 |
| In this photo by Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco Chronicle photographer Joe Rosenthal (of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima fame), the marquee for The Castro Theater advertises the double-feature It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Far From The Madding Crowd. I saw this very double feature at the Castro (a real butt-buster, if ever there was one) in January of 1971. |
Grandfather: "What are you doing?"
Susan: "Making a
memory."
Grandfather: "Making a
memory?"
Susan: "All my life...years from now, when I'm quite grown up, I'll remember my grandfather and how he always smelled of (sniffs
his lapel again) tobacco and peppermint."
Apart from always giving me a major case of waterworks,
this scene fairly sums up for me what moviegoing was like before the days of
cable, satellite, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and online streaming. When
there was no telling when you'd ever have the opportunity to see a favorite film again, a standard part of the moviegoing experience was learning how to make a memory. Developing skills, rituals, and habits by which one could hold onto the experience of a movie for as long as possible.
I fell in love with movies in the late '60s, back when there
were only three TV networks, and movies could take as long as two years to reach
the TV screen. Then, lacking the technology allowing one to
watch and rewatch a beloved movie in the comfort of one's home—ad nauseam, ad
infinitum, to the point of torpor—one had to rely on extended memory. Deprived
of having the easily-referenced details of a film at our fingertips (not to
mention the demythologizing, demystifying,
explain-every-subtlety-and-detail contribution of DVD commentary tracks), the memory of movies were all you had. And even then, often only in the form of fractured recall, personal reminiscence, and hazy, emotion-diffused impressions of the sort that made it easy to misquote and misremember entire scenes.
Ultimately, all of this goes to explain the origins of my subjective/emotional philosophy of cinema: In lieu of being able to possess a film in actual fact, I came to base my love of movies on how they made me feel.
But even fond memories require the occasional bowl-stirring, so a big part of film fandom for me as a youth involved finding new ways to prolong the moviegoing experience.
Since I liked to read, there was always the option of going to the local library and checking out the novels from which some of my favorite films were adapted (I especially liked the movie tie-in paperbacks, which always included loads of stills). A rare and mostly last-ditch effort on my part to keep a movie memory alive was the paperback "novelization"—a marketing device reserved for films adapted from original screenplays. I recall my experience reading the novelization of Thoroughly Modern Millie, mainly in terms of the great pains I took not to let the other boys at school see what I was reading.
Reading
about movies or rewatching them to the point of memorization is all well and
good, but those are but mementos of the mind. I don't know of a movie fan worthy of the name who, at some time or another, hasn't longed for some sort of concrete, tangible, take-home
token of a film.
Over the years, I've sold or donated the bulk of my movie souvenir collection of buttons, T-shirts, banners, and posters, but stashed away somewhere in my apartment, I still have a few items of interest to nobody but me: the pinback button from the opening day of Alien (sounds good, but it's a dull graphic that merely has the words "You Are My Lucky Star" [the song Ripley sings to herself moments before the final attack] printed over a starry background); the sample soundtrack LP handed out at the premiere (and
Joan Tewkesbury autograph signing) of the forgotten 1979 Talia Shire film Old Boyfriends; and a poster given out
at an early screening of Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon.
Another favorite of mine was the souvenir program. Big-budget movies and roadshow attractions traditionally sold "official" souvenir programs at the theater lobby concession stands...right next to the Jujubes and Milk Duds. Crammed with photos and PR puffery, these glossy brochures were little more than glorified pressbooks. But there was no better feeling than coming home from a movie, excited and tired but not wanting the evening to end, settling into bed and reading yourself to sleep while poring over all that prepackaged publicity material, the film replaying on a loop in your head.
But shyness, concern that my sisters would tease me (and the ultimate fear that my mom wouldn't let me keep them anyway) prevented me from owning the two pinup posters I most wanted and which always caught my eye when I'd walk past the head shops and record stores on San Francisco's Haight Street: Jane Fonda in full Barbarella gear, and one-flop-wonder Ewa Aulin posed provocatively in an airplane cockpit as Candy
It wasn't until I was in high school that I learned civilians could actually purchase the posters, stills, and lobby cards displayed at movie theaters (detailed in my essay The Show Began on the Sidewalk). Thereafter, movie posters remained my preferred, all-time favorite motion picture collectible.
My dad's crush was on Nancy Wilson, so I often heard this album. It included the songs EVERY popular singer of the time recorded—Moon River, The Days of Wine & Roses, and Alfie—plus the ubiquitous More (theme from Mondo Cane), which to this very day always makes me think of the 1963 film Toys in the Attic. You see, my folks took us with them to a Drive-In movie to see the Dean Martin starrer Toys in the Attic (Dino was another of my mom's crushes...she really had a "type," didn't she?), and it was there that I was traumatized by the trailer for the gross-out shock documentary Mondo Cane.
As much as I loved movies, when I was young, thanks to the proliferation of light classical and easy-listening LPs like these, movie scores carried the stigma of being associated with Muzak and thought of as "elevator music." You really couldn't go anywhere without hearing Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago (Somewhere My Love), or the Theme from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart?).
 |
| A few of the double features I enjoyed at the Castro Theater circa1968-1969 |
For the devoted film fan, it was practically a survival tactic. By the time I reached my teens, it had become second nature for me to take detailed mental pictures; subconsciously log, file, and catalog significant sequences for later recollection
rewind; and keep seismic record of the goosebump moments of every movie I liked. Even on those occasions
when I'd sit through a movie twice in one afternoon, the subconscious goal was always the
same: to have the film make as indelible an impression as possible on my psyche so that
thereafter, the film became "mine." A
memory of an experience I could relive and draw upon at will, be it to inspire, lift my
spirits, or see me through any number of then-earth-shattering adolescent
crises.
Ultimately, all of this goes to explain the origins of my subjective/emotional philosophy of cinema: In lieu of being able to possess a film in actual fact, I came to base my love of movies on how they made me feel.
 |
| The most coveted (by me) part of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle was the entertainment "Date Book" section, known to locals as "the "pink pages." Here would be found a host of movie-related articles, as well as information about upcoming releases and premieres. This issue, dated June 16, 1968, mentions the forthcoming release of Rosemary's Baby (my #1 favorite film of all time) at the Century 21 Theater on Wednesday, June 26th. |
But even fond memories require the occasional bowl-stirring, so a big part of film fandom for me as a youth involved finding new ways to prolong the moviegoing experience.
For example, my predilection for repeatedly watching the same movie is rooted in the fact that when I was growing up, once a film had completed its initial theatrical run, there was no telling when it would
appear again. Back then, revival theaters (those that didn't specialize in underground, foreign, and art films) served the same purpose as TCM today, providing access to classic uncut films like Dinner at Eight & My Little Chickadee from Hollywood's Golden Age. When it
came to mainstream releases like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Up The Down Staircase, after their initial release (which was longer then and not so
saturated), you had to scan the newspaper movie section waiting for them to
reappear on the bottom half of a double
or triple bill at some 2nd or 3rd-run neighborhood movie house. Short of that, there was waiting for them to appear on network TV—butchered,
censored, and commercial interrupted.
 |
| The Stepford Wives (1975) is one of my best-loved films. It had its network television premiere on Sunday, October 24, 1976. I was excited to see it again, but I recall being disappointed (but not altogether surprised) that the ending had been trimmed, muting its overall impact. Having to endure the subtle censorship or total excision of favorite moments in beloved films was a standard part of the old-school "luxury" of having feature films broadcast into your living room. Image: coolasscinema.com |
Since I liked to read, there was always the option of going to the local library and checking out the novels from which some of my favorite films were adapted (I especially liked the movie tie-in paperbacks, which always included loads of stills). A rare and mostly last-ditch effort on my part to keep a movie memory alive was the paperback "novelization"—a marketing device reserved for films adapted from original screenplays. I recall my experience reading the novelization of Thoroughly Modern Millie, mainly in terms of the great pains I took not to let the other boys at school see what I was reading.
 |
| Fake novel / Real Novel Because I was shy, I always had my nose buried in a book at school. While reading Millie, I dreaded the day (which, mercifully, never came) when one of my classmates would ask me what I was reading, and I'd be forced to witness the color drain from their faces as I summarized its cotton-candy plot. On the other hand, The Sterile Cuckoo got me some unearned points from my English teacher, who misheard it as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Thereafter, she seldom missed an opportunity to commend me on my reading"At a high-school level!" (I was eleven) and selecting such heavy material for recreational reading. |
One of the more accessible in-home ways to sustain the
excitement of movies (thanks to an older sister who spent substantial hunks of
her weekly allowance on issues of Rona
Barrett's Hollywood, Movie Mirror,
Photoplay, and Silver Screen) was the movie fan magazine. While other kids my age
were reading Batman comic books, I was reading about why Liz was too sick to satisfy her man and what new heartbreak The
Lennon Sisters were having to endure. Before People
magazine and 'round-the-clock "entertainment news" channels convinced folks
that non-stop celebrity gossip was actually
real news, these mags served their fandom purpose by keeping pop-cultural ephemera
where it belonged: on the sidelines amongst the scandal sheets and teen-celebrity magazines.
 |
| Screen Stories was my favorite movie magazine because each issue contained complete, spoiler-filled synopses of all the latest flicks. With pictures! |
I eventually gave up raiding my sister's stash of movie gossip
rags once I discovered the "serious" movie periodicals section of the library. There, magazines with chi-chi names like Sight
and Sound, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, and Films in Review not only fed my adolescent pretensions, but fostered my lifelong love of movie criticism and
film analysis. Feeding my equally keen adolescent fondness for looking at pictures
of naked men was British-based Films and
Filming magazine, a self-billed "sensible magazine for serious film-goers" that
was loaded with intelligent film reviews and could always be relied upon to
feature the most salacious and homoerotic stills culled from even the most
harmless movies.
 |
| When it came to helping me convince my parents that all the nudity in those age-inappropriate movies I so wanted to see was actually "artistic" and "significant to the plot," serious film periodicals (doesn't that sound better than movie magazines?) like Films and Filming proved invaluable. |
For me, it was through the collecting of movie-themed souvenirs. Not so much when I was very young (because I had to wait for movies to come to the neighborhood theater), but in my teens, through to early adulthood, I loved it when first-run movies would offer some kind of chintzy promotional giveaway to the first 50 to 100 patrons at selected screenings. The thrill of being one
of the few to take home a small memento of a movie (not to mention the silent,
mean-spirited joy to be had in gloating over empty-handed patrons 101-plus) is what prompted my then-annoying penchant for dragging my friends to theaters way too early, making them stand in long lines (something which I quite enjoyed).
 |
| Andy Warhol's BAD opened in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 27, 1977. I didn't see the film until several years later, but at the time, the Music Hall theater sold the BAD T-shirt at the boxoffice. I purchased one for $5 and wore it so often that it disintegrated. The shirt pictured is a knock-off I bought on eBay in the '90s for considerably more than $5. |
 |
| Although my original "Pray for Rosemary's Baby" button is the pride of my collection, I still possess quite a few promotional pinback giveaways |
Another favorite of mine was the souvenir program. Big-budget movies and roadshow attractions traditionally sold "official" souvenir programs at the theater lobby concession stands...right next to the Jujubes and Milk Duds. Crammed with photos and PR puffery, these glossy brochures were little more than glorified pressbooks. But there was no better feeling than coming home from a movie, excited and tired but not wanting the evening to end, settling into bed and reading yourself to sleep while poring over all that prepackaged publicity material, the film replaying on a loop in your head.
 |
| Of the many souvenir programs I purchased when these films opened in San Francisco in the '70s, these three were my favorites |
Pop-art pinup posters were all the rage during the late
'60s & '70s. And while I loved having blow-up posters of old-Hollywood
movie stars like WC Fields, Marilyn Monroe, and Clark Gable on my bedroom walls (ironic nostalgia was in), my favorites were those of contemporary stars. My prized items were my posters of Peter Fonda on his Easy Rider bike, and a twin set of Liz
Taylor and Richard Burton from The Taming of
the Shrew.
 |
| Liz & Dick: The "It" couple of my youth graced these individual posters. It felt like a crime not to buy them as a pair. |
But shyness, concern that my sisters would tease me (and the ultimate fear that my mom wouldn't let me keep them anyway) prevented me from owning the two pinup posters I most wanted and which always caught my eye when I'd walk past the head shops and record stores on San Francisco's Haight Street: Jane Fonda in full Barbarella gear, and one-flop-wonder Ewa Aulin posed provocatively in an airplane cockpit as Candy
Tame by today's standards, these were popular and racy posters in 1968. And only being 10 or 11 at the time, I was certain I had no chance of owning them. It then never occurred to me that my father might have been encouraged as hell to have his quiet, non-athletic, bookworm son post a bit of female pulchritude on his bedroom wall.
It wasn't until I was in high school that I learned civilians could actually purchase the posters, stills, and lobby cards displayed at movie theaters (detailed in my essay The Show Began on the Sidewalk). Thereafter, movie posters remained my preferred, all-time favorite motion picture collectible.
 |
| For a time, I kept a scrapbook filled with newspaper ads for the movies I'd seen. The Northpoint Theater in San Francisco was one of my favorite moviegoing venues. I was thrilled to see The Exorcist (1973) and Tommy (1976) when they made their Bay Area debuts there. |
But so far, all the modes of movie memory-making I've covered
have been of the visual-aids variety: items that work like sentimental signposts
designed to jog my memory along a recollection map whose coordinates and points
of reference it remained largely up to me to determine (i.e., they could only
trigger memories I'd already backlogged).
Movie soundtrack albums were another thing entirely. I speak
not of the soundtrack albums for movie musicals, which are both culturally accessible
(the source of many top 40 hits) and require no real affinity for the film
itself (e.g., the double platinum LP success of the otherwise flop musical Xanadu). No, I speak of the limited, almost
cult-like appeal of the original soundtrack album devoted to the instrumental,
chiefly orchestral, musical score composed for a dramatic or comedic film. Not
everybody has the stomach for long play records devoted to the non-diegetic (outside-of-story)
thrills of background themes, melodic excerpts, and music categorized as incidental
or transitional.
Listening to music composed for the express purpose of (imperceptibly)
enhancing a film's mood and influencing the viewer's emotional response to images on a screen may
not be everyone's taste, but whether it was music for a chase scene, bar fight,
suspenseful moment, or comic interlude; for the longest time, motion picture
soundtrack albums were the only way to really take a movie home with
you.
Some of my happiest memories are of lying on the living room
(shag) carpet in front of our wood-paneled TV/Radio/Hi-Fi record player console
behemoth (with space for album storage!), listening to soundtrack albums I rented
from the public library. Remembering a film is nice—and that's where
memorabilia and souvenirs come in—but listening to a movie's soundtrack LP, with
eyes closed and headphones on, is more than recollection; it's rediscovery.
By listening to music you most likely felt but never really heard (if the movie did its job of keeping you engrossed), you got to replay and relive a cinema experience in your mind. There's a definite geek element to this method of making a movie memory (the scores to a great many '60s comedies sound like music for a cartoon or bad TV sitcom). But nothing compared to soundtrack albums for their ability to inspire new dreams while revisiting the old.
By listening to music you most likely felt but never really heard (if the movie did its job of keeping you engrossed), you got to replay and relive a cinema experience in your mind. There's a definite geek element to this method of making a movie memory (the scores to a great many '60s comedies sound like music for a cartoon or bad TV sitcom). But nothing compared to soundtrack albums for their ability to inspire new dreams while revisiting the old.
My dad's crush was on Nancy Wilson, so I often heard this album. It included the songs EVERY popular singer of the time recorded—Moon River, The Days of Wine & Roses, and Alfie—plus the ubiquitous More (theme from Mondo Cane), which to this very day always makes me think of the 1963 film Toys in the Attic. You see, my folks took us with them to a Drive-In movie to see the Dean Martin starrer Toys in the Attic (Dino was another of my mom's crushes...she really had a "type," didn't she?), and it was there that I was traumatized by the trailer for the gross-out shock documentary Mondo Cane.
 |
| Today, I carry these with me on my iPod. Time has been the least forgiving to the soundtrack of Barefoot in the Park (1967). But nothing evokes 1969 San Francisco for me like The Magic Christian soundtrack. Midnight Cowboy is perhaps my favorite complete score of the four. To this date, I've never seen The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, but when I was 10, I was a fan of The New Vaudeville Band (Winchester Cathedral), so their presence on this LP was enough to make the gamble worthwhile. |
TOP 20 Motion Picture Soundtrack Albums
(not a list of the "best" albums - a list of albums that made me happy)
I simply marvel at the many things that technology has made readily available to
the modern film buff. Movies can be viewed in laser-sharp Blu-ray within months
of their theatrical releases, complete with deleted scenes, alternate endings, informative
commentary tracks, and director's cuts. There's untold online access to stills,
posters, storyboards, soundtrack cuts (no need to listen to the entire album!), early script drafts, interviews, poster galleries, and all manner of
behind-the-scenes trivia and factoids. I could never have imagined even a
fraction of all this growing up.
And while I'm sure my 12-year-old self would have been
over-the-moon enraptured had any of this been available to me during my formative
film fan years, my older and wiser present-self knows better.
I know that my lifetime love affair with movies has always been nurtured by the courtship phase. The anticipation, the counting-the-days-until-release excitement...all followed up by the exquisite agony of wondering when you'll get to see the movie again, and hoping your memories will sustain you until then.
The elemental unavailability of movies--no attendance allowed on school nights, having to take a bus to get to them, seeing them exclusively in cavernous movie palaces resembling churches--gave them their mystique and made them special. All of this fed into what I call "the cult of longing"—those myriad rituals I engaged in (posters, souvenirs, memorabilia, records, etc.) to best make a lasting memory of a favorite film.
Over the years, I've found that what this method lacks in instant gratification has been more than made up for in its ability to create a bridge linking the magic of cinema to the durability of dreams.
 |
| The Alhambra Theater on Polk Street in San Francisco - The site of my first job I moved to LA in 1978 but took this photo in 1981 during a visit |
BONUS MATERIAL
Moving to Los Angeles allowed me to add autograph collecting to my arsenal of memory-makers. I've still not quite adapted to the celebrity selfie.
 |
| Celeste Holm - 1980 |
 |
| Walter Matthau - 1995 |
