Anyway, after some telephone conference call discussions, the boys in D.C. and I decided we should experiment by giving the double features of old flicks and contemporary second-runs a rest. That also meant no split weeks, either. Thus, in the spring of '73, a series of week-to-week bookings was scheduled.
The Biograph's management team was hoping that by playing some first-run foreign films we might benefit from getting more publicity than usual. The hope was such films would be noticed by a wider audience. In this time, serious film buffs in Richmond were accustomed to driving to D.C. to catch trendy first-run imports.
We led off the spring festival with a charming first-run French picture, "César and Rosalie" (1972). Sure enough, it got good local reviews. Nonetheless, it flopped resoundingly at the box office.
Disney's "Fantasia" (1940) followed. That feature-length cartoon had been out of theatrical release for several years and it drew good sized crowds. We had never had so many children show up before, so we ran out of popcorn. Which meant we held the picture over for an additional week and we bought more popcorn.
Until then, rather than depart from the published schedule in one of our calendar programs, we would bring back a popular movie for a return engagement, as soon as it was practical. By holding "Fantasia" over, we were acting more like a standard movie house that books product on a week-to-week basis, each Monday morning, according to the weekend's box office numbers. Which is how most cinemas operated.
Generally speaking, that style of programming depended heavily on having a healthy sized newspaper advertising budget, with most of the money supplied by the film's distributor. But with the running of old classics and second-runs cooperative advertising budgets were extremely rare, so the promotion burden was left to the theater.
Next came the centerpiece of the festival, Luis Buñuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972). Incidentally, when I first saw it at the old Cerberus in Georgetown, in the fall of '72, I stayed on and watched it all the way through a second time.
Critics were praising it as Buñuel's masterpiece. Consequently, there was a demand for it in other cities in the region and a limited number of 35mm prints were available. So, in order to secure a print we had to guarantee the distributor it would play for at least two weeks. Plus, we had to cough up some film rental in advance -- probably $2,000 to $2,500. The reason for those terms was mostly because at that point we simply had no track record with first-run foreign films.
With this move we were hoping/gambling that it would win the Best Foreign Movie Oscar just a few days before its scheduled premiere in Richmond. Which it did.
"Discreet Charm" drew a crowd that loved it the first week. Then, rather than good word-of-mouth goosing attendance up in the second week, it dropped off dramatically. Ouch!
Levy and I had imagined that attendance for an Oscar-winning Buñuel comedy would justify holding it over for several weeks. After the required two weeks, we packed it up and Clark Transfer hauled Buñuel's masterpiece off.
All these years later, when I think about this episode I can still feel the bitter sense of disappointment. We, the owners and staff, had wanted to show everybody that the Richmond market was changing and the best of foreign films could draw a decent crowd at the Biograph. Of course, now it's easy to see that our confidence was based way too much on how much some of us loved the film.
C'est la vie.
*
"El Topo" (1970) followed. Then came "Greaser's Palace" (1973). They were both simply too weird for Richmond (and probably most places). Attendance-wise, both were failures. Thus, of the six films in our experimental festival, only the old Disney movie had made any money. In other words, all of the artsy premieres had lost money.
Note: As an independent operation, the reader should understand that in those days the big movie theater chains had all the booking power (and I doubt that has changed much). Which meant that when it came to having access to popular Hollywood first-runs, or even most quality first-run imported product, an independent cinema in a medium sized market had no clout.
In retrospect, I have to say now that our series of post-"Greaser's Palace" telephone conversations marked our first real hard look at what we were doing right and doing wrong. Today I can only remember the gist of what was said. The bottom line was: David, Alan, Lenny and I agreed that there was just way more difference between the D.C. market and the Richmond market than we had originally imagined.
The Biograph up in D.C. had been competing with other art houses for a share of a substantial, already established audience in the metro area. Whereas, in Richmond the group of the same sort of sophisticated viewers was much smaller. Consequently, the four of us accepted that in Richmond we had to make more of an effort to cultivate an audience for our fare. We also needed to do more to promote the theater, itself, to the whole city, not just the Fan.
Having been exposed to lots of marketing and ratings studies in my previous job, in radio, I decided to run some in-house studies to gather information about what our patrons liked. What movies? What radio stations? What print media?
