Have you ever had a fantasy about running and programming your own repertory cinema? Any self-proclaimed film buff probably has and, for me, it was a real but barely articulated desire from the time I was seven. Unlike the kids who wanted to be firemen, magicians, astronauts, cops, forest rangers, professional athletes, I could see myself as a movie theatre owner where I could show anything and print availability or attendance was never a concern. While this fantasy faded over the years as I became aware of the realities and headaches of film distribution and theatre management, the love of programming movies always stayed with me and for a brief period (Oct. 1980 – Dec. 1981), I ran an invitation only film series out of my home in Athens, Ga. at 733 Pulaski Street that I called Secret Cinema.       

The name was inspired by Paul Bartel’s 1968 short THE SECRET CINEMA (it was later remade as an episode of Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” series for television). In Bartel’s original version, Jane, a secretary in a New York City office, struggles through one mishap after another, from daily humilations at the office or on the street to being abandoned by her boyfriend. Her increasing paranoia leads to her discovery that she is being secretly filmed and her life is the subject of a comical serial, shown in weekly installments at an undisclosed location, attended by her much amused friends and colleagues. One of the great movie premises of all time, THE SECRET CINEMA doesn’t quite live up to its potential in either version but it seemed like the ideal name for a film series that was basically underground in terms of awareness.

From the beginning, I had no illusions that Secret Cinema would make money or that it would be more than a hobby. And 16mm film rental was relatively inexpensive in the early 80s if you knew all of your options; my bible was the R.R. Bowker publication Feature Films: A Directory of Feature Films on 16mm and Videotape Available for Rental, Sale and Lease by James L. Limbacher. You could rent movies for a 1-2 day period for as little as $25 or less, not including shipping, from such sources as Ivy Films, Budget Films or college media centers such as the University of Michigan Media Resources Center which had an impressive library of films for rental that were unaffordable from their original distributors such as New Yorker Films or Cinema 5. This was during the pre-Blockbuster video boom, of course, and my intention was to show film, not video.

So I plunged into it and scheduled Secret Cinema’s first showing, I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957), along with the award-winning claymation short, CLAY (1965) by Eliot Noyes Jr. Phyllis, my wife at the time, designed some of the flyers (she had a talent for calligraphy and cartoon-like drawings among other things) and we invited all of our mutual friends. As a University of Georgia employee, I was able to borrow a 16mm projector from the media center and the “theatre” location was our old, rambling WWII-era house in a working class neighborhood of Athens. The den, with its high ceiling and wide walls, was the ideal screening room space and I set up the projector in the galley kitchen at the back of the house for a good visual throw.

Secret Cinema had an auspicious beginning and the novelty of it alone ensured that at least 20 or so friends showed up to experience I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN and CLAY. The $1.50 admission I requested was never mandatory and more of a suggestion to help cover the film rentals. That was probably a good idea because several of our first time attendees would probably have asked for their money back that night. While everyone loved Noyes’ playful animated short about evolution, I quickly learned that my love of grade Z horror movies was not shared by most of my friends except for one or two fellow film nerds. Still, there was something magical about seeing our den full of people gazing apon mad scientist Whit Bissell yelling at his hideous creation, “Speak! I know you have a civil tongue in your head because I sewed it back myself.” Most of the dialogue was hilarious and I especially love that final stock footage shot of an alligator in a tank chomping on some laboratory jacket (presumably Mr. Bissell) under THE END credits. When the lights came up, there was faint applause and our friend Martha said, “You know this is a great idea and next time, why don’t you show something that is actually GOOD?” Well, my intention was to show all kinds of films and that I did and my own personal tastes would usually dictate the size of my audience as I quickly learned. Certainly I had self-serving reasons for showing some films – I simply wanted to see them – but other times I wanted to expose my friends to movies they might love and convert some of them to cinephiles in the process.

Here are some of the highlights and low points of my Secret Cinema experiment.

