BIOGRAPH TIMES: The Intro to Part Two

The Intro to Part Two

Comment from Rebus: 

In some ways, the Biograph was cooler when it was the single auditorium cinema it was originally designed to be. The one auditorium was a comfortably shaped room, which couldn't be said of either of the two smaller auditoriums that followed. But, aesthetics be damned, the prospects for twin cinemas were seen as better for a list of reasons, all to do with money. Coast-to-coast, downtown theaters were being being twinned, or just abandoned.  

For the staff, having two screens meant the lull between showtimes was compressed, which meant more admittance tokens were sold and more popcorn was dished out. That meant the staff frequently did more work for roughly the same level of pay. It meant less time for reading a magazine article, wolfing down a sandwich or shooting the breeze with colleagues and regulars about favorite films. 

Having two separate projection booths doubled the work for the projectionists. Likewise, it meant more work for Rea. But since two screens brought in more money that meant the owners were less likely to sell off the business. Consequently, the Fan District continued to have a repertory cinema. 

Of course, nobody knows how it would have played out if the Biograph's auditorium hadn't been split into two parts during August/September of 1974. After it was done the change did seem to pay off. The thinking in D.C was that twinning protected against the wipeout disastrous weeks that are simply inevitable with just one screen. And, that was definitely a good thing. 

Still, Rea sure missed that manager's movie-viewing window in the office. To build the hallway connecting the two second floor projection booths that window had to be eliminated. The story that follows Rea's note about souvenirs tells about rescuing a Grace Street neighbor's stolen sign. 

*

Note: During the first year, at some point I realized that a few people were collecting selected Biograph midnight show handbills. Although I didn't think about it much, then, ever since I've been aware that some collectors were hanging onto stuff I made, like souvenirs of a vacation or some happy occasion. 

No doubt, I'm still glad whenever I learn that something else I created to promote an event, years ago, has survived many a spring cleaning -- because for whatever reason it is still valued by its owner. However, beyond its ability to prompt a small grin, when spotted in the bottom of a junk drawer in the basement, I won't speculate about what value any of that stuff ever had. 

Thus, for over 50 years I've been creating souvenirs. It started with Biograph programs and handbills. Then it went on to T-shirts. Buttons. Magazines. Essays. Cartoons and illustrations. Photographs. Drawings. Paintings. Calendars. Films. Collectible card sets. Posters for events. Advertising art stuff for clients. Large collages and other art objects, as needed. Over that span of years, I've riffed on the times we've shared and hopefully provoked a few laughs. 

Biograph button (1981)

Continuing with that spirit, this memoir for a long lost cinema is being assembled and offered to readers. Maybe another souvenir to stash in a box full of miscellany. 

No doubt, others would tell these stories differently, but that's their job. Thankfully, I have left out plenty of stuff. It's my job to know what to leave out. 

*

A Sign of the Time 

One afternoon in the mid-1970s, I was walking alone, some 15-to-20 yards behind a guy heading east on the 800 block of West Grace Street. I think it was summertime. But I don't remember anything in particular about the weather, or what errand I might have been returning from. Anyway, the guy in front of me nonchalantly picked up the Organic Food Store’s hand-painted sandwich board style sign from the sidewalk, put it under his arm and kept walking.

We both kept heading eastward down the red brick sidewalk. I don't remember what I first thought, at the time, but I was curious about it and to close the distance between us, I walked a little faster. 

By the time we had both passed the Biograph Theatre, I was getting pretty sure the guy had no honest reason to take the sign with him. He was a big-haired hippie and I suppose he could have been a student. Or, he might have just been a traveling opportunist who steals on impulse. Rather than "stealing" the sign he just snatched, he might have said that he, "liberated it." 

Passing by Sally Bell’s Kitchen, in the 700 block, I had closed to within five yards of him when I spoke the lines I had just written for myself. My tone was resolute, but not harsh: “Hey, I saw you take the sign. Just put it down and walk away.”

The thief’s body language announced that he had heard me. He didn’t turn around. Instead he walked faster. I continued following. With slightly more force I said something like: “Put the sign down. The cops are already on the way. Walk away, while you still can” (or words to that effect).

Without further ado, the wooden sign clattered onto the sidewalk. It worked! I was delighted. 

The sign thief just kept going without looking back. As I gathered my neighbor’s property, I watched the fleeing hippie cross Grace Street in a hurry. Last I saw him, he turned the next corner heading south toward Monroe Park. By then, it all struck me as funny.

So I carried the recovered property back to the store. Obviously, I don’t really remember exactly what I said in this incident, verbatim, all these years ago. Don't remember whatever conversation I might have had with whoever was tending the counter inside the store. But what you just read was a faithful recounting of the events and the spirit of what I said. 

In part, what I did in this story came from a sense of righteous indignation. No stealing! That, together with the spirit of camaraderie that existed among some of the neighborhood’s merchants in that time. There were several of us, then in our mid-to-late-20s, who were operating businesses on that commercial strip with bars, retail shops, etc. We were friends and we watched out for one another. 

My tough guy performance had lasted about a minute. Now I’m amazed that I used to do such things. Young people can be so sure of their reading of what they see. As the reader might have guessed, the character I invented for this occasion was drawn somewhat from Humphrey Bogart, with as much Robert Mitchum as I could muster. 

Hey, since the thief bought the act, he probably felt lucky to have gotten away. Maybe he’s still telling this same story, too, but from another angle.

This much I know — in those days that quirky neighborhood was a goldmine of offbeat characters and colorful stories. Chelf’s Drug Store was at the corner of Grace and Shafer. With its antique soda fountain, it had been a hangout for magazine-reading art students for decades. It seemed frozen in time. Maybe the late-1940s?

The original Village Restaurant, a block west of Chelf’s, was a legendary beatnik watering hole, going back to the 1950s. Writer Tom Robbins (1932-) and artist William Fletcher “Bill” Jones (1930-‘98) hung out there. 

In the '60s and early-'70s the same neighborhood was also home to lots of cartoon-like characters, such as the wandering Flashlight Lady and the Grace Street Midget. By the late-'70s the scene in that neighborhood had evolved. It was meaner and more dangerous. 

Bars hired badass bouncers to supervise their front doors. Style-wise, hippies were gradually being replaced by punks. Cocaine was replacing pot as the most popular recreational drug. For whatever reasons, VCU seemed to shrug off how the neighborhood was trending.   

In the summer of 1980, or maybe '81, on the 1000 block of West Grace, I remember an angry, red-bearded street beggar with crutches. He was sprawled out on sidewalk and demanding that whitehaired grandmas give him money. In the process, he was deliberately frightening ladies who were coming and going from the Dominion Place old folks apartment building. 

As I walked by, I puffed up to say something to him like, "Hey, cut it out, man. Move on!" And, I said it with a bossy tone. 

The surly panhandler laughed like a cornball villain in a cheap slasher movie, then he threatened to, “Bite a plug” out of me. And, I'm sure that's exactly what he said. 

