Styles in music, politics, movies, drugs, clothes, hairdos and you-name-it, began taking off in new directions. For my demographic -- the 20-somethings -- the temptation to celebrate being right about everything was irresistible. So it was a time to have a party ... maybe in an empty warehouse or an art studio. At least, that's how I remember it, looking back through the compression of a long lens.
OK, change always happens. But some changes seem to come from out of the blue. Going into 1974, not many of us foresaw the most popular gesture of civil disobedience and group defiance on campus during the 1960s and early-'70s -- the protest march -- would mutate into spontaneous gatherings to cheer for naked people running by. Yet, in the spring of that year, streaking on college campuses suddenly exploded into a national phenomenon.
Naturally, that meant some adventurous young people in the Fan District had to get in the act. After hearing about incidents of streaking on VCU's campus Richmond’s old school police chief, Frank S. Duling, announced that his department would not tolerate streakers running around in the city’s streets, alleys, etc. Which meant Duling didn’t care whether, or not, they were VCU students.
OK, change always happens. But some changes seem to come from out of the blue. Going into 1974, not many of us foresaw the most popular gesture of civil disobedience and group defiance on campus during the 1960s and early-'70s -- the protest march -- would mutate into spontaneous gatherings to cheer for naked people running by. Yet, in the spring of that year, streaking on college campuses suddenly exploded into a national phenomenon.
Naturally, that meant some adventurous young people in the Fan District had to get in the act. After hearing about incidents of streaking on VCU's campus Richmond’s old school police chief, Frank S. Duling, announced that his department would not tolerate streakers running around in the city’s streets, alleys, etc. Which meant Duling didn’t care whether, or not, they were VCU students.
However, VCU insisted that if the streaking took place on campus, it was a university matter and would be properly dealt with by its own police personnel. It also should be noted that the relationship between Richmond and VCU was still somewhat awkward in this time.
And, of course, VCU's campus had busy (and still has) city streets running though it. Which meant it wasn't altogether clear to everyone just who had the say-so over the university's students on those city streets and sidewalks. That ambiguity bothered Duling.
Moreover, leading up to this point, there had been a series of confrontational incidents on, or near, the VCU campus. Perhaps the most bitterly remembered of them occurred after Allen Ginsberg spoke at the VCU gym on Oct. 12, 1970. Reports and firsthand accounts I've heard said the city police used overkill force to break up what was essentially a spontaneous street party in the area including N. Harrison St, and where Grove Ave. and Park Ave. converge. Debris was thrown. A cop was hit by a flying piece of brick. Police dogs were set loose in the crowd. It was a turf war mess.
So, leading up to what happened on the 800 block of W. Franklin St. on the night of March 19, 1974, Richmond’s police department had some troubled history with the young anti-establishment, partying crowd based in the lower Fan District.
So, leading up to what happened on the 800 block of W. Franklin St. on the night of March 19, 1974, Richmond’s police department had some troubled history with the young anti-establishment, partying crowd based in the lower Fan District.
By 10 p.m., several small groups of streakers made runs on the sidewalks and between buildings, before four naked young adults rode down Franklin in a convertible and stole the show. The crowd of 150-to-200 spectators cheered as the motorized streakers stood up and waved at their admirers. What was the harm?
The mood was quite festive and I know this firsthand, because I was in that crowd when the convertible passed by. It all happened just a block from the Biograph Theatre, where I worked. Trent Nicholas, also on the theater's staff, and I had noticed the commotion and walked over to see what would happen.
Then a group of some 50 uniformed city policemen zoomed in on small motorbikes and in squad cars. It was like a planned raid. They wasted no time in arresting the four streakers in the convertible.
Then a group of some 50 uniformed city policemen zoomed in on small motorbikes and in squad cars. It was like a planned raid. They wasted no time in arresting the four streakers in the convertible.
After a lull in the action, several of the Richmond cops suddenly charged into the assembled spectators. I don't remember any particular provocation for that abrupt change. A few of the bystanders were randomly seized and dragged into the middle of the street. One kid was knocked to the curb. Two cops grabbed him and slammed him several times against the front fender of a police car.
