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.