Wisely, I decided not to press my case any further. Instead, I moved on.

*   *   *

 All rights reserved by the artist/writer, F.T. Rea.

-- 30 --

BIOGRAPH TIMES: The Birth of the Blockbuster; Or How Margot Kidder Made My Day

Comment by Rebus:

During the summer of 1975 the American movie exhibition business shifted its gears. Consequently, a new style in the strategies for creating, promoting and exhibiting feature films appeared. On June 20th, the greatest fish monster flick of all-time opened on 465 screens, coast-to-coast. 

It was Rea's fourth summertime serving as the Biograph's manager.  When “Jaws” became an unprecedented box office smash, Hollywood's era of the blockbuster was underway.   

The Birth of the Blockbuster

by F.T. Rea

Before the unprecedented success of "Jaws," it was standard practice for top of the line first run product to premiere in the most popular movie houses in a selected handful of large cities. The next day reviews written by the well-known critics for daily newspapers were published. 

It was tradition. And, among other things, it meant most of the advertising buys were made locally. So, the space for distributors' daily newspaper ads, the time for local radio spots, etc., were usually bought by local ad agencies for their theater-owning clients, or directly from the theaters. 

Then "Jaws" boldly ushered in the new era, with national ad campaigns and simultaneous opening days, coast-to-coast. Everything to do with the project to produce that film and market "Jaws" was bold. It was said the producers had the ad campaign designed before they even started shooting the movie. 

The sleeker marketing strategy for “Jaws” required enormous confidence. Its distributor, Universal, not only had to spend zillions on national advertising, it also had to strike enough prints of the film -- right off the bat -- to serve all of the theaters playing the film in simultaneous runs. That, instead of staggered runs, starting with the best markets getting the best new movies first. 

Yet, before the summer was over, "Jaws” was toppling all-time box office records and every cocaine-snorting dealmaker in LA wanted to do the same thing and create the next blockbuster -- the next money machine.  

In this time, Washington D.C. was a regional hub for film distribution. Ordinarily, a feature about to be released would be shown a few times in a small screening room downtown. Run by the National Association of Theater Owners, it probably seated about 50 people. Bookers for theater chains in the D.C. region would watch the new releases to help them weigh its potential. That way they could decide how much money should be bid, if any, for the exclusive exhibition to rights in a given market. One booker would typically represent hundreds of screens. 

*

Comment from Rebus: Security on admission to that screening room wasn't tight. Which meant any industry insider, entertainment writer, etc. might have been in the audience on a given day. In the 1970s on most weekdays at least a couple of films were screened. So, Rea watched a few movies there during his movie theater manager days. 

*

However, for "Jaws," Universal chose not to preview its monster movie at the screening room. "Jaws" was shown to theater owners, bookers and their guests in selected cinemas in maybe a dozen cities. As I remember it, those invitation-only screenings were all done on the same night, nationally. 

Maybe it was two consecutive nights. Anyway, as a treat, my bosses gave me four tickets from their allotment of tickets to the special screening of “Jaws” at the old Ontario in D.C. 

My ex, Valerie, and I were part of a full house turnout, and wow! I have to say the movie went over like gangbusters. That insiders audience made up of jaded show business people shrieked at all the appropriate times. They applauded madly as the closing credits were lighting up the screen.

Not only was I knocked out by the presentation, I came back to Richmond absolutely convinced “Jaws” would be a gold mine. It was the slickest monster movie I’d ever seen. On the way home to Richmond, I probably talked my wife's ear off about it.

The next day, still caught up in that mania, I tried to convince my bosses to borrow a lot of money to support a serious bid on “Jaws.” A bid that would call for a substantial cash advance. I wanted to bet everything we could borrow to out-bid Neighborhood Theatres for the Richmond market. Toward that end, I even convinced a Fan District branch bank manager to try to help us get the dough. 

Well, we didn’t get the money. But it was privately satisfying when “Jaws” went on to set new box office records. Records that put its director, Steven Spielberg, on the map. 

Another thing “Jaws” did that summer was to make some young men, who were occasionally too self-absorbed, feel intimidated by Spielberg’s outrageous success at such a tender age. I can still remember reading that he was younger than me. Although I had a great job for a 27-year-old movie-lover who liked to work without a lot of supervision, it offered no direct connection to filmmaking and that was starting to bother me.

At this time I had one nine-minute film and one animated sequence in a 30-second television commercial, both shot in 16mm, to my credit. The monumental success of Spielberg, 1975’s Boy Wonder, made me think for the first time about how and when I ought to leave the job at the Biograph. 

Having recently turned down a good job offer, I couldn't help but wonder if that had been a mistake. Still, for what it's worth, that bank branch manager and I shared a few laughs over how right we were about gambling on "Jaws." 

*

Fast-forward 34 years, to when I watched a BBC-produced documentary, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.” It's about filmmaking in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Directors and other players from that time were interviewed. Made in 2003, it was thoroughly entertaining. I saw it on Turner Classic Movies in 2009.

Among those who made comments in the documentary were Tony Bill, Karen Black, Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, László Kovács, Kris Kristofferson, Arthur Penn and Cybill Shepherd.

In the doc, Dreyfuss, who was one of the stars of "Jaws," speaks of attending one of those pre-release screenings. He said he got caught up in the experience of seeing it for the first time in a crowded theater; there were moments when he forgot himself as the actor on the screen. 

Actress Margot Kidder, best known for her Lois Lane portrayals in the Superman series of movies, appeared on camera several times. She made a joke out of how Spielberg had begun to fib about his age, once he became famous. 

What!

Kidder had known him before his sudden notoriety, so she noticed it when he went from being older than her to being younger. Kidder claimed Spielberg was fudging his birth date by a couple of years. 

Well, flashing back on my absurd jealousy to do with Spielberg’s rise to stardom, when he was supposedly younger than me, I had to laugh out loud. Then I looked up Spielberg’s age on the Internet. He’s older than both Margot (who died in 2018) and me.

So, I searched for more on the age-change and found some old articles about “Jaws” and Spielberg. Yes, it looks like Kidder was right. Back in the ‘70s, perhaps to play up the Boy Wonder aspect of the story, Spielberg’s birth date was being massaged. Somewhere along the line, since then, it looks like it got straightened out.

The point? 

Laughing at one’s own foolishness is usually a healthy exercise. What a schlemiel I was! And when the laugh has been aging for over three decades, yes, it can be all the sweeter. 

After all, before "Jaws," or after, what's ever been more integral to Tinsel Town’s special way of projecting its image than making up harmless fibs about the backgrounds of its celebrities. Especially about their age. 

Same as it ever was. 

All rights reserved by the writer, F.T. Rea.

-- 30 --

BIOGRAPH TIMES: The Banjo-Men

Comment from Rebus: 

Upon hearing the news of banjo player Earl Scruggs’ death, on Mar. 28, 2012, Rea flashed back to what was a then-36-year-old memory connected to a Scruggs documentary film that played at the Biograph. It ran for two weeks in January of 1976. 