A Program of European New Wave Shorts on June 28, 1981:

Based on the positive response I received to a few Secret Cinema programs of short films – one included George Melies’ THE CONQUEST OF THE POLE (1912) and Charlie Chaplin’s THE TRAMP (1915); the other Robert Enrico’s AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE (1962) and the Claes Oldenburg art short, SORT OF A COMMERCIAL FOR AN ICEBERG (1969) – I tried to offer something a little more adventureous featuring early work by Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Roman Polanski and Pascal Aubier. It turned out to be one of my largest attended events with more than 30 people crammed into our den on a sweltering summer day. Despite the humidity and heat, everyone seemed completely attentive to these witty mini-movies which were not as well known as the directors’ more famous features. The wild card in the bunch was Pascal Aubier’s 32 minute MONSIEUR JEAN CLAUDE VOUCHERIN (1968), the most experimental of the bunch. The first half of the film, shot in a fixed, static manner, focuses on the compulsive-obsessive title character who is going through a daily deskkeeping ritual of lining up sharpened pencils and arranging stacks of paper. Just when you think this exercise in minimalism is about to lose its comic, absurdist edge, it transitions into a completely different movie, freeing this character from his office and following him into the streets, accompanied by a whimsical, off-kilter score. The result is unexpectedly exhilarating. It was a good warm-up for LES MISTONS (1957), Truffaut’s affectionate, nostaglic paean to puberty with Bernadette Lafont as some schoolboys’ object of desire (she also appeared in MONSIEUR JEAN CLAUDE VOUCHERIN). Godard’s lighthearted romantic short TOUS LES GARCONS S’APPELLENT PATRICK (1959, aka All the Boys Are Called Patrick) showed us a side of the director rarely seen in his later work. And Polanski’s TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE was appropriately stark and surreal in contrast to the other three shorts, introducing themes of violence, cruelty and humiliation that would figure prominently in the Polish director’s later work. The films sparked a lot of lively discussions and arguments that continued long after the screenings – “Godard’s political films are unwatchable,” “Truffaut is the most sentimental of the New Wave filmmakers,” “Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird was actually based on Polanski’s childhood in Nazi occupied Poland,” etc. I also received the suggestion from more than one person that I open a repertory cinema in Athens (I actually went through the motions of investigating this idea and learned that even then a repertory theatre was an expensive and risky venture in Athens; The Chameleon, a local nightclub had already attempted a weekly screening series that was more eclectic than successful – screenings of Jan Kadar’s ADRIFT (1969) and  Jess Franco’s 99 WOMEN (1969), among others – and barely lasted a year).

HOMICIDAL on July 19, 1981:

I had another large turnout (over 30 people) for this famous William Castle thriller and was surprised to learn that many of my friends had heard of but never seen any of Castle’s films such as House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler. Yet, despite the slow pace and Castle’s unsubtle directing style, everyone seemed fascinated with the characters of Warren and Emily, a strange married couple who never appear together on-screen and are actually the same person. The film has an amusing sex change/Christine Jorgensen connection and builds to a creepy climax in a dark mansion. The print even included the 60 second “fright break” gimmick that was advertised in the film’s original release.  The subject of Warren/Emily and their backstory was an intriguing enigma that lasted long after the screening was over (If they were perplexed over this, how would they respond to Last Year at Marienbad?). And in the coming weeks, when I ran into friends who had seen HOMICIDAL at my house, they were still puzzling over details of Castle’s absurd, slapdash effort to imitate Hitchcock’s success with Psycho. Below is a link to an earlier blog on Homicidal: http://moviemorlocks.com/2007/09/22/will-the-real-jean-arless-please-step-forward/

Documentary Double Feature on Oct. 4, 1981:

ANTONIO: A PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN (1974) had been an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Film and was a movie my wife wanted to see. I was curious as well about this intimate tribute to 73 year old musical conductor Antonio Brico, which was produced by singer/songwriter Judy Collins and directed by Jill Godmillow, and depicted her struggle for work and recognition in a male-dominated profession. The bigger revelation, however, was Anthony Korner’s delightful HELEN, QUEEN OF THE NAUTCH GIRLS (1973) which I credit with introducing me to Bollywood movies and Helen, one of its iconic stars who appeared in over 500 features. There are plenty of tantalizing clips from some of Helen’s films included along with a playful behind-the-scenes interview with her as she practices yoga, puts on her make-up and arranges her hair. I have since become a huge Helen fan and hardily recommend you watch her hyperactive gyrating in such eye-popping gems as GUMNAAN (1965) and TEESRI MANZIL (1966).

