BIOGRAPH TIMES: The Outro to Part One

The Outro for Part One

Program 21, Autumn 1974

Comment from Rebus: 

In the spring of 1974 the Biograph finally caught a lucky break. Owing to a squabble between Paramount (the distributor) and Neighborhood Theatres (the regional chain), suddenly Paramount needed an independent Richmond screen north of the James River. Thus, a nice little group of first-run features fell its way. 

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Note: Among the noteworthy titles we presented during that spell of fortuitous estrangement between Paramount and the Neighborhood were: "The Conversation," "Chinatown," "Parallax View" and "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz." Aesthetic-wise, those four hit pictures ranged from pretty good to great. 

The bonus was that in our quest to expand our appeal to a broader audience, they combined to bring in more new customers than anything else we had done up to that point. Of the four, Roman Polanski's masterpiece, "Chinatown," was the biggest hit. 

"Chinatown" played for five consecutive weeks. As it happened, it opened here a week after its national premiere in Los Angeles. No doubt, it helped at the box office to have "Chinatown" on our marquee, while it was getting lots of praise from the national media. 

That particular successful run at the Biograph was appreciated by Paramount and noticed by other distributors, who routinely shared box office numbers. We did fairly well with "The Conversation" and "Duddy Kravitz," too. In all, it said to the region's distributors that we might be the right screen in the Richmond market for popular art house films.

Going forward, this factor helped ease our access to quality first-run product, domestic and imported. It didn't level the playing field with the chains, but we were finally in the first-run game.  

Ad in the Richmond Mercury.

We played "Amarcord" (1974) as a first-run engagement. Considered by some as Fellini's most accessible film, it did well at the box office, too. It was playing when the then-current staff, former staffers and a few friends of the theater gathered in the lobby for an afternoon birthday party -- the Biograph's third.

It was the first of what would be a series of anniversary reunion parties, always in February. The Biograph's birthday was celebrated each year, much the same way, through the rest of my tenure as manager.

Third anniversary reunion party (1975).

Same reunion party

 

After the theater closed, the reunion parties reappeared occasionally, like zombies, staged at various sites. Some of those events were promoted to the public and featured live music. More about those occasions later. 

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Comment from Rebus:

The Biograph's 50th anniversary was observed in 2022 with a transcontinental good times get-together, via Zoom.

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

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