The story that follows is one most people have never heard anything about. Even Rea hadn't thought of it in a long time. Without delay, he wrote this telling of the curious episode set in motion by traveling movie producers with a 35mm print of "Banjoman" in the trunk of their car. 

*

As “Banjoman” (1975) had only been in release for a couple of months when it played at the Biograph, the two young independent producers/distributors of the movie told me they were still learning the distribution business on the fly. Consequently, they were on hand at the theater the night their 105-minute movie opened. They had brought the 35mm print with them. They also brought the sound system that we used to present the film at rock concert volume to our patrons. 

These  guys were about my age (I was 28 at this time). And, I almost think there was a third guy, but I’m not sure. 

Note: Traditional distributors, like Paramount, Warner Bros., UA, and so forth, generally shipped the prints of their films to theaters in Richmond, by way of Clark Transfer -- a courier accustomed to handling film shipping cans every day. 

My boys in D.C. had booked the film spontaneously, after meeting one (or more) of the filmmakers in a social situation in Maryland. I don‘t remember any of the details of that occasion. I suppose it was some sort of industry-related affair. 

Although it was somewhat unusual for distributors to travel with a print of a movie in their car, in my experience, it was not unprecedented. As an independent exhibitor, the Biograph sometimes rented movies from various off-the-beaten-track sources, such as sub-distributors of obscure flicks working out of a garage, 16mm film collectors, etc. Sources large movie chains routinely ignored.

The “Banjoman” producers/distributors actually hung around at the theater during the first week's screenings. It was like they couldn't find anything better to do. Nonetheless, at first, they seemed like nice enough guys. And, it so happened they didn’t have much in the way of pressbook materials, ad slicks, etc. Stuff a distributor customarily supplies to exhibiters of their films. 

Which meant I put together the Biograph’s display advertisements for the newspaper, by using stills from the film they had that I got half-toned. I also got some type set for quotes from critics and pasted it all up. That led to me agreeing to create similar materials for the banjo-men to use in other cities on the rest of their East Coast tour. 

We agreed upon my price for design and paste-up It was something quite reasonable, like $250. Plus what it cost me to get stacks of different sized ad slicks printed for them to use in other cities. They needed that material, because at that point they had two other prints of their movie, with accompanying sound systems, working on the road. 

Clue No. 1: Yes,  it was unusual when Lenny in D.C. had me pay them their cut of the first week's gross directly, in cash, from box office receipts. Then, when they had to leave to work in another city, I was told to advance them some money against anticipated box office funds. That surprised me, too, but I don't remember if I said so. 

Anyway, I kept in touch with the banjo-men by telephone. They were anxious to get their new promotional materials from me for their other coming play-dates, so I rushed the job for them, which they said they appreciated. If Lenny and Alan in D.C. trusted these guys, why shouldn't I follow suit? 

Then came the day to ship the print and sound system to the banjo-men in another city. The run at the Biograph was over. When the courier's truck driver came by the theater, he told me his helper wasn’t with him, so I needed to load the rather heavy equipment on his truck. 

Well, at the time, I was nursing a slipped disc in my lower back and I was the only one in the building. Unless I wanted to be laid-up for a spell, I couldn’t lift the sound equipment. When the driver asked me how long it would take to get somebody there, to do the lifting, it annoyed me. 

Therefore, I told the driver it was his damn job to get that junk on the truck, just to come back the next day with a helper. Yet, as I spoke with him, I suddenly had a hunch that something was wrong. Didn't know what. But it froze me. 

The truck driver shrugged and said, OK, he’d come back tomorrow. When I told one of the banjo-men what had happened, he said there was still enough time to get the equipment set up for the next engagement. So shipping it out the next day would be fine.

Clue No. 2: Later that same day the mailman delivered a bank notice that a $250 good-faith-money check they had written to me had bounced. At this point, in addition to that check, they owed me another $600, or so, most of which I owed to a printer. 

And, they owed the Biograph maybe another $400, or so, because in the second week of their film’s run it hadn’t live up to expectations. Unfortunately, it had failed to cover the advance on film rental they had received.

By coincidence, I talked with my friend Dave DeWitt right after I received that rubber check. Dave had moved from Richmond to Albuquerque about a year earlier. At this time, among other ventures, he was hosting a late night movie program on television there.

When I told Dave about the bounced check and mentioned my hunch to delay shipping the equipment, he said he might have heard of the guys who had produced "Banjoman." And, what he'd heard wasn't good. Then he told me he wanted to do a little checking up on them and he'd get back to me.

Clue No. 3: Dave called back soon to tell me the characters I’d been dealing with had left a trail of angry people behind them out in the West, back when they were shooting concert footage of Scruggs' tour. It seemed they had found ways to do a lot of things without paying up front. 

After hearing that unsettling news, on the phone, I told the guys who had been conning me that until they settled up, completely, I was keeping their sound equipment and the print of "Banjoman." They puffed up and threatened me with legal action. 

After a couple of months with no word from, them I sold off their sound equipment. It was the sort of stuff a touring rock 'n' roll band might use.

Then some time later, maybe another couple of months, I was indeed served with legal papers. By way of a local attorney the banjo-men sued me for about $90,000. Don't remember how that figure was generated. I laughed and offered their lawyer the print of the film and about $800, which was what the equipment brought in, minus what they had owed the boys in D.C. and me.

Over the telephone line they huffed and puffed again. At this point, I handed over their print of "Banjoman" to their local attorney. After a few weeks of silence, they agreed to take the $800. In my view, they were lucky to get that. 

My guess is most of that dough went to their local attorney. Or maybe they somehow stiffed him, too, and moved on.

Never heard another word from those guys. Ever since this episode, when I hear Earl Scruggs’ banjo, I can't help but think of the weaselly banjo-men. 

Ever since this time, with me,  a little bit of banjo music goes a long way. Nonetheless, RIP, Earl.    

*

Comment from Rebus:

Themed programs

-- 30 --

All rights reserved by the writer, F.T. Rea. 

BIOGRAPH TIMES: Fan District Softball League

Comment by Rebus:

At 11, Rea played outfield on a Little League teamAs a little kid, Rea felt he was living in a better world when he was playing baseball or watching cartoons on television. And, it was his routine to read the sports section and the funnies every day.  

At about nine years old, Rea started creating a series of hand-drawn, newspaper-like sports sections. He invented six teams in an imaginary baseball league, made up of cartoon animals -- monkeys, bears, dogs, etc. The home team, Animaltown, had a roster filled with characters based on the stuffed animals he had played with when he was younger. 

Rea acted out the animals' baseball games in his head and wrote stories about the highlights, pretending to be a sportswriter. He kept batting averages for the players. And, he drew illustrations of the action, but he showed those make-believe sports sections to no one. 

At the time, Rea didn't think of any of that material as art or writing to show off to earn praise. It was just playing in his pretend world.

 sponsored by a drug store. Then, at 12, he was a pitcher/outfielder on his elementary school's team. In both cases, at home after the games he made drawings of key plays.     