WAY OUT WEST (1937) and BEAUTY KNOWS NO PAIN (1972) on Jan. 10, 1982:

Most of my generation had grown up watching Laurel and Hardy comedies on television as kids so WAY OUT WEST, one of the duo’s finest features, was an easy choice for an audience-pleasing program. In a movie full of iconic moments, the boys’ dance to “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” received enthusiastic applause and the scene where Stan is almost tickled to death by golddigging saloon singer Sharon Lynn got the biggest laughs. Once again though it was the opening short, Elliott Erwitt’s BEAUTY KNOWS NO PAIN, that generated the most word of mouth in the ensuing weeks. People who were there that night can still quote dialogue to me from this subversive little documentary that dispensed with any voice over narration and let the subjects speak for themselves; in this case, it was Miss Gussie Nell Davis and members of her famous dancing drill team, the Kilgore College Rangerettes. The 26 minute film depicts the events in a two-week summer camp competition in which the finalists will be inducted into the elite cheerleading corps. One of the more memorable moments was when Miss Gussie had her girls stand, legs exposed, against a prickly holly hedge without grimacing, commanding them to smile naturally, hence the title. This short generated as much, if not more, laughter than WAY OUT WEST but some see it as a savage satire; Amos Vogel in his landmark book Film as a Subversive Art, wrote, “…in its  portrayal of false values instilled and the over-all insipidness of an enterprise undertaken with utmost seriousness by its perpetrators – it must be read as a corrosive critique of bourgeois American…the ‘message’ resides in the visuals (and montage) and will be decoded by the viewer in accord with his own value system.”

STORMY WEATHER ON Jan. 24, 1982:

While this 1943 musical has a threadbare, uninspired storyline as so many Hollywood produced musicals did – singer Selina Rogers (Lena Horne) refuses to give up her career to marry and settle down with fellow performer Corky Williamson (Bill Robinson) – the movie is a landmark in other ways for showcasing so many major musical legends in one movie. You can see the immortal Fats Waller on the piano performing “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, Cab Calloway is on hand to lend his unique scat singing style to “Geechy Joe,” and Lena Horne transforms the title song into a showstopping production number accompanied by the fantastic Katherine Dunham dance troupe. But it is The Nicholas Brothers who steal the film in their wild, gravity-defying leapfrog dance number down a giant staircase. The people who witnessed this the night of the screening gave the number a standing ovation and demanded that I roll the film back and play it again….which I happily did. Most of my friends had never seen Lena Horne in a starring role either and this movie was one of her rare leading lady opportunities (along with Cabin in the Sky).

Shorts Festival on Oct. 18, 1982:

By this point, Secret Cinema had a new location. I was now divorced and renting a room with bathroom and kitchen access in the upper floor of my friend’s house at 343 S. Pope Street. Candle had a large, slooping backyard with an elevated screened-in porch that when covered with a king size white sheet made a fine outdoor screen. I would run an extension cord from the backyard toolshed and set up the projector and speakers at the bottom of the yard, projecting onto the makeshift porch screen. When the weather permitted, it was the next best thing to a drive-in theatre without the cars. For this program, I rented most of the titles from Kit Parker Films, a specialist in offbeat shorts and underrated B movies. GOING HOLLYWOOD (1948) was in the tradition of the infamous Dogville animal shorts which were produced by Warner Bros. and still a cult sensation on TCM today. Part of the Paramount “Speaking of Animals” comedy short series, GOING HOLLYWOOD features real animals with cartoon mouths speaking in human voices and cracking corny jokes. THE FOLLIES was a risque 1926 burlesque short in which a pudgy topless dancer tries to seduce the viewer with her bold shimmying.  The ALL-STAR BOND RALLY was a wonderful 1945 time capsule hosted by Bob Hope with cameo appearances by Harpo Marx, Carmen Miranda, Bing Crosby, Harry James and His Orchestra and Frank Sinatra performing, “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week.”

The most offbeat selection of the night was CANDY IS A HEALTH FOOD (1927), a silent promotional film for the Euclid Candy Factory, in which mass produced chocolate assembled as Love Nest candy bars with peanuts added looked a lot like something else which is not so yummy…if you know what I mean. I also showed BETTY IN BLUNDERLAND, a classic 1935 Betty Boop cartoon, and THE PHILLIPS BROADCAST OF 1938 was probably the first time my friends had seen a George Pal puppetoon short with its distinctly stylized animation and glistening Gasparcolor. Almost every short was a hit, from FLOP HOUSE (1932) featuring the cartoon character Scrappy to Ub Iwerks’ MERRY MANNEQUINS (1937), which was part of his popular Columbia Color Rhapsodies series, and the evening ended on a joyous note with CAB CALLOWAY’S JITTERBUG PARTY (1935). Any time I could work Cab Calloway into a program, it was usually a good luck charm.

Of course, not all of the Secret Cinema events were successful in terms of attendance or execution. Some of the major disappointments include BURN WITCH BURN aka Night of the Eagle (1962), which I programmed on the day after Halloween. Only my next door neighbors, Tyler and Leigh, showed up but it was still a treat. An underrated and atmospheric little supernatural chiller, BURN WITCH BURN has impressive special effects considering its low budget, excellent performances and a clever plot (based on Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife) in which a witch coven unleashes its evil on a small university town. The scene where the stone eagle comes to life and pursues the film’s hero (Peter Wyngarde) is particularly memorable and Tyler, who was a Famous Monsters of Filmland devotee from an early age, liked it so much we watched it again the next day.

DIABOLIQUE (1955) on Nov. 15, 1981

I had a small gathering for this – maybe 8 people – but the problem this particular night was the projector I had borrowed from the UGA media center. There was a problem with the sound system and all of the dialogue in the movie sounded like people gargling underwater. Luckily, the print was in French with English subtitles so everyone could follow the storyline but not being able to clearly hear the voices of the three main players  – Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot and Paul Meurisse – was frustrating. Still, the dark, sinister setting of the rundown boys’ boarding school where the action takes place and the claustrophobic mood of the situation – two women plotting the demise of their tormentor, the cruel headmaster of the school – came through with its power undiminished, especially that famous final encounter in the bathroom.

3 Shorts & 1 Documentary on Aug. 8th:

I could almost always count on a decent turnout for any program of shorts, but when I tried to add a feature length film to the mix, especially a documentary, the results were less predictable. And when the documentary choice dealt with serious and controversial subject matter…well, it wasn’t most people’s idea of a fun night out. I should have learned this from my earlier screening of THE QUIET ONE (1948), Sidney Meyers’ semi-documentary account of a disturbed young black boy and his rehabilitation at the Wiltwyck School for Boys. Co-written by James Agee, Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and Sidney Meyers and narrated by Gary Merrill, THE QUIET ONE was more apt for a university film study class and not the regular Secret Cinema crowd who wanted to be entertained. Yet, I had wanted to see Cinda Firestone’s documentary ATTICA since its initial release in 1974 and rented it thinking others might share my interest in this critically acclaimed film about the infamous Attica prison uprising in 1971; the incident ended in violence with 200 people wounded and 43 killed (including 11 hostages) in a massacre ordered by Governor Rockefeller and carried out by State troopers and National Guardsmen. Part of my interest in Attica had been sparked by Tom Wicker’s first hand account, A TIME TO DIE; he was a New York Times reporter at the time who was requested by inmate spokesmen to come and observe the negotiations between the authorities and the prisoners and report it to the world. Today, younger audiences may know Attica only from John Travolta crying out the name repeatedly with clinched fist in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER in imitation of Al Pacino reciting the same mantra in DOG DAY AFTERNOON (The latter film was based on a real life incident in 1972 in which bank robber John Wojtowicz actually used the defiant “Attica, Attica, Attica” cheer to stir up the crowds and paint the cops as fascist oppressors). At any rate, not one person came to the ATTICA screening and I watched it alone in Candle’s backyard. Despite this, I was grateful to be able to see this film which never got a theatrical release in Athens. The other films in the program included Shevard Goldstein’s 7 minute tragicomedy, KRASNER, NORMAN..BELOVED HUSBAND OF IRMA, INSOMNIA, a 17-minute horror satire by French film comic Pierre Extaix, and Alexander Illic’s 11 minute wildlife featurette, THE OWL. There are certainly worse ways to spend an evening alone.