That sort of thinking launched what soon became a familiar research and marketing tool located in the lobby -- the Suggestion Box. It was popular right away. And, frequently, it yielded useful information.
In June the Faustian deal was struck with the same company that distributed "Deep Throat." We agreed to play, “The Devil in Miss Jones” (1973), a new film directed by Gerard Damiano, the headline-making director of “Throat.”
In becoming the USA's first hardcore X-rated flick to attract a significant mainstream audience, it had received massive national publicity over the previous year. For several months it had been one of the top grossing movies in the country. Damiano and Linda Lovelace, the star of "Throat," had been interviewed by national magazines. Both appeared on late night talk shows. Watching Johnny Carson tiptoe around the premise of Linda's celebrated special talent made for some giggly moments 50 years ago.
*
Coming off of the crazy national success of "Throat" the new X-rated picture's distributor imposed terms on the deal that called for it to play as a normal first-run picture. Rather than as a midnight-only attraction on weekends only, it had to play at regular show times, seven days a week. That was the deal -- take it or leave it.
When Levy agreed to those different terms for "The Devil in Miss Jones" he had to have known we were crossing a line. Still, no one could have anticipated what we were setting in motion by expanding the availability of “adult movies” beyond the midnight hour.
Until this point, we hadn't been promoting any of our midnight shows in the same way we did our regular fare. So, for the first time, the title and promotional copy for a hardcore skin flick was included on a Biograph calendar program. That didn't go unnoticed.
Following a friendly, "No comment," from me, an aggressive young TV newsman laughed. Then he took Biograph Program No. 12 downtown to Richmond's new Commonwealth’s Attorney, Aubrey Davis. The reporter asked Davis what his office was going to do about the Biograph’s brazen plan to run such a scandalous movie, especially in light of the then-freshly-minted Miller Decision on obscenity by the Supreme Court. Culturally, because there was still a blur in the line between edgy underground films with nudity and outright porn, the term "porno chic" was in currency (briefly).
*
The next afternoon a press conference was staged in the Biograph’s lobby to make an announcement. Every news-gathering outfit in town bought the premise enough to send a reporter/representative. They all acted as if what was obviously a publicity stunt was big news, because it served their purpose to play along and gather a story. That was my first press conference.
After Dave DeWitt -- who had been representing the theater as its ad agent -- laid out the ground rules and introduced me to the working press, I read a prepared statement for the cameras and microphones. In my spiel I said that based on public demand the Biograph planned to fight the TRO in court. Furthermore, the first-run engagement of “The Devil in Miss Jones” would be extended -- it was being held over for a second week. Boom!
During the lively Q & A session that followed, when Dave scolded an eager scribe for going too far with a follow-up question, it was tough duty holding back the laughing fit that would surely have broken the spell we casting, as best we could, over the reporters. That day I have to suppose a lesson was learned about how to plant a story.
The trial lasted two days. The prosecutor called a handful of witnesses, all from the same neighborhood in the West End. Maybe they all went to the same church, too.
I testified and we also put a few witnesses on the stand, mostly film and free speech legal experts. The local media continued to lap it all up.
Lumpkin's decision came on November 13, 1973. His terse decree put all on notice. Essentially, it said: From now on, if anyone dares to exhibit this “filth” to the public, they should expect certain criminal prosecution.
So it was that “The Devil” was banned by a blue-nose judge in Richmond, Virginia. The plot to have some fun responding to the judge's banning decree was hatched a few weeks later.
*
Also in the fall of 1973, Levy asked me to look at a new movie to evaluate its potential. From time to time he did that for various reasons. In this case he had a new 35mm print of “The Harder They Come” (1972) shipped to me, via Clark Transfer.
Note: “The Harder They Come": Color. 120 minutes. Directed by Perry Henzell; Cast: Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw. In this Jamaican production, Cliff plays Ivan, a pop star/criminal on the lam. The music of Cliff, The Maytals, The Melodians and Desmond Dekker is featured.
In those early days we had semi-frequent after-hours screenings of films we came by, one way or another. Usually on short notice, the word would go out that we would be watching a particular movie at a certain time. These gatherings were essentially impromptu movie parties. A couple of times it was 1940s and '50s 16mm boxing films from a private collection.
Although I don’t remember any moments, in particular, from that first screening of “The Harder They Come," I do recall the gist of my telephone conversation with Levy the next day. After telling him how much I liked the Jamaican movie, he asked me how I would promote it.
Well, I was ready for that question. I had smoked it over thoroughly with DeWitt and a few friends during and after the screening. Consequently, I told Levy we ought to have a free, open-to-the-public, sneak preview of the movie. Most importantly, we should use radio exclusively to promote the screening. Because of the significance of the radio campaigns for the Biograph's midnight shows, over the last year, he liked the idea right away.
Note: In the early-'70s, long before the era of giant corporations owning hundreds of stations, a locally-programmed daytime radio station with a weak signal played a significant role in what success was enjoyed at the Biograph. For a while we had a sweet deal -- a dollar-a-holler -- with WGOE-AM, the most popular station for the under-35 set in the Fan District and environs. In the first half of the 1970s, the station at the top of the AM dial, 1590, owned the hippie market.
Subsequently, on a Friday morning in November the DJs at WGOE began reading announcements of a free showing of “The Harder They Come” that would take place at the Biograph that afternoon at 3 p.m. Then they would play a cut by Jimmy Cliff, the film’s star, from the soundtrack. This pattern was continued maybe three times an hour, leading up to the time of the screening.
Of course, reggae music was being heard in Richmond before our free screening, but it was still on the periphery of popular culture. As I recall, some 300 people showed up for the screening and the movie was extremely well received.
In previous runs in other markets, “The Harder They Come” had been treated more or less as an underground movie. As it was shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for its American distribution, it had a grainy, documentary look to it that added to its allure. Upon hearing about the test-audience's approval, Levy got excited and wanted to book it to run as a regular feature, rather than as a midnight only show.
While it didn’t set any records for attendance, “The Harder They Come” did fairly well and returned to play several more dates at the Biograph, at regular hours and as a midnight show.
Levy became a sub-distributor for “The Harder They Come.” When he rented it to theaters in other cities within his region, he advised them to use the same radio-promoted, free-screening tactic.
In late-1973, watching a virtually unknown low-budget Jamaican film after operating hours in the Biograph had seemed edgy, almost exotic. Still, that night we had no idea how popular reggae music was about to become.
*
Early in January of 1974, I was in the Biograph's office on the second story, one door west of the projection booth. Having finished with the box-office paperwork for the evening, the place was empty and I was browsing through a newly acquired 16mm film catalog, reading about old movies.
As it was after-hours, the scent of recently-burned cannabis might have been in the air when a particular title -- “The Devil and Miss Jones” -- jumped off the page. Instantly, it said to me that the title of that 1941 RKO light comedy had surely been the inspiration for the banned X-rated movie’s title -- “The Devil in Miss Jones.”
Somehow, a rumor began to circulate that the Biograph might be outmaneuvering the court’s decree by not charging admission. That helpful rumor even found its way into print -- the street gossip section of the Richmond Mercury. I don't know if anyone on its staff suspected what was really going on.
The busier-than-ever staff fielded all inquires, in person or over the telephone, by politely reciting the official spiel, which amounted to: “We can tell you the titles and the show times. The admission will be free. No further details are available.”
The evening before the event the phones were ringing constantly. Reporters were snooping about. One, in particular, stuck around trying to claw his way toward the key to what he saw as the mystery. As I stood at my familiar post in the lobby next to the turnstile, in a hushed voice he said: “It has something to do with the title, doesn‘t it?”
Uh-oh! He was getting too close. To fend off his inquiry, on the spot I decided to take a chance with an oblique move for an answer.
Talking like one spy to another, I told the newsman that what was going to happen the next day would be a far better news story than a short piece about spoiling it the day before. That is ... IF there really is a stunt of a sort in the works.
Then I asked him to leave it alone and trust that once it all unfolded, he wouldn't regret it. Fortunately, for whatever reasons, he agreed to say nothing and he kept his word, as far as I know. That day I also agreed not to reveal his cooperation role.
Thus, the reporter's identity was held as a secret until his death in 2015. Now I can write that it was Don Dale, who went on after his stint at Channel 6 to be a longtime publicist for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Thanks to Don Dale, right up to when the box office opened, no one else outside our tight circle appeared to have an inkling of what was going to happen. Amazing as it may sound, effectively, the caper’s security was airtight. The staff did its part to set up the event flawlessly. It was absolutely beautiful teamwork!
In the afternoon before the 6 p.m. unlocking of the doors, the staff had decorated the lobby with streamers and balloons. We laid out the birthday cake (made by Wendy Andriot). Naturally, we also tested the keg of beer, just to make sure it was suitable for the thirsty patrons waiting in line for hours to drink. Spurred on by hopes the Biograph was about to defy a court order, by lunch time the end of the line along Grace Street was already reaching Chelf's Drug Store at the corner of Shafer and Grace Streets. That was roughly 500 people nearly six hours before show time.
My collaborators on the staff that night were: Bernie Hall (assistant manager); Karen Dale, Anne Peet and Cherie Watson (cashiers); Tom Campagnoli and Trent Nicholas (ushers); Gary Fisher (projectionist). Some dressed up in costumes.
The box-office for the 6:30 p.m. show opened at 6 p.m. By then the line of humanity stretched three-fourths around the block. It took every bit of a half-hour to fill our 500-seat auditorium. We turned away several times that number.
As the house lights in the auditorium began to fade, the sense of anticipation in the air was palpable. Outside, on the sidewalk, plenty of those who couldn't get in to the first show chose to stay in line for what would be the second show at 9 p.m.
The prank, itself, played out in layers. Some attendees caught on and left while “Beaver Valley” was running. Most stayed at least through the first few minutes of “The Devil in Miss Jones.” Only about a third of the 6:30 show crowd remained in their seats through both movies. Afterward, there were lots of folks who said it was the funniest prank that had ever happened in Richmond. That sort of comment was good for a free beer refill.
Of course, a few knuckleheads got peeved. Yet, since admission had been free, as well as the beer and cake, well, there was only so much they could say.
Even though those in line for the second show were told about the joke by people leaving the first show, the second show packed the house, too. By then it seemed a lot of people just wanted to be in on a unique event, to see what would happen and to be able to (honestly) say they were there.
As the second show's audience spilled out of the auditorium, we, the staff and a gaggle of friends, began directing our efforts toward polishing off the keg of beer. The rush from existing at ground zero for that day’s swirl of activity had been wildly intense.
Meanwhile, a bunch of thoroughly amused reporters were filing their stories about what had happened at an independent repertory cinema in Richmond. The next day wire services and broadcast networks picked up the unusual story. At the same time the theater returned to business as usual, with an Andy Warhol double feature.
A few days later, I was interviewed by a reporter for NPR’s All Things Considered. In the studio the radio guy went so far as to compare the Biograph’s birthday party prank to Orson Welles’ mammoth 1938 radio hoax. Which was fun to hear, but thankfully, I had the good sense to tell him that in comparison our stunt was "strictly small potatoes."
Although post-prank life seemed to fall back into a familiar routine, big changes were on the horizon. The last American last combat troops left Vietnam in 1973. Since the horrors of the Vietnam War had loomed over our political and cultural landscape for a decade, in 1974 the absence of war made for a different vibe.
However, of the many changes that were in the air during 1974, the one that stayed at the top of the news was the steady unraveling of Richard Nixon's presidency. For antiwar 20-something hippies the temptation to celebrate having been right about Vietnam and Nixon was irresistible. So it became an excellent year to have parties.
*
To that particular community the Biograph's image had become that of the risk-taking good guys of the local film scene. Thus, after three years of learning on the fly how to manage Richmond's repertory cinema I could see that to succeed at the box office often enough to keep the place open in the years ahead, I had to get better at helping those same influential people help us.
After the construction work was completed, with two booths and a connecting hallway between them, automating the change-overs from one 35mm projector to the other was essential to controlling costs.
Among other things that necessitated switching to Xenon lamps -- high intensity bulbs that could be automatically ignited by switches -- to replace our out-of-date, manually-operated carbon arc lamps. And, it meant automatic change-overs, instead of manual. Then there was the day I got to see the same scene projected with the two different lamps.