Following the Beatles appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964, at 16, Rea drew caricatures of the band performing and cartoonish portraits of the Fab Four. He claims girls at Thomas Jefferson High School lined up in the cafeteria during lunchtime to watch him draw them. Then they bought the sketches for a dollar each. That episode was when he started signing his at artwork. 

Fan District Softball League

by F.T. Rea

The Fan District Softball League had its own style. It was referred to as the “hippie league” by softball players who played in the area's polyester-clad softball realm governed by recreation and parks departments. The FDSL leaned toward cotton, silk-screened T-shirts and its games were staged on schoolyards with open fields. That, rather than in charmless softball complexes with fenced-in fields. 

Among other things that meant the Fan League's throwback style of play put more emphasis on defense. Which meant its games were not simply home-run derbies, with beer-bellied Bubbas jogging around the base-paths. Softball was quite popular in the metro Richmond area in the 1970s, '80s and into the '90s. 

The decidedly unorthodox Fan District Softball League bubbled up out of the pop culture ooze of the summer of 1973, which was the heyday of WGOE's popularity. WGOE was the daytime AM radio station that dominated the Fan District in a way that's never been equaled. 

In the early-to-mid-1970s WGOE's sound could be heard in the shops and on the sidewalks of the bohemian commercial strip of West Grace Street, adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University. In this time WGOE-AM set in motion what eventually became the Fan League. That happened when its promotional softball team of DJs and a few ringers -- the ‘Nads -- played a few games against impromptu squads that represented a few regular advertisers on the station.

By the next summer, teams began to jell into rosters, but there still was no formal schedule. And ball fields were still being commandeered, rather than secured by arrangement with any proper authority.

In 1975 the name, Fan District Softball League, came into use and the six-team organization had its first commissioner — Van “Hook” Shepherd. The team representing Cassell’s Upholstery beat the Bamboo Cafe in a one-game playoff for the first season’s championship finale. The four other teams in the league that inaugural season were the Back Door, Sea Dream Leather, Uptop Sub Shop and WGOE.

In 1976, in addition to the regular season the league staged two tournaments. Teams representing the Biograph Theatre, deTreville, Hababa's, J.W. Rayle, the Pinheads (the VCU sculpture department and friends) and the Rainbow Inn were formed in that year. 

During the first six or seven years of the league’s existence, next to the burgeoning music and bar scene softball-related activities were at the heart of the baby boomer-driven social life in the Fan District. As the years wore on more teams sponsored by bars, and whatnot, came along. Each team was like its own little fiefdom. 

*

That first summer of organized softball at the Biograph we called our team the Swordfish, after a joke in a Marx Brothers movie. That season the Swordfish played a schedule that was not set in advance. Instead, our practice was to challenge established teams to play us with a keg of beer on the line. Of course, the keg was already on hand during the games. The losing team had to pay for the beer. Most of our opponents were Fan League teams. 

The lucky Swordfish won 15 games of the 17 we played with umpires that initial season. (We played a handful of practice games, no umps or kegs, but I don't know what the record was for them.) We only had a few experienced softball players on our roster, made up of theater employees, old friends and a few film buffs. We also had two French guys on the team who'd never seen a baseball or softball game.  

Typically, our opponents saw themselves as more experienced/athletically superior, which only made it more fun when they bumbled their way into handing us the victory. That first year, it was uncanny how often those supposedly better teams seemed willing to overplay their hands and lose to a Biograph team they saw as clownish. 

Now, having played and observed a lot of organized softball, I know that virgin Swordfish squad was absolutely charmed. In any sport, it was the loosest organized team with which I’ve ever been associated. Both of the Swordfish’s 1976 losses came in unusual situations. The first was the championship game of one of the two tournaments we entered. Yes, we won the other one.

The second was played inside the walls of the old state penitentiary. Located at Belvidere and Spring Streets, the fortress prison loomed over the rocky falls of the James River for nearly 200 years (it was demolished in the early-1990s).

As it happened, the guy in charge of recreation at the pen frequented J.W. Rayle, a popular bar of the era, located at Pine and Cary. During a conversation there he asked me if the Biograph team — I played outfield and served as the coach — would consider taking on the prison’s softball team on a Saturday afternoon. My friend, Chuck Wrenn, the bar manager at Rayle, had already told the guy the restaurant's team would do it. So I went along with it, too.

As it turned out, the first date the prison's recreation guy set up was canceled, due to something about a small riot.

OK.

A couple of weeks later the Swordfish entered the Big House wearing our baby-blue Biograph T-shirts with images of Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda printed on them. To get into the prison yard we had to go through a process, which included a cursory search. We had been told to bring nothing in our pockets.

As we worked our way through the ancient passageways, sets of bars were unlocked and then locked behind us. Each of us got a stamp on our hands that could only be seen under a special light. Someone asked what would happen if the ink got wiped off, inadvertently, during the game. He was told that was not a good idea.

OK.

Rayle played the prison team first, then the Biograph. The umpire for the games came in with us. He was Dennis “Dr. Death” Johnson, a rather high-profile Fan District character, at the time, who played on yet another of the league's teams. Among other things, Johnson did some professional wrestling, so he was adept at hamming up the umpire's role.

The fence in left field was the same high brick wall that ran along Belvidere Street. It was only about 230 to 240 feet from home plate. Because of its height, maybe 30 feet, hard-hit balls frequently caromed off of it. What would have been a routine fly ball to left on most fields was a home run there. It was like a red brick version of Fenway Park’s Green Monster.

The prison team, known as the Raiders, was quite good at launching softballs over that towering brick wall. They appeared to have an unlimited budget for softballs, too. Under the supervision of watchful guards, some 60 or 70 prisoners sat in stands to pull for  the home team. Actually, they cheered the loudest for good plays in the field and flying dirt collisions on the base paths.

During a conversation with a couple of my teammates behind the backstop, I referred to our opponents as the "prisoners.” Their coach, who was within earshot, immediately stepped toward me. Like his teammates, he was wearing a red and gray softball uniform, typical of that era, with “Raiders” printed across the chest in a script.

“Call us the Raiders,” he advised, somewhat sternly, as he pointed to an awkward-looking mural on the high wall that said, “Home of the Raiders.” It looked like a creepy jailhouse tattoo, blown up large.

OK.  

“While we are on this ballfield, we’re not the prisoners,” he said with, ahem, conviction. “We’re the Raiders.”

“Yes, Raiders,” I said, acknowledging my faux pas with a friendly tone. 

“And, all our games ... are home games,” he deadpanned.

We all laughed, grateful the tension had been broken. The Raiders coach slapped me on the back and thanked us for being there, for agreeing to play the game. Apparently it wasn't easy for them to round up Saturday afternoon opponents. 

In a tight, high-scoring affair the Raiders prevailed. Afterward, I was glad the Swordfish had met the Raiders. And, I was glad to leave them, too. Located smack dab in the middle of Richmond that prison was a perpetual nightmarish sight in Richmonders' collective periphery. 