Others were beaten with clubs or flashlights. In person, I had never seen so many cops go crazy violent. It was reminiscent of the mayhem on the streets of Chicago, outside the 1968 Democratic Party convention. What set the cops off that night on Franklin St. is still a mystery to me.
Two weeks later, on April 2, a man named Robert Opel streaked the 46th Academy Awards ceremony at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA. As Opel ran by, flashing a peace sign with his hand, host David Niven promptly jabbed: "The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings."
Some Other Noteworthy 1974 Events
Jan. 2: To conserve on precious gasoline President Richard Nixon signed a bill, passed by Congress, mandating a 55 mph speed limit, coast-to-coast.
Jan. 12: After narrowly defeating Henry Howell in the general election, Mills Godwin was sworn in for his second term as governor of Virginia. He had been elected governor as a Democrat in 1965. He was the last of the string of Byrd Machine Democrats to serve as governor (1966-'70). In 1973, for his second term, Godwin ran as a Republican.
In this time it became fashionable for conservative Southern Democrats to cross over, to walk on the other side of the street. Virginia's Republican Party, which had previously been the more liberal of the two parties on several issues, suddenly absorbed a flock of right-wing politicians who had once been a part of the deplorable Massive Resistance movement to fight the integration of Virginia's public schools.
Feb. 4: Patty Hearst was abducted; eight days later the Symbionese Liberation Army told the extremely well-to-do Hearst family it had to give $230 million in food aid to the poor.
Feb. 11: Richmond's Biograph celebrated its second anniversary with free movies, free beer and a wee prank, of a sort. Once all the seats were filled for the 6:30 p.m. show -- "The Devil and Miss Jones" and "Beaver Valley" -- thousands who had lined up around the block were turned away. Some couple of hundred simply stayed in line, to be sure of getting into the 9 p.m. show.
Mar. 2: Nixon was knocked wobbly when he was named by a federal grand jury as a "co-conspirator" in the Watergate cover-up. Yet, at this point, it was still hard to see that he wouldn't even last out the year.
Apr. 8: Playing for the Atlanta Braves, outfielder Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record with his 715th round-tripper. Later the public was told about the many sick messages, including death threats, Aaron had received leading up to his feat. The over-the-top mean racism it revealed was startling.
Apr. 15: According to photographic evidence Patty “Tania” Hurst seemed to be helping her captors rob a bank at gunpoint. It was hard to know what to make of it. Tania?
April 27: Local cops made national news at the Cherry Blossom Music Festival, which was headlined by the Steve Miller Band and Boz Scaggs, at Richmond's City Stadium. That well-attended event turned out to be the dark occasion when the antagonism between Richmond's hippies and its police force became inflamed beyond all previous clashes.
Feb. 11: Richmond's Biograph celebrated its second anniversary with free movies, free beer and a wee prank, of a sort. Once all the seats were filled for the 6:30 p.m. show -- "The Devil and Miss Jones" and "Beaver Valley" -- thousands who had lined up around the block were turned away. Some couple of hundred simply stayed in line, to be sure of getting into the 9 p.m. show.
Mar. 2: Nixon was knocked wobbly when he was named by a federal grand jury as a "co-conspirator" in the Watergate cover-up. Yet, at this point, it was still hard to see that he wouldn't even last out the year.
Apr. 8: Playing for the Atlanta Braves, outfielder Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record with his 715th round-tripper. Later the public was told about the many sick messages, including death threats, Aaron had received leading up to his feat. The over-the-top mean racism it revealed was startling.
Apr. 15: According to photographic evidence Patty “Tania” Hurst seemed to be helping her captors rob a bank at gunpoint. It was hard to know what to make of it. Tania?
April 27: Local cops made national news at the Cherry Blossom Music Festival, which was headlined by the Steve Miller Band and Boz Scaggs, at Richmond's City Stadium. That well-attended event turned out to be the dark occasion when the antagonism between Richmond's hippies and its police force became inflamed beyond all previous clashes.
