50 years ago in Columbus, Downtown vs. the suburbs

Two bills playing in Columbus in May 1970, downtown vs. the suburbs, murderers vs. gay men.

By 1970, the RKO Palace, one of the grand old-fashioned movie palaces, had fallen on hard times what with the number of screens opening in the suburbs. It was now basically a grindhouse (albeit a huge and fancy one) showing horror movies, marital arts thrillers, and blaxploitation flicks. The Honeymoon Killers is actually pretty good, though with a low-budget look and feel. I haven't seen What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? but it's pushing the "hagsploitation" buttons by comparing itself to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane and featuring two older actresses (Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon). Page wasn't even 50 yet, but in Hollywood terms, she might as well have been over 70, as Ruth Gordon was.

In the tony suburb of Upper Arlington, The Boys in the Band was playing, I suspect, to fairly specialized groups of gay men. It was one of the first major movies to center on the lives of gay men, albeit sad and stereotyped gay men. Still, it was a breakthrough and if its worldview is no longer relevant, its humor still works and the acting is fine.

Friday the 13th, 60 years ago

In mid-May of 1960, the 13th fell on a Friday, back in the heyday of ballyhoo-type programs at theaters aimed at the younger crowd, from kiddies to mid-20s. I was pleased to run across several ads around the country for some Friday the 13th-themed shows.

The above bill from Sacramento featured two second-run films, The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), which was the second of the Hammer revival Frankensteins (to be followed by at least four more) and the cut-rate monster movie The Giant Claw (1957)

The above 4-movie drive-in bill from Sacramento was not advertised as a Friday the 13th show, but the two films chosen for the ad focus (both 1959 releases which were probably at the end of their first-run engagements) are appropriate: Hammer's The Mummy with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and the sci-fi thiller The Angry Red Planet. The other two movies (Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and the Civil War-era melodrama Three Violent People) were four years old at this point

This theater in Butte, Montana was just running one film for their late show, The Werewolf (1956)

Tarantula (1955) was brought back after five years for a spook show in Sandusky, Ohio, but it's a good one. Blood of the Vampire, despite being called "all new" in the ad, had been in release for a year and a half at this point. Still, if I had a choice of any of the above theaters to visit, it would be the one in Sandusky.

In Reno, the first-run Circus of Horrors would provide the "thrills" and "chills" promised in the ad, while the second feature, The Screaming Skull (1958) might have provided some "laffs" from bored kids.  Below is a color ad for The Giant Claw, promising way more that it could deliver on.

The X Movies of May 1970

Fifty years ago this week, it's obvious from the movie ads running that the "New" grown-up Hollywood was in full swing. Back then the "X" rating didn't necessarily mean pornography, it meant movies for adults. True, the X was usually applied for sexual material, but the movies weren't explicit in the way we would come to think of X movies just a few years later. All of the following ads are for movies that were playing fifty years ago, on May 1, 1970, though some of these are 1969 movies playing in second-run or at "popular price" houses. Most of the X's here weren't given for one particular scene or image, but for a general tone of decadence or eroticism.

Midnight Cowboy was the first (and so far, only) Best Picture winner to be rated X. It's kind of a buddy movie with an inexperienced Midwest boy turned gigolo in New York City being taken in by a sickly, crippled con man. But with scenes of gay oral sex and a orgy (neither one explicit), it got an X and still managed to win awards and make money. This ad is from a Tucson engagement.

The Damned (also a Tucson ad) has Nazis, Helmut Berger in drag, and Third Reich moral rot. It was later shown on late-night network television; though heavily trimmed, it still caused controversy. It was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay.

From Columbus, De Sade, billed with the R-rated Chastity, was actually a pretty artsy movie which tip-toed around Sade's actual life and works. Still, the title was probably enough to freak out the ratings board. It's very stagy, and Dullea does not suggest Sade in the least. The second ad is from its New York opening in the fall of '69

End of the Road, based on a book by John Barth, is about a disturbed academic, and the rating here seems to be due to an abortion scene. It's an interesting and intense movie but does not invite repeat viewings. It was given a wider release on New York in May, but the ad below is from its initial run in February.