Looking back, the entire Secret Cinema experience marked a great period in my life when I was motivated to organize regular social gathering of friends for the communal act of watching movies together, something that seems to be a lost art today as people privately stream movies on their computer because technology has made everything so accessible. It was great fun rediscovering as a group certain films like the 1920 German silent THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the educational classroom favorite (DATING DOS AND DON’TS), and stars such as Judy Holliday – I showed two of her films, both directed by George Cukor – IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1954) and THE MARRYING KIND (1952). And I took a certain pleasure in introducing some of my friends for the first time to directors like William Castle, Abel Gance (I showed the documentary ABEL GANCE: THE CHARM OF DYNAMITE, 1963) and Peter Watkins (THE WAR GAME (1967), a documentary-like reenactment of a future nuclear war, which I programmed with two shorts, BRAVERMAN’S CONDENSED CREAM OF BEATLES (1974) and Richard Lester’s THE RUNNING, JUMPING AND STANDING STILL FILM, 1959).

The final program of Secret Cinema took place on December 19, 1981 in the upstairs den of my friend’s house (I converted the small adjoining kitchen into the projection booth and hung a sheet at the far end of the room.) The lineup included COME TAKE A TRIP ON MY AIRSHIP (1930), a Max & Dave Fleischer bouncing ball singalong cartoon; THE LITTLE BROADCAST (1942), another George Pal puppetoon musical; TURKISH DELIGHT (1949), Nejla Ates, accompanied by the W.W. Morrison Costa Rican Sextette, demonstrates how to belly dance; ELVIS ON ED SULLIVAN featured kinescopes of Presley’s original appearances on the variety show between 1955-57; TIN PAN ALLEY CATS (1943), an example of racial stereotyping at its worst in a Warner Bros. cartoon by animator Bob Clampett; CAVALCADE OF GIRLS (1950), a Robert Youngson newsreel about women in unlikely professions – lumberjacks, railroad conductors, aerial daredevils, etc. The last short in the program had everyone howling and is one of those embarrassing live moments captured by the TV cameras long before the days of YouTube notoriety. Yet, this one enjoyed a cult reputation on the 16mm circuit for years – FOREIGN PRESS AWARDS. In this excerpt for the 1958 event, hosted by Ronald Reagan, Mickey Rooney has a “close” encounter with the buxom Jayne Mansfield as he accepts an award on behalf of Mexico’s famous comic, Cantinflas. At the time, I didn’t realize this would be my final Secret Cinema program but it was a fitting end to a labor of love.  (You can view the Foreign Press Awards video at the below YouTube link; it’s the second clip in the montage -

A new work opportunity changed everything and I soon moved to Atlanta to work for Films Inc., one of the largest non-theatrical film distributors at the time (Its major competitor, Swank Pictures, is still in business). It was like being let loose in a candy store. I was given a 16mm projector and access to a warehouse packed with hundreds of movies as part of my job of renting films to colleges and universities. I was in a much better position to launch a Secret Cinema in Atlanta but instead I devoted more time to exploring the vast library (which included the Janus Collection) on my own and eventually gave up the idea of running a film society since George Lafont’s The Screening Room, The Rhodes Theatre (operated by Landmark Theatres at the time) and other venues were doing a fine job of it.  Still, I would occasionally return to Athens to surprise friends with private screenings of ROCK ‘N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, CADDYSHACK and other requests. Yet, with all the amazing technology available to us today – the widescreen flat televisions, Blu-Ray, HD, Dolby surround sound, etc. – you’d think there would be a revival in film societies but, except for London and Paris, I don’t see any signs of that happening here. I think part of the problem is the increasing fragmentation of the moviegoing audience but there are still a few adventurous souls in the wilds forging ahead with their own film clubs such as Keelsetter in Boulder, Colorado (I was lucky enough to attend one of his outdoor screenings in September – a rare print of WHISKEY MOUNTAIN; here is a link to the post -http://moviemorlocks.com/2010/09/12/whiskey-mountain/). I also believe that a communal film experience, minus the cell phones, texting and other distractions, is still possible at public events like the Telluride Film Festival and the TCM Classic Film Festival. But I would love to see more cinephiles take up the torch and start their own Secret Cinemas.