When police officers attempted to arrest some pot-smoking members of the audience, things got totally out of hand. Several police cars were destroyed during what turned into a grudge-fueled, four-hour battle.
In all, 76 people were arrested. The fallout from this unprecedented melee, which I'm happy to say I missed, put the kibosh on any outdoor rock 'n' roll shows in Richmond -- with alcohol available -- for several years.
May 10: A great offbeat thriller, "The Conversation," began a two-week run. The booking was owing to a lucky quirk of business that allowed the Biograph, an independent cinema, to play several of Paramount's top first-run pictures that year. Paramount (the distributor) and Neighborhood Theatres (the dominant local chain) weren't speaking for a few months.
May 15: Richmond-based A.H. Robins Co. yielded to pressure from the feds to take its contraceptive device, the Dalkon Shield, off the market.
May 17: A tongue-in-cheek article published in New Times, penned by Nina Totenberg, listed the 10 dumbest people in Congress. Virginia's Sen. William Scott was put atop the list. A week later Scott called a press conference to deny the charge. Scott: "I'm not a dunce."
June 28: "Chinatown," another Paramount first-run picture, premiered at the Biograph. It ran five weeks. During that time it became my all-time favorite movie. It still is. My favorite line in it is spoken by the character, Noah Cross (John Huston): "'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."
July 27: The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to impeach Nixon. Three days later the Supreme Court said Nixon had to surrender tape recordings of White House meetings that had been sought by the Watergate investigation’s special prosecutor. While Nixon's presidency was surely in a death spiral he continued to vow that he would never resign.
Aug. 9: Nixon resigned. Gerald Ford was immediately sworn in as president.
Aug. 12: The Biograph Theatre closed for four weeks to be converted into a rather awkward twin cinema. The work was done by a speed-fueled, round-the-clock construction crew. The after-hours Liar's Poker games were the stuff of legends.
Sept. 8: Ford pardoned Nixon, which didn't come as much of a surprise, but it still frustrated a lot of people who wanted to see him to face the music.
Oct. 29: Muhammad Ali regained the world heavyweight boxing crown he had lost by refusing to be drafted into the army in 1967. In Zaire, Ali defeated the heavily favored champion George Foreman by a knockout in the eighth round.
Nov. 13: Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, addressed the UN with a pistol strapped to his waist. Supporters of Israel cringed. Israel's enemies puffed up their chests. Lovers of peace weren't necessarily encouraged, but hoped for the best.
Nov. 24: The 3.2 million-year-old skeleton of an early human ancestor was discovered in Ethiopia. The scientists who found it named the skeleton, “Lucy.”
Dec. 10: "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones," a first-run concert film, began a four-week engagement at the Biograph in No. 1 (the larger auditorium). A special sound system was brought in to beef up the surround sound to rock 'n' roll concert level.
Dec. 19: Former governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller was sworn in as Vice President.
Dec. 28: The last published Billboard Top 100 list of 1974 revealed that the No. 1 pop single of the year was Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were."
*
In late-February of 1974 Trent Nicholas and I shot the 16mm footage that went into "Matinee Madcap." Trent played the protagonist. Others on the theater's staff and several friends played various supporting roles. It was a nine-minute black-and-white comedy, styled after the classic silent two-reelers of the 1920s. Basically, it was a string of gags held together by the thinnest of plots.
All of the film's action was shot at the theater. Over the next couple of weeks I edited it. Then, in the spring, with me kibbitzing, Dave DeWitt added the sound track in his studio; for the sound we "sampled" a bunch of different pop music snippets. The style we used mimicked what we had done with a bunch of radio spots for the Biograph's midnight shows.
Over the years that followed "Matinee Madcap" was screened at the Biograph countless times. It played in a film festival in D.C. and received brief praise in the Washington Post. Very brief.
During 1974, what with one thing and another, Richmond's Biograph made a lot of news. Which revealed to me how much the local press wanted to help the Biograph succeed, at least to stay open. To them, we were the risk-taking good guys of the local film scene. Thus, to do my job well, I had to get better at helping them to help us.
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