In terms of winning and losing, the Biograph teams that played in the FDSL through its last season never found anything close to the success that first year's team knew. Still, popups and bad hops aside, I'll wager most of the guys on that original 1976 roster remember more little details about our meeting with the Raiders than any of the games we won or lost at Chandler Ballfield, the home of the FDSL for 18 (1977-'94) years.

The freewheeling FDSL was also the only organized-yet-independent softball league in the Richmond area.  Thus, the Fan League governed itself, made its own schedule and rules, cut its own deal with the umpires, etc. It remained so through its last season. 

Unlike most softball leagues in the 1970s, the FDSL usually had lots of fans on hand at its games. Of course, those kegs of beer that were around — which meant free beer — probably had something to do with that. 

That independence also meant the league received way less scrutiny by authorities outside of itself. Which, no doubt, was a good thing. 

*

Comment by Rebus:

  Commissioners Rea and Wrenn (1977) 

In 1977, Rea became one of three commissioners of the FDSL, along with Chuck Wrenn and Durwood Usry (of the Back Door Bombers). In that role, Rea published a newsletter for the league he called The Sports Fan; the name was suggested by John Richardson, of Back Door and Big Daddy's BBQ fame. 

 

Rea wrote the stories about the league's games and activities He also drew cartoon illustrations and even sold ads. The publication, itself, looked more or less like an underground comic book from the late-1960s.

*

Every year since 1980, on the first Saturday of May, a Biograph softball reunion has been held (except for 2020, due to COVID 19). Anyone who ever played on one of the Biograph softball teams has been welcome, families, friends, etc., included.

Serendipitously, that first reunion/old timers game in 1980 was staged on the afternoon in which the Kentucky Derby was run. The special game was played at Thomas Jefferson HS. Afterward, some of the players went to the Chris Liles' Track Restaurant, to join a Derby-watching party already underway.

The reunion subsequently became an institution and it’s been Derby Day ever since. Over the years, the game has moved around to various locations. 

Then the old timers got too old to play a game, so they just gathered and partied on Derby Day, anyway. Of course, the fabulous Track Restaurant is long gone.  

*

In 1978 the league expanded to 12 teams. That's the year the FDSL began throwing a party draped around its All-Star Game, in the middle of each season. Each mid-summer the stars of the Mars Division played the stars of the Jupiter Division. As I remember it, perennial all-star, Buddy Noble, came up with the notion of using planets for the names of the two six-team divisions.

The method for selecting the all-stars varied with the year. Occasionally votes decided the issue. Sometimes there were caucuses of the circuit's bossiest guys; the best teams always put more men on those squads. Other times, each manger just named three players from his team. No matter how it was done, popularity, or the lack of it, influenced the results. 

In 1980, blonde bombshell Donna Parker and the aforementioned Dennis Johnson made a memorable appearance at the All-Star Game at Chandler Ballfield. The ever-outrageous Johnson was wearing his wrestling costume, which included a mask. Donna was outfitted in a black leather bikini. Johnson left town soon afterward.

In 1982, the Bamboo Cafe went through the regular season undefeated, 33-0, but lost to its bitter rival, Hababa's, in the finals of the playoffs. Throughout the decade of the '80s one of those two outfits won the post-season playoffs every time.  

For several years during the ‘80s the all-star exhibition/party was staged at the Columbian Center in Henrico County. That era had the largest turnouts for the annual event, as between 200 and 250 people paid five bucks each to attend. The beer was free and the food was plentiful.

 In the foreground: Artie Probst, Fitz Marston and Paul Sobel 

at the 1985 All-Star Game at the Columbian Center.  

One particularly hot day for the party, according to the Budweiser truck guy, the attendees went through 22 kegs of beer. Figuring 200 beer drinkers, do the math.

For music, a couple of years Chuck Wrenn DJ-ed the parties. The softball games were played on what was a field always in rough shape -- rocks in the infield and overgrown clumps of weeds in the outfield. We enforced a rule against sliding on the base paths, to prevent injuries. The late Pudy Stallard was once called out, when, out of habit, he slid into second to beat a throw from the outfield.   

In 1987 and ’88 the food contest was at the center of festivities. Each team put out a spread to share and the consumers voted for the best of them. Some teams went to great lengths to coordinate their overall entry, others simply had people bring out covered dishes and whatnot.

The most talked about of all the efforts was the 3rd Street Diner’s 100 pound hamburger in ‘88. The beef was packed into a giant patty at The Diner. It was hauled around with great care, so as not to break it apart. The huge bun was put together at the Tobacco Company and baked in one of its large ovens.

Cooking the burger on an open grill at the picnic site turned out to be the best part of the ordeal. There must have been 20 experts and assistant experts standing around that grill, opining on how to go about doing the job. The burger itself was a good ten inches thick at the center. 

The flipping of the thing, to cook it all the way through -- without having it fall to pieces -- turned out to be quite an engineering feat. After all the kibitzing, it was done without mishap, much to the delight of one and all. A spontaneous celebration ensued. 

*

The FDSL also established its Hall of Fame in 1986. The first class was elected by the 12-team outfit’s designated franchise representatives. To be eligible then one had to have retired from play and considered to be among the league's founders. Ten names were tapped for the first class of Hall-of-Famers. The same rule held true in 1987, when six new names were put on the plaque. 

However, by 1988, a few of those who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame had un-retired ... more power to them. So, that year, eligibility to the Hall was opened up to anyone who seemed deserving. Those already in the HoF got to vote, as well. Nine new members were selected. 

The meetings to select new inductees were always quite lively, as were most FDSL meetings. The voting process was probably no more twisted than any hall of fame’s way of choosing new names and not choosing other names.

For 1989 six additional names were picked. The class of ‘90 added seven new names, and in ‘92 the last five names were tacked on. In all, 41 players and two umpires were selected. As for what bias may have existed, well, the list does appear to tilt somewhat in favor of guys who made significant contributions to the league's lore in its early years.

Those men who were inducted into the FDSL’s Hall from 1986 through 1992 are as follows: Ricardo Adams, Herbie Atkinson, Howard Awad, Boogie Bailey, Yogi Bair, Jay Barrows, Otto Brauer, Ernie Brooks, Hank Brown, Bobby Cassell, Jack Colan, Willie Collins, Dickie deTreville, Jack deTreville, Henry Ford, Danny Gammon, Donald Greshham, James Jackson, Dennis Johnson, Mike Kittle, Leo Koury, Jim Letizia, Junie Loving, Tony Martin, Kenny Meyer, Cliff Mowells, Buddy Noble, Randy Noble, Henry Pollard, Artie Probst, Terry Rea, John Richardson, Jerry Robinson, Larry Rohr, Billy Snead, Jim Story, Hook Shepherd, Pudy Stallard, Durwood Usry, Jumpy White, Barry Winn, Chuck Wrenn.