The old light was whiter and the picture sparkled more. The difference was subtle but noticeable. The new light, which was cheaper to use in the long run, had a yellow cast to it. Also after the twinning of the theater, I couldn't watch the movies through a window in the office, anymore. The new layout with two auditoriums -- one seating 280, the other 150 -- didn't allow for it.
Meanwhile, as the edgy punk style began replacing the hippie culture that had ruled the Grace Street strip for the better part of a decade, I doubt any of us working at the Biograph Theatre had caught on that the zenith of the repertory cinema popularity, nationally, was already in the past.
Here are some other noteworthy events that occurred in 1974:
Jan. 2: To conserve precious gasoline in an oil shortage crisis, President Richard Nixon signed a new federal law, 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. It turned out, he was the last of the string of Byrd Machine Democrats to serve as governor (1966-'70). In 1973, for his second term, Godwin won as a Republican.
In this time it was fashionable for conservative Southern Democrats to cross over, to sit on the other side of the aisle. Virginia's Republican Party, which had previously been the more liberal of the Commonwealth's two parties on some issues, suddenly absorbed a flock of right-wing politicians who had once been a part of the deplorable Massive Resistance movement that had fought the integration of Virginia's public schools.
Feb. 4: Patty Hearst was abducted. Eight days later a group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army told the extremely well-to-do Hearst family it had to donate $230 million in food aid to the poor.
Mar. 2: President Nixon was named as a "co-conspirator" in the Watergate cover-up by a federal grand jury. Later on, the public learned about how damn crazy Nixon got in his last months in office. Yet, it was still hard to see that he wasn't going to last out the year.
Mar. 29: After flying by and photographing Venus in February, the Mariner 10 reached its closest point to Mercury. Photos of Mercury beamed back to NASA revealed a barren landscape not unlike the Earth's moon.
Apr. 8: Playing for the Atlanta Braves, outfielder Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s supposedly "unbreakable" career home run record with his 715th round-tripper. Eventually, the public was told about the many sick messages, including death threats, Aaron had received from the public leading up to his feat. Once again, we could plainly see that for some dyed-in-the-wool racists nothing would ever change.
Apr. 15: According to photographic evidence Patty Hurst seemed to be helping her captors rob a bank at gunpoint. It was hard to know what to make of it. And, apparently she had changed her name to "Tania."
April 27: At the Cherry Blossom Music Festival, staged at Richmond's City Stadium, club-wielding peace officers and pissed off hippies made national news. Headlined by the Steve Miller Band and Boz Scaggs that well-attended event (which I did not attend) turned out to be when the feud between the two groups finally boiled over. Accounts said things got totally out of hand when police officers attempted to arrest some pot-smoking members of the festival's audience.
Several police cars were destroyed during what turned into a four-hour battle. A friend shot some color 16mm film of the scene that looked like news footage from a third world country. In all, 76 people were arrested. The fallout from this unprecedented melee put the kibosh on any outdoor rock 'n' roll shows in Richmond -- with alcohol available on the site -- for several years.
May 10: A great offbeat thriller, "The Conversation," began a two-week run at the Biograph. The booking was owing to a lucky quirk of business that allowed the us 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. The games the staff played using lines from the movie were plentiful and a lot of fun. During that five-week run it became my all-time favorite movie. I was never happier with what was being presented at the Biograph than I was for those five weeks.
My favorite line in "Chinatown" is spoken by Noah Cross (John Huston): "'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." The older I get the more Huston's line makes perfect sense.
The quality first-run Paramount films we played during this period of our third year of operation did much to bring in new customers; some of which became regulars. Using the distributor's money to buy large display newspaper ads was a big help in attracting those fresh faces.
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. By then, Nixon's presidency was surely in a death spiral, but he continued to vow that he would never resign.
Aug. 9: Nixon resigned. Gerald Ford was immediately sworn in as president.
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: The former governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, a moderate Republican, 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."
At the aforementioned "Devil in Miss Jones" press conference in the Biograph’s lobby, in the summer of '73, I had asked for the public to weigh in. "Send me your opinions," I requested of my local news audience.
