Top Ten Movie Theater Experience #5: “The Towering Inferno” (1974)

I’m thankful to some guest speaker or other who came to Wikiup Evangelical Free Church for going to see this movie with my dad. Someone said from a pulpit, “Dads, you need to spend time with your sons. Spend time doing things they’re interesting in… fishing, building model planes…Whatever they want to do.”
But, of course, there was something I’d rather do than throw a baseball around or panning for gold. When Dad asked what I wanted to do, I said go to the movies. And what was better during my late elementary school and Jr. High years than disaster movies? My brother Dale and I got to see “The Poseidon Adventure” together, the first PG film we saw without our parents. And PG movies in the ‘70’s got away with a lot more in those prePG-13 days.
So in a disaster movie those days, you knew you’d get cool special effects, some gore, some rough language, and best of all, women who would be forced by natural catastrophe to run around for much of the film in skimpy clothing (often just a man’s shirt.)
So, anyway, Dad and I went together, leaving the rest of the family behind, to see this Irwin Allen classic. Irwin Allen was a genius. Not only was he the King of the Disaster Film with “Inferno” and “Poseidon” and later the worst and therefore best disaster film of all time, “The Swarm” (a Bee film with an A cast) but also he produced some of my favorite TV shows of my childhood (“The Time Tunnel”, “Land of the Giants”, “Voyage of the Bottom of the Sea” and especially, “Lost in Space”.)
We went to see this at the Park Cinema. In the film, the world’s tallest building is having its debut, but Paul Newman, the architect, worries that bad guys William Holden and Robert Wagner cut corners during construction. Paul’s right, of course. The fire starts small, but soon threatens the party goers in the top floor.
The awkward thing was when the requisite woman in skimpy clothing appeared (Susan Blakely attired only in Robert Wagner’s shirt). You always hear people complain about the ratings board for American films dealing much more harshly with sex than with violence. There is a good reason for this. I can speak to this as a parent. If I’m watching a movie with one of my kids and someone is shot in the head and said head explodes, I can watch the screen or turn my head away, and my kid can do the same. We can even look and each other and say, “How Gross!” or “How Cool!”, whatever the case may be. On the other hand, if a naked woman appears on the screen… I don’t want my kid watching me watch the screen. I don’t want to look at my kid because we’re both embarrassed. Even if I cover my eyes, I wonder if my kid is covering as well and if I look, will my kid think I’m looking to see if I can look at the screen….
But fortunately, for my Dad and me and Susan Blakely, the power went out in the theater. So Susan was not consumed by flames. We sat in the theater, waiting to see if the film would start. It was not dark in the theater, because the emergency lights went on. We waited and waited, until an usher came in and told us that we would be given rain checks.
As we left, my Dad asked me whether I would like to see the rest of the film or see something else. The next week we returned to see all 165 minutes of disaster. Because I wanted to see those great movie stars, Newman, Steve McQueen and the master thespian O. J. Simpson. And went Susan Blakely scurried down the hallway (and I believe out a window), my dad and I watched. Our eyes fixed on the screen, not daring to look at each other.

Top Ten Movie Experience #6: “The War Wagon” (1967)

This may be my first memory in a movie theater. Maybe “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs” was before this, (I remember being scared in the forest scene), but with Disney out of the vault schedule, I’m not sure what year I saw that. I might have seen “Thunderball” and “The Great Race” earlier, but they may have been rereleases and I know I saw them in drive-ins.
So I know, with certainty, that “The War Wagon” is the first movie I remember seeing in a walk-in theater. Saw it with my parents and all my brothers and sisters and I know it was in the year the film was released. And it was in Canada. I haven’t watched many films outside of the United States, so it stands out because of that. (There was “Swiss Family Robinson” in Mexico and “Orange County” in the Bahamas. But there have not been many more.)
My family came in late for “The War Wagon”, a Western with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. The credits had already run and when we came in the Duke and the Chin were in a bar. I don’t think we had any problem following the plot (Wayne and Douglas need to rob an armored stage full of gold, but they had good, lawful reasons for doing so.)
Now the amazing thing is when one, some or all of us kids complained about not seeing the whole film, my parents agreed that we could stay for the next screening. This was quite a revelation to me. That films played again and again and not only could you stay for parts you missed, but if you liked a film well enough, you could maybe stay to see it again. I’m not sure why this was such a revelation, but I’m not saying I was that bright of a kid.
I remember three things about that trip to British Columbia. One – my sister lifting me up to sit on a bridge and losing a tennis shoe in a river (and discovering at the shoe store that in Canada, tennis shoes were called ‘runners’). Two – Glaciers. Three – “The War Wagon”.

Top Ten Movie Theater Experiences #7: “Godzilla 2000” (1999)

You may not know this, but movies run in theaters even if there is not audience. There’s a reason for this, of course. Most movie theaters no longer change reels. All the reels are spliced together and put on a large platter. So once you start a film, it has to run all the way through.
Now, let’s say the show time is 1 PM and no one shows. So you said, “Let’s not bother to show the movie.” And then ten teen thugs show up to watch the movie at 1:10, hoping they had missing the PSAs, trailers and credits and were ready to be cinematically entertained. So you start the show twenty minutes late. Which would make the 3 PM show late, and the 5 PM show and the 7 and the 9. So you have to start the movie every time, even the last show, just for the off chance someone shows.
I remember 1988’s “Jack’s Back” with James Spader running many times on its first and final weekend with no one attending at the UA5.
I love it when I’m the only one watching a movie. If I feel like it, I can stretch out in the center aisle, scratch, belch and make MST3000 remarks loudly to the screen. It’s nice, of course, as well, when it is a film with only my family. Off hand, I can only think of one time that happened. An that wasn't the only cool thing about this particular sceening.
When I still lived in Felton, CA, my wife Mindy and our kids (Bret, Paige and Jill) were visiting Santa Rosa. And visiting the UA5, my old theater workplace. Mary Ann was still managing the theater, as she did when I working there. And she gave the kids a tour of the upstairs, to see the movie projectors running. Even more cool, she gave each of the kids their own preview of coming attractions trailer (“Titan A-E” for Bret, “Rocky and Bullwinkle” for Paige [poor Paige] and “X-Men” for Jill.)
Then we watched (free of charge), “Godzilla 2000”. Now, this is not the best of the Big G films. Not nearly as good as the original, but so much better than the American CGI abomination. Because it had men in suits, the way Japanese sci-fi with bad dubbing was meant to be.
In case you want to know the plot, “Godzilla saves Tokyo from a flying saucer that transforms into the beast Orga.” I didn’t remember that. I copied it from IMDB. I remember Toho Studios and United Artists spending millions of dollars for the entertainment of my family alone on a wonderful weekday afternoon. It was not only the first time my kids had seen the real Godzilla on a big screen, it was the first time for me. I had watched him on Creature Features and the kids saw him on video, but never on the big screen. And we got to play Mike, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. Nothing better. (Although since this is #7, there must be at least six things better.)

Addenda for Movie Theater Post #9

I left out in my "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" post who I saw the movie with, and that would be Gregg Naslund. Some of my best film going in high school and college was with Gregg. Together we saw such fine films as "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" at the drive-in and a double feature of "The Spy Who Loved Me" with "Logan's Run".
But again the point of these posts is the experience more than the movie. Such as the time, while waiting for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to start that Gregg recited Dr. Suess' "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solo Salu" to an appreciative audience.
Also memorable was an incident after viewing "Dawn of the Dead" with Gregg. Somehow, after this very gory film, we decided to get something to eat. We pulled into the Jack in the Box parking lot and looked in the window. We then looked at each other, not believing what we saw. People in Jack's with blue faces, the same shade as the zombies in DotD. We then realized, it was a group of clowns. Which may have been scarier.

Top Ten Movie Theater Experiences: #8 “Oliver!” (1968)

My sister is (sorry, Gwynne) ten years older than I am and when I was little she got the most awesome job in the world, working in a movie theater. At least, I thought so at the time. Free movies and free popcorn, who could ask for more? (Well, it would be nice if they paid you. But that didn’t keep me from working on and off in movie theaters once I was old enough.)

When Gwynne worked for a summer at the Park Cinema, they had two theaters and for many, many weeks they had the same two movies playing, “Oliver!” and “Funny Girl”. I watched FG, and it was okay, but I’m sure a lot of what was happening in the film flew over my head.

But “Oliver!”, well, I pretty much loved it. We went to see it (free, of course) as a family. But even better was when Gwynne worked and I went with her and watched the film by myself. This was the first time I watched a film alone, something I still enjoy on occasion.

At the time, I thought the very best seats in the house were in the very front row, so you could stretch your legs out and completely enter the world of the film. The screen was all you could see, and I was back in Merry Olde England with the Artful Dodger (played by Jack Wild who starred at the time in one of my Saturday morning favorites, “H. R. Pufnstuf”.)

Though my childhood was much happier than Oliver’s (Mark Lester), I still could relate to feeling alone at times (though not sleeping in a coffin) and envied his discovery at the end that in fact he came from a rich family (though I would later appreciate that my family was richer than most in nonmonetary ways.)

Oliver Reed scared me as he was meant to as the villainous Bill Sikes.

But best of all, was Nancy played by Shani Wallis. Sitting in the front row, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. (My first movie star crush, narrowly beating out Katherine Ross in 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.) Sadly, Wallis didn’t have a very prolific career. I see at IMDB she had a stint on “The Young and the Restless”, but I’ve never watched soaps. I might have seen her guest shots on “Columbo” and “Charlie’s Angels”, but I don’t remember. I wanted to see the horror film “Arnold” but my parents wouldn’t take me. But I do remember her voicing the Nancy-like mouse pub singer in “The Great Mouse Detective.”

There were kid’s matinees that Gwynne got me into that summer, such fine films as “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Attack of the Puppet People”, but “Oliver!” was even better than those great films in my 6 year old mind.

Top Ten Movie Going Experiences #9

This should have been the title of the post below. All hope for better for Post #8.

"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and "Piranha" (1978) UA 6 Santa Rosa

Actually saw these in 1979 at one of the great Midnight Shows at the UA 6 in Santa Rosa. It was at these shows that I first saw such classics as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Apocalypse Now” and other things that were not quite classics. Such rules as not drinking (alcohol) and smoking (tobacco or other substances) were not enforced at this time.
This particular screening took place before I worked at this theater (working for UA on and off for years.) You might say these are two bad films, but they are great bad films, bad in quite different ways. Films that try to be so bad that they’re good almost never, ever work. But “Tomatoes” did for me. It is a silly spoof of horror films that made me laugh. (Sometimes it’s easier to laugh after midnight.)
And “Piranha” was made by people that were about to become big. Directed by Joe Dante (“Gremlins”) and written by John Sayles (“Eight Men Out”), this is much more subtle and subversive spoof of horror films.
But the best thing is that it was a Double Feature! (Awesome things that there aren’t enough of anymore.) And it started at Midnight!) (I had a speech tournament the next morning in Sacramento. I had two hours sleep at the most and did horribly in the tournament. It was so worth it.)