Showmen Sell It Hot #3

 

Where Soft Paws Meet Hard Surface ... the Rialto Again Shows Them All How

Showmen: Cats To Drag Us In, and Dream Pit That Was Winston-Salem's Center Theatre

Herewith photo proof --- there were few exploitation pictures so true to their time or place as Cat People. Where it’s most vital to push, really push … well, there’s just nothing so simple, so effective, as cat folk, especially female cat folk. Bob’s Your Uncle, as the British say. Cat People was sold around cats. Cats everywhere, big and small. The Wolf Man vaulted man-to-animal theme to best money Universal knew from horror since early ones that started the cycle. How to improve upon that? Obvious, or should have been … let a woman become a cat, feline translated simple to female, just as dogs or wolves evoke the male. Sugar was sex atop drama of Cat People. Was that Val Lewton or his writer DeWitt Bodeen? Bodeen was a film scholar in addition to penning fine films. He later wrote career profile and analysis for Films in Review, output fine as to later go between hard covers (two volumes). Cat People drew children of course, but also adults who heard of grown-up skate toward censor edges, being of a man’s frustration where his wife holds out marital favors for fear she’ll turn panther if aroused. Cat People was where subdued style of Lewton’s paid off best. Momentum from this yielded chillers less chilling till bosses appointed a supervising producer (Jack Gross) and hired Boris Karloff to push pedals and make clear RKO horrors would be horrific, The Body Snatcher most profitable instance of this. As pleasing to watch Cat People would be stroll amongst displays like banquet tables for front and lