The end of summer is, like February, a desolate time in film exhibition; how much worse, then, the prospects of writing about film. Granted, I don’t limit myself to current releases, but then how much can one say about a film whose title includes some aggregation of X-V-Is; fortunately not yet in four digit combinations. But the century is young.
I could continue to comment on the important past as I have done on Rock-n-Roll films and will do shortly on the late James Caan; I could discuss a post-WWII film of some reputation, Mr. Blandings Builds his Dreamhouse. The focus would be how its two male leads, Cary Grant and Melvyn Douglas, should have switched roles. This would, of course, have required a substantially re-written script, which would have also enabled the anarchically gifted Myrna Loy to be more than living room furniture. But I don’t plan on writing that post.
Still, how many people today actually know those names, let alone the individuals and what they brought to their films, and have any associations with those names that could be pertinent to that particular film. These gaps would have been serious impediments to interacting with the ideas I would have been presenting. So, let me say just this: the film is terminally miscast, and its cast terminally misused.
Now, let me ego-trip a bit.
While I was in film school, in New York City in the 1970s, I had a few experiences that have stayed with me. There were many others, of course, which did not. You figure it out; I can’t.
Ok. Let’s start at the metaphoric bottom.
I was in film school, as I said. I had a good eye, and some substantial experience behind a 16mm camera, the film-school-camera-of-choice back in the 1970s. (That’s how long ago it was; I even owned one, a Bolex.) My experience was more extensive than most of my colleagues. So, some of my filmed-exercises turned out better than expected. One of my classmates had an internship at the NY production offices of a ridiculously popular TV series which photographed real people in staged, uncomfortable circumstances. One of the production points was that there should be no evidence of the camera’s presence.
My friend recommended me to the producer; he suggested I come in with a reel. I did. I detested the show, but working on its camera crew would have given me my first professional credit. It could have been worth it.
On arriving at the office, I put my reel (a compilation of exercises I had shot for classes) on the Steenbeck editing console they had. The producer, a nationally renowned personality because of his on-screen presence on the show, entered as august figures do.
My reel was a little under five minutes long. He managed to survive that torment. At the end, he stood up and told me the reel was the worst crap (maybe it had been shit) he had ever seen, how dare I waste his time with it, that I should never approach him again for a job. I packed up and left.
When I saw my classmate later, she was distraught. I told her everything was fine. I held nothing against her. I was grateful for the opportunity.
And I was fine.
The important phone call, immediately after I left the building housing the offices, however, had been to my then girlfriend, from the phonebooth at the corner of 52nd and Broadway. (This was the early 70s; no cells then.) I knew she would be waiting. I told her what had happened. She was torn apart.
And was worried about me. I told her I was perfectly fine.
I knew, and I told her this, that if someone who made that awful show thought that I didn’t know how to film anything, then I was in great shape to shoot good things, important things in interesting ways.
I had taken his crude rejection of me, from his limited perspective, as an affirmation of my talent.
Around the same time, I was recruited for an unexpected job: the Program Director of the Carnegie Hall Cinema (located then beneath the concert hall), part of the Thousand Eyes film exhibition operation. My job was to program the film screenings at one of New York’s three premier repertory houses; the Bleeker Street Cinema (also owned by Thousand Eyes), and the New Yorker were the others. (Museums did not count, as they were not commercial enterprises. Film Forum had not yet attained its present status.)
I would be responsible for scheduling three month blocks of daily-changing double bills, negotiating the terms with the distributors, and planning the ads for each schedule, and whatever mini-schedules there might be.
It seemed like it would be great fun.
However, one day, a couple of weeks into my tenure, before any of my programs had actually been presented, the boss of Thousand Eyes walked into the office area. My office was a two unit railroad suite; my desk was at the far end. He looked down and saw me staring into the air, my legs may have been propped up on the desk. He was infuriated because he thought I was just sitting there doing nothing – and he wasn’t paying me for doing nothing.
He complained to my superior, Julius, an exemplary arts agent and a member of the Board of Carnegie Hall. Julius explained to him that programing came only through thinking and, in doing that, I was doing my job. The boss never forgave Julius for that, or me.
Julius stepped down a couple of weeks later. I was then fired because I did not know how to program a rep house. I did garner an agreement from the boss that I would have access to all the box office records of the programs I had designed. I wanted to see what I had accomplished with my programming ideas.
The block I had programmed had been December through February, probably the toughest three months in the distribution year for rep houses.
My New Year’s Day program, Blake Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Paul Mazursky’s Next Stop, Greenwich Village, was the best grossing New Year’s program in NY independent cinema at that point; it sold out from the opening feature at noon with lines around the block. It became a regular double bill on the rep circuit.
My problem was that I could only do the job by thinking while doing it.
My best memories of my days in exhibition, though, come from a street corner in Upper Manhattan when I was the manager of a theater at 106th St. and Broadway a couple of years later. At that point the theater was a four-screen operation, in other words, a real, one screen theater that had been cut up into four screens and auditoriums to (theoretically) quadruple the attendance by showing four films instead of one. A very common practice at the time.
To keep from having to pay the projectionist overtime, the last film had to end before midnight. He and the staff were gone five minutes after the last customers were gone. I was left to check out the various nooks and crannies, turn off what needed to be off, lock doors, and put in place the various other security devices. Then I left.
My road home to Brooklyn could take several paths, mostly involving an hour or more underground in the New York subway system. At that point, I hated the subways. One less offensive route was a bus which stopped across from the theater and would take me to mid-town, a short walk, and then a twenty-minute sojourn in the subway. Generally, I took the bus.
In those days, this stretch of Broadway was very active at night, the later the night, the more active the street. Most illicit things one might want to buy, one could buy in the 90s up through 110th Street. So it could be dangerous.
Around the bus shelter, erected for passengers who might want protection from inclement weather, a group of girls in their ‘teens and ‘20s, tended to congregate. Near the shelter, in case they needed it.
This was their corner; they worked it. After a few nights, I’d recognize certain faces and start saying “Hi!” and such. They’d “Hi” back. As I had made no overture to engage them, I could, after all, have been a cop trying to entrap them, they had gradually loosened up.
“Damn, you just missed the bus. It came early.”
“You want us to try to hold it if it does again?”
“No, but thanks.”
I didn’t have the job long, a few weeks. How that came about would have been worthy of a The Rockford Files episode. But that’s another story.
Toward the end of my tenure at the theater, a couple of the girls approached me. The usual greetings were exchanged. One of the girls said, “Anybody give you trouble when we’re not around. You just tell them you are under the protection of the hundred sixth street girls. Nobody bother you then.” The other girls nodded in affirmation.
The seriousness in her voice was vehement; no one could have questioned her. I thanked them.
I never had to test that, but I have never felt more respected than I did at that moment. And all I had done was treat human beings like human beings.
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Viva Ukraine!
To The New York Mets:
SAY HEY!
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Rest in Peace: Mary Alice, Jerry Allison, Pete Carill, Pat Carroll, Barbara Ehrenreich, Joanne Koch, Clu Gulager, David McCullough, Roger E. Mosley, Nichelle Nichols, Robert Lupone, Bob Rafelson, Bill Russell, Vin Scully, Paul Sorvino, David Trimble, David Warner.
In Memoriam: Raymond Durgnat; George W. Hunt, S.J.; Samson Raphaelson; Andrew Sarris; Stefan Sharff.
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Editorial Consultants: Steve Carosso; Chris McAteer.
Contact info: Feel free to respond to my comments here on line. Feel free also to email me at donophontom@gmail.com. Please be aware that I will feel free to quote, with attribution, in future posts any email received at this address unless the sender specifically requests either anonymity or that no reference be made whatsoever to the comments rendered.
Gonna Say it Now 