prints, even relatively new ones can be in such appallingly poor shape and some really old, well travelled prints can be in such good shape. Obviously there are people who don't give a rats ass. We always send em out better than when they came in.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-02-2001, 05:02 AM:

I am seeing a pattern here. Raiders has had many reprints made over the years and the only other titles you gave decent reports on are New Line titles.

Posted by Mike Jones (Member # 522) on 06-03-2001, 10:35 PM:

I was told that Raiders was a new print. While the color was slightly faded and the sound wasn't up to today's standards, there wasn't alot of dirt or many scratches. Looked like it could have been a year or so old.

Same for Enter the Dragon. As far as I know all the others were originals.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 06-03-2001, 11:55 PM:

And who could forget UHF, or any of the pink panther series

Josh

Posted by Joe Schmidt (Member # 822) on 06-04-2001, 02:10 AM:

For something rather offbeat, try to see "Younger and Younger," with Donald Sutherland, who plays a Wurlitzer pipe organ and maybe even sings, tho I've forgot.

And there's nothing more fun than a mag print of Rocky Horror.

Posted by Matt Elzie (Member # 877) on 06-04-2001, 04:24 AM:

We're just starting a series of midnight movies, and a lot of the films mentioned in this thread are on our list. We were thinking of doing a showing of famous film shorts, like "Un Chien Andalou", and other such bizzarro fare, though. However, "Un Chien" seems virtually impossible to find. Anyone heard of it being shown in recent years? Or "Tetsuo the Iron Man" for that matter?

p.s.- thanks Aaron

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-04-2001, 05:35 PM:

What about "Repo Man"?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-04-2001, 06:09 PM:

I don't know why, but for some strange reason I just got hungry for a plate-o-shrimp!

Just a spitball idea but if one were going to have a midnite show of Repo Man I think it'd be funny if somehow you could have "Popcorn Shrimp" for sale at the stand. You know those small, bite size fried shrimp thingies...

Okay, cost is a factor, unless you could swing a deal with one of those fast food joints that sell that kind of stuff. (Is it Long John Silver's?) Then, of course, there is mess and hassle.

Still it'd be a funny inside joke and if done right could make a few $$.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 06-04-2001, 08:09 PM:

enter the dragon was released by warner bros.
the matrix was relased by warner bros.
fight club was released by 20th century fox
and of course american history X and boogie nights were released by new line. The crow is a good midnight movie to run. At one point in time the Exorcist was a good midnight movie to run. I remember running a trade screening of the goonies years ago it was a work print so it had no credits on it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-05-2001, 06:15 AM:

Joe, I would assume that the mag prints of Rocky Horror were printed on that lovely super-fading Eastman stock of the 70s...but was the mag audio in mono or 4 track stereo?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-05-2001, 06:56 AM:

Magnetic striped triacetate prints seem to be more subject to "vinegar syndrome" because of the binders used for the oxide, and because iron can serve as a catalyst for the hydrolysis reaction. The acids released by "vinegar syndrome" accelerate the fading of dyes.

Proper storage (cool, dry and vented) can greatly slow dye fading and base degradation. If sealed containers must be used, Molecular Sieves may be used to adsorb moisture and acid vapors released by the film and trapped in the can.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-05-2001, 07:47 AM:

I had no idea that there were mag prints of RHPS. I'm too young to remember 35mm mag (I've seen a few prints, but all were at revival screenings), and I was under the impression that almost all mag titles were scope, which would make RHPS an anomaly, since it is flat.

Was the 4-track mag mix the same one that was used for the newer SR prints that the RHPS fanatics don't like?

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 06-05-2001, 09:39 AM:

There was a mag print of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai circulating in the early 1980's. It was mono and had no analog optical sound track. It was mag mono only.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 06-05-2001, 02:32 PM:

>>I was under the impression that almost all mag titles were scope, which would make RHPS an anomaly, since it is flat.<<

I have handled a 35mm mag/opt print of 'TOMMY' which was flat.

I have been around RHPS for a very long time and have heard NOTHING of the existance of a magnetic 35mm print of this title. If it *does* exist, it is most like unique, probably struck for a special-venue screening of some kind. Joe S: Have you actually HANDLED this mag RHPS print? Enquiring minds want to know.

Aaron

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 06-05-2001, 02:42 PM:

WHen RHPS opened first at the Uptown in toronto for its failed run it was 4 track mag
The ending was changed and it started then in the independent Roxy for midnight shows as optical mono (played through a KT30 kintek)

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-05-2001, 02:50 PM:

Gordon, What was the original ending?

I wonder if anyone has a surviving 4 track mag print of that without splices. Judging from the recent SR reprints, Fox no longer has any decent audio masters.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 06-05-2001, 03:49 PM:

The original ending was a reverse of the opening with the globe
The timewarp ending was done after the initial closings of it
I think it lasted less than one week here in toronto then it played for almost 12 years or more at the Roxy and several other "rep" and "second run houses" Kingsway, Cornet Brighton

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 142) on 06-06-2001, 05:46 AM:

The Blues Brothers is without doubt the biggest late show cult film here in Melbourne Australia - it has even amazed John Landis how popular it became here.

As Peter Berret states it still runs at the Westgarth every month. The print is in 4 track mag and with some luck we will be able to here it in its stereo glory soon. (The 4 track mag print I recall from that time, and perhaps the last to run here was Xanadu).

The big chain I worked for often brought back Blues Brothers to empty theatres, it frustrated them that it only worked at the independent.

Nobody has mentioned the Monkees film "Head" A print still circulates here and it is a fantastic film - so much further out there than any other trip film from the 1960's.

Rocky Horror ran for many yesrs here and still gets a run and comes in at number two. Number three on the cult films is Clockwork Orange - still running lates until recently.

These days most major multiplexes here run midnight shows of the current releases on Friday and Saturday so the cult film that used to run at these times has been pushed out. One of our major multiplexes ran 24 hrs per day and even now runs until 4.00 am on weekends.

David Kilderry

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 06-06-2001, 03:25 PM:

Brad,
I was actually in a Rocky cast on the east coast and I have dealt with 2 versions, both having different endings. The directors version had a song at the end called "Super Heroes" and it was only run in the UK. TCF felt the song was too dark for the American audiences and they "couldn't handle" it, so they cut it out for the American version. Of course, Rocky freaks such as myself knew about and seen this version on bootleg videos. We would send mail, call and generally harrass Fox into sending the UK version of the movie. From what I understand, most places playing Rocky now, only play the UK version. On a side note, the DVD has both versions of the movie as well.

------------------
Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-06-2001, 04:02 PM:

Yes, I too had a bootleg videotape of that edit and ALL of the new "SR" prints of Rocky do feature this scene.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 06-07-2001, 07:41 PM:

"Action springs up all over the place when the Big 3 join forces to save their race . . . "

Three the Hard Way. Yes, a blaxploitation movie can be a cult movie! The Big 3 are Jim Brown, Fred "The Hammer" Williamson and Jim "Black Belt Jones" Kelly. They get the call to foil a sinister scheme: Nazi-like leader laces big-city water supplies with a chemical that is fatal to blacks but not to whites. And the villain looks a lot like Sam Donaldson of ABC News!

I found this gem in the summer of '95 when the Film Forum in New York was doing a blaxploitation retrospective. I saw the trailer for Three the Hard Way and I KNEW I had to go see that movie! It was the best time I've ever had at the movies -- people singing and cheering, whites and blacks together. Print was a bit on the reddish side but that didn't deter from the fun.

Posted by Jack Johnston (Member # 887) on 08-01-2001, 01:08 PM:

Get ready guys..."Moulin Rouge" is a perfect future candidate for a midnight show ... a strange film that is an absolute delight to watch. Songs, costume, period setting ... I'll be there dressed as Harold Zidler (my can-can girl days are gone!)

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 08-01-2001, 06:30 PM:

Cannot stand "Harold and Maude"!

Why hasn't anyone mentioned one of the greatest cult classics of them all...thats right..."American Graffitti"!

For us Film-Techies, what about "The Projectionist" and what about that Vincent Price film where he played a retiring horror film star--some great drive-in "booth" scenes--I forgot the title!

M*A*S*H*, the Blob, The Wild One, Godfather, Creature From The Black Lagoon to name just a few!

Posted by Tom Ferreira (Member # 70) on 08-02-2001, 12:43 PM:

Word has it that the new cult film for the new millennium is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The numbers it's been generating are not that impressive, which could seal it's cult status. Anyone run or seen this film yet?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-02-2001, 01:09 PM:

Hedwig Links:
http://www.filmjournal.com/Article.cfm?PageID=23122162
http://www.boxoff.com/scripts/fiw.dll?GetReview?&where=ID&terms=5266