 

We have to assume all of them deserved it. One thing is for sure: If you put all 43 of them in the open grassy field across Woodrow Street from the ballfield -- no-man's-land -- let's say in June of 1980 or '81, at twilight, as your time machine floats in toward it, the sound you'd hear would be laughter. 

*

Comment by Rebus:

As an organization, the Fan District Softball League lasted 20 years, which was a wonder in itself. There are plenty of true stories from those years that are almost unbelievable.

-- 30 --

BIOGRAPH TIMES: Time Warping, Again

Comment by Rebus: 

Regarding whether parts of these Biograph stories have been fabricated from whole cloth or generously embellished, there's this: Several times I've heard Rea tell people that he's learned the best way to to be credible, when recounting some stories set in the '70s, is to tone them down. And, naturally, some stories are best left on the cutting room floor.

Maybe cartoonist Robert Ripley said it best: "Believe it or not!"

 *

Intro: In 1955 RKO, which had just changed hands, became the first major Hollywood studio to sell the exhibition rights of its library of feature films to television interests. Consequently, many in the baby boomer generation grew up watching that studio's well-crafted black and white movies on TV. 

Twenty years later, the familiar old RKO logo played a cameo role in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), which is a campy send-up of old science fiction and monster flicks. That movie eventually became the most significant midnight show attraction of all-time. As such, it merits its own chapter in this collection of Biograph stories. Read on...

* 

 This photo of Larry Rohr riding up the aisle during a 
midnight screening of the "The Rocky Horror 
Picture Show" was shot on Mar. 1, 1980. 

At Midnight Only: Time Warping, Again 

by F.T. Rea

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was adapted from the British kitsch-celebrating, gender-bending stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Show.” The film version was released by 20th Century Fox in September of 1975.

The play was written in the early-1970s; it opened in London in 1973. Its thin plot cashed in on the time's freedom to pursue pleasure, expressed plainly by the hippies' liberating trope – “if it feels good, do it.”

Yet, to Fox's distribution department in 1975, the movie was weird in a way that made it difficult to pigeonhole, marketing-wise. Which couldn't have helped in the promotion for its early first-run engagements, which were disappointing at the box office. That eventually prompted Fox to simply give up and take it out of release.

While “Rocky Horror,” the film, became popular during what might now be seen as the punk era, it wasn't really connected to the aesthetic of punk's defiant nonchalance. Style-wise, its music, written by the play's author, Richard O'Brien, was sort of a bubble-gum knockoff of early rock 'n' roll, updated with a measure of glam rock.

Overall, as pop music goes, the songs probably didn't expand any boundaries. Nonetheless, in the context of the movie the music had it own charm.

As a movie musical, "Rocky Horror" was surely no worse than a good deal of the Hollywood musicals of the 1950s and '60s. Anyway, it didn't please critics all that much, either. So when Fox put it on the shelf, no one could have anticipated the one-of-a-kind cult following it would eventually gather as a midnight show.

Note: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: 100 minutes. Color. Directed by Jim Sharman (who had also directed the play). Cast: Tim Curry (as Dr. Frank-N-Furter), Susan Sarandon (as Janet), Barry Bostwick (as Brad), Richard O'Brien (as Riff Raff), Patricia Quinn (as Magenta), Nell Campbell (as Columbia), Meat Loaf (as Eddie), Peter Hinwood (as Rocky).

About a year after its original release, the second life for “Rocky Horror” is said to have begun at the legendary Waverly Theater (now the IFC Center) in Greenwich Village. At midnight screenings, it seems a few audience members began calling out sarcastic comeback lines to the film's action and dialogue. The funniest remarks were appreciated, imitated, then eventually topped by an attendee at a subsequent screening.

Thus, it wasn't originally some adman's brainchild. It just happened.

It should also be noted that as an institution, midnight shows had been popular in New York City since the late-'60s. As well, they had been running at cinemas in other cities and some college towns for a good five years or more. Basically, if a midnight screening went well, it would be held over to the next weekend, which was a departure from calendar house programming. 

Thus, the midnight show format had already been developed and was well established when “Rocky Horror” came along. In the Richmond Biograph's first couple of years of operation midnight show screenings frequently did much to help pay the electric bill. 

During 1977 at the Waverly, the role the audience played in the midnight shows enlarged to make the screenings into events with costumes and choreography, as the traditional wall between the screen and the viewers continued dissolving. When that unprecedented interaction phenomenon jumped from Manhattan to other markets where “Rocky Horror” was playing as a midnight show, such as Austin and Los Angeles, it became even more puzzling.

By the winter of 1977/78 “Rocky Horror” was playing to enthusiastic crowds in several cities. Yet, curiously, it had not caught on at others. What would eventually become a popular culture marvel was still flying below the radar for most of America.

As the spring of '78 approached, Alan Rubin asked Fox once again about booking it for Richmond's Biograph. It was already playing at the Key Theatre in Georgetown, because Rubin's ex-partner, David Levy, had beaten him to the punch. But Alan was told there still weren't any prints available. 

Then, during a trip to Los Angles in May, I heard about what were the elaborate goings-on at the Tiffany Theatre, to do with “Rocky Horror.” Upon my return to Richmond I told Alan and his partner, Lenny Poryles, what I'd learned about its growing popularity in LA. Subsequently, during a conference call with one of the guys at Fox, Alan, Lenny and I were told there was just no enthusiasm at his end for the picture’s prospects in Richmond. 

To be fair, in those days Richmond was generally seen by most movie distributors as a weak market – not a place to waste resources. Besides, no one at Fox seemed to understand why the audience participation following for the picture had blossomed in the first place, or more importantly – what was making the movie's cult following catch on in some cities, but not at all in others. So they were holding off on ordering any new prints. 

Which meant there was no telling how long we might have to wait. It does seem funny now to recall how unconvinced the Fox folks were that they actually had something that was new in the cinema world. Old strategies just didn't necessarily apply to "Rocky Horror."

After the distributor's representative got off the line, Alan, Lenny and I continued our telephone conversation. That led us to agreeing to a plan: We would offer to front the cost of a new 35mm print, some $5,000, as I remember it, which would stand as an advance against standard film rental fees. There were two provisos to the deal: 1. The Biograph would continue hold the exclusive rights to exhibit “Rocky Horror” in the Richmond market as long as we held onto that print. 2. That I would promote it as I saw fit, creating my own materials, rather than relying on Fox's standard press kit stuff. That was something I was accustomed to doing when situations called for it.

When we called the Fox distributor's office back, it went smoothly. With nothing to lose, they went for the deal. After all, if anything, the Biograph had earned a reputation for being a good venue for midnight shows. 

Next, for research, I questioned a couple of publicity people at Fox a little more about how it had been promoted in various situations. Curiously, there was no consensus about what had prompted the successes or failures. 

However, Fox had encouraged a few exhibitors to call for attendees who would recite certain lines and dance in the aisles at set times, etc. But when they tried to prime the pump in that way, it generally hadn't worked.

After viewing the film, I decided it would probably be better not to over-promote it. That way there would be less risk of drawing the sort of general audience which might include too many unsatisfied customers – folks who might leave the theater bad-mouthing it. Instead, my strategy called for getting the attention of the kids who had already been seeing “Rocky Horror” screenings at the Waverly or the Key. I also wanted to alert a few of the most determined of local taste-makers -- the sort who must see anything edgy first, so they can opine about it.

Accordingly, at WGOE's studio I produced a radio commercial using about 20 seconds of the film's signature song, “Time Warp.” The only ad copy came at the very end with a tag line. The listener heard my voice say, “Get in the act … midnight at the Biograph.” There was no explanation of what the music was, or what the 30-second spot was even about. 

At that time, the soundtrack for “Rocky Horror” still hadn't become all that well known. The hook was that the spot didn't offer listeners as much information as they expected, which hopefully added somewhat to its underground allure. The same less-is-more approach was used in the handbill. 

The Floor Show

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opened in Richmond on June 30, 1978. It drew a decent crowd, but it wasn't a sell-out. Some of those who attended did occasionally call out wisecrack lines. Most did not. As I recall, a handful of people dressed up in costumes. As hoped, over the next few weeks a following for “Rocky Horror” steadily grew, as did the audience participation.

At the center of that following was a troupe that became the regulars who turned midnight screenings into performance-art adventures. John Porter, a VCU theater major, emerged as the leader of that group; they called themselves the Floor Show. Outfitted in his Frank-N-Furter get-up, Porter missed few, if any, midnight screenings for the next couple of years.

Plenty of crazy things happened in dealing with the “Rocky Horror” audience twice a week. There was the Saturday night an entire full house was thrown out, because some bare-chested roughnecks ran amuck. They were hosing down the crowd, using our fire extinguishers. Fights were underway. So after a stern warning from me to the crowd, to stop-or-else did no good, I pulled the plug. One by one, they all got their money back.

Interestingly, after that night we never had much trouble with violence to do with “Rocky Horror” again. From then on the Floor Show kids helped to monitor the situation, to make it uncool to go too far. Porter’s leadership was a key to keeping it loose and fun, but not out of control. For his part, John was given a lifetime pass to the Biograph.

There was no stranger episode than the night a man breathed his last, as he sat in the small auditorium (Theatre No. 2) watching “F.I.S.T” (1978). Yes, that lame Sylvester Stallone vehicle was hard to watch, but who knew it could be lethal?

Sitting upright in an aisle seat the dead man’s expressionless face offered no clues to his final thoughts. His eyes were open. He was about 30, which was my age at that time. 

The rescue squad guys jerked him out of his seat and threw him onto the floor. As jolts of electricity shot through the dead man’s body, down in Theater No. 1 “Rocky Horror” was on the Biograph’s larger screen delighting the audience. Walking back and forth between the two auditoriums, absorbing the bizarre juxtaposition of those two scenes in the same building, was a strange trip, to say the least.

A brief item about the death appeared in the newspaper. It said he had been in bad health. Don't remember his name.

Looking on the bright side, after six-and-a-half years of showing screwball comedies, French New Wave films, rock 'n' roll movies, film noirs, and so forth, the Biograph had earned the chance to have what any theater needs to become fully-fledged – a ghost.

Chasing Dignity

On one of those busy nights early in the run of “Rocky Horror a battle broke out in the middle of West Grace Street in front of the theater. Rocks, bottles and whatnot were flying back and forth between two factions of young men. Both squads consisted of four or five active participants.

As I later discovered, the fight was between members of a VCU fraternity and an Oregon Hill crew. To me, the most alarming angle of the incident was that it was unfolding a perilous 30 yards from the Cinemascopic, all-glass front of the Biograph.

The box office had just closed and the cashier was in the midst of count-up duties. At the same time a small group of friends was in the lobby. Some of them were my Biograph softball teammates. A few of us were playing a pinball machine. As the manager of the theater, I felt obliged to fend off the threat. 

Accordingly, I asked the cashier to call the police and I opened one of the twin exit doors, to step onto the sidewalk and yell at the kids -- in so many words I told them to scram. As an incentive I said the cops were already on the way. 

That was good enough for the frat-boy team. They scampered off.

Meanwhile, rather than pursue their enemies, the Oregon Hill gang simply switched over to aiming their missiles at me. A rock hit the curb. A tumbling bottle shattered on the sidewalk. That prompted me to duck back inside. A second or two later an incoming piece of red brick crashed through the door's lowest glass panel. 

It struck my right shin. That particular moment of this story stands out sharply in my memory. 

My friends and I took off after the guys attacking the theater. There were seven, maybe eight men in the posse that went after the scattering hooligans. However, my focus was totally on the guy who had plunked me. I chased him as he headed west. 

Suddenly hemmed in by three of us in a public parking lot at the intersection of Shafer and Grace, he faked one way, then cut to the other. When his traction gave way in the gravel paving he stumbled to regain his balance. That was when I tackled him by the legs. The others in his group got away.

With some help from my friends – two of them held his arms – we marched the brick-thrower back toward the theater. During that trek I suppose there was some conversation. Don't recall any of what was said, but something the captured culprit said as we passed Grace Place (an excellent vegetarian restaurant) provoked one guy in our group to punch him in the jaw without warning.

One of the officers in the assembling group of cops in front of the theater sarcastically complimented the puncher for his prisoner-escorting “technique.” Shortly thereafter the punchee was hauled off in the paddy wagon. Back in the lobby I told the puncher he had overreached in hitting the kid unnecessarily, especially while he was helpless.

Caught off-guard by my reaction, my softball teammate laughed. He disagreed, saying essentially that his summary punishment would likely be the only price the guy would ever pay for his assault. Another in the group quickly agreed with him. Others saw it my way, or said nothing.

Then we probably resumed the ongoing pinball game. And, it's quite likely I went across the lobby to the theater's refrigerator in a closet and pulled out enough cans of cold beer to say, “thank you” to each member of the posse. They had helped protect the Biograph from a menace. And, yes, it was satisfying to have at least caught the one who had just bloodied my shin.

It wasn’t long after that night I found myself poring over a 1931 essay by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Echoes of the Jazz Age.” Here is the last paragraph of that evocative piece:

“…Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth. Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that swings me back into the early twenties when we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better, and there was a first abortive shortening of the skirts, and girls all looked alike in sweater dresses, and people you didn’t want to know said ‘Yes, we have no bananas,’ and it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were — and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more.”

During that reading, seated at my desk in the theater's office, it hit me that the shattering of the Biograph's glass door had been the sound to accompany the hippie era ending. Its trends, causes and distinctive styles had arrived in the late-'60s. Soon it all would be seen as nostalgia. In some ways the hippie decade had been similar to the Roaring ’20s.

Moreover, the peace-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment elements of my generation hadn't changed the world all that much, at least not in enduring ways. Ending the Vietnam War and getting rid of Nixon just hadn't solved as many problems as our slogans had promised.

In the summer of '78, it was also time for me to admit to myself the neighborhood surrounding the Biograph was getting meaner. Which made little sense, even at the time, since it was adjacent to VCU's burgeoning academic campus. Still, for whatever reason the university didn't appear to be worried about that.  

A month later, in the General District Court I agreed to a proposal to drop the assault charge, provided the brick-thrower was convicted of a misdemeanor for breaking the glass, and that he would reimburse us for the cost of the repairs. A payment schedule was set up.

As we spoke several times after that day in court I came to see the 19-year-old “hooligan” wasn’t really such a bad guy. His payments were made on a timely basis. With his last payment he asked for the name of the man who’d punched him.

While withholding the name, I agreed with him that regardless of my friend's intentions his adrenaline-fueled punch had mostly been a cheap shot. With the money aspect of the debt paid, we shook hands.

Debt and Irony

About a year later, during a Wednesday matinee, the Biograph cashier, Gussie Armeniox, was counting a stack of one dollar bills when an opportunistic thief snatched them from her hands. Although I was only a few feet away, behind the candy counter in the lobby, my back was turned. When I looked around, it was alarming to see the robber bolting out the front door. Gussie's wide-eyed, frightened look was unforgettable. 

It surely boosted the intensity of the sense of violation. As I got to the sidewalk the thief was already a half-a-block away. Nevertheless, in spite of his foot speed it turned out he wasn't so good at avoiding capture. Instead of just running to the west -- to put plenty of distance between us -- he ducked between the buildings, trying to hide. He did it a couple of times, then, when I would find him and get close, he'd take off again.

During the chasing and searching I received some unexpected help from a total stranger. A young man slammed on his brakes and jumped out of his pickup truck. After that reinforcement it took less than five minutes to corner the thief in the men's room of a fast food restaurant. By then a policeman in a cruiser had showed up. 

Fortunately, that meant I didn't have to go into that men's room to drag the perpetrator out. The cops did it for me.

Of course, I thanked the volunteer and asked him why he’d stopped to help out. He told me he already knew I was the Biograph’s manager, because a buddy of his had pointed me out to him. His friend?

It was the same Oregon Hill street-fighter I had tackled a year before. My assistant thief-chaser said his friend told him the story about the broken glass door and the assault charge being dropped. Then he said I'd dealt fairly with him. Consequently, a favor was owed to me.

Before he got back in his truck, my collaborator said that in his neighborhood the guys tend to stick together. Thus, he had supported me in my time of need, because of his friend’s debt. I was grateful and flabbergasted.

It now seems to me the sort of obligation he felt and acted upon has been evaporating out of the culture for some time, maybe since the time of this chase scene. The thief turned out to be a repeat offender, so the judge gave him six months for stealing 37 dollar bills.

Looking back on this story what connects those two chase scenes has become increasingly more satisfying. No doubt, that’s partly because in dealing with bad luck and other ordinary tests of character, too many times I’ve done nothing to brag about – even the wrong thing.

Maybe in this two-part adventure I came close to getting it right. In my view, both chases had something to do with pursuing justice and preserving something. Dignity perhaps.

The Exploding Motorcycle

On Friday, March 1, 1980, with its 88th consecutive week, “Rocky Horror” established a new record for longevity in Richmond. It broke the record of 87 weeks, established by “The Sound of Music” (1965), during its first-run engagement at the Willow Lawn Theater.

To celebrate Porter and I dressed in tuxedos to stand before the full house. He held up a “Sound of Music” soundtrack album and I smashed it with a hammer. It went over quite well.

The record-breaking ceremony prior to the screening.

In a nice touch to underline the special night‘s theme, a couple of the regulars came dressed as Julie Andrews. The late Carole Kass, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s sweetheart of a entertainment writer/movie critic, wrote up a nice feature on what was basically hokum.

That same night, Larry Rohr rode his motorcycle through the auditorium’s aisles at the point in the movie when Meat Loaf’s character in the film, Eddie, rides his motorcycle. Rohr’s careful but noisy rides happened only on a few special occasions, such as the record-breaking night. Fortunately, nothing bad ever happened.

A few weeks later, I had a dream that the motorcycle exploded. The nightmare scared me so much the motorcycle rides were discontinued. Anyway, that's what I told people about why we stopped. 

Yes, now it seems crazy as hell that I ever facilitated such risky shenanigans. Maybe I was somewhat carried away by the aforementioned wide-open permission that went along with the '70s. With no more motorcycle rides, various Floor Show members sometimes rode a tricycle up and down the aisles. The way members of that group adapted playfully to whatever was said or done in previous weeks was an integral aspect of the fun. They were like players in a story that had new chapters being written for it, on the fly, each weekend.

However, while “Rocky Horror” had an underground cachet in the first year, even the second, eventually its cool status began to go sour. That was especially so in the eyes of the staff and Biograph regulars who hung out there. The rice, toast and all sorts of other stuff that got tossed around had to be cleaned up each and every time by the grumbling janitors, who naturally grew to detest the movie. To keep the peace they got “Rocky Horror” bonuses — a few extra bucks for their weekend shifts.

Once into the winter of 1980/81 the turnout for the screenings of “Rocky Horror” began a gradual withering. By then many of the originals had stopped coming every weekend. Much of the audience seemed to be made up of sightseers from the suburbs. The fast crowd in the artsy, black leather jacket scene was ignoring it, although the movie was still doing enough business to justify holding onto that original print.

In the summer of 1982 “Rocky Horror” celebrated its fourth anniversary at the Biograph. That same summer, for Program No. 60, I booked a six-week festival offering 12 RKO double features.

The Biograph's record-setting midnight show run of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” ended on June 25, 1983. Although it had helped pay the rent, no one was happier to see that well-used 35mm print shipped out than those of us who had lived warped by the “Rocky Horror” experience for five whole years. 

*

Note: In the Biograph lobby I always got a kick out of listening to enthusiastic new film buffs tell me why the old movie he or she had just watched was cool. Still cool! 

Of course, in agreeing with them I was just doing my job. Anywhere, any time, stimulating a greater appreciation of good films, made in previous times, was an important aspect of the manager's duties, and I've never gotten over it.

Speaking of time warps, here are the titles for that 1982 RKO fest, listed in the order in which they played: 

“Top Hat” (1935) and “Damsel in Distress” (1936); “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939) and “The Informer” (1935); “King Kong” (1933) and “Mighty Joe Young” (1949); “Suspicion” (1941) and “They Live By Night” (1948); “Sylvia Scarlett” (1936) and “Mister Blandings Builds His Dream House” (1948); “Murder My Sweet” (1945) and “Macao” (1952); “The Mexican Spitfire” (1939) and “Room Service” (1938); “Journey Into Fear” (1942) and “This Land Is Mine” (1943); “The Thing” (1951) and “Cat People” (1942); “The Boy With Green Hair” (1948) and “Woman on the Beach” (1947); “Citizen Kane” (1941) and “Fort Apache” (1948); “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944) and “The Body Snatcher” (1945).

 --  All rights reserved by the writer, F.T. Rea. Photos by Ernie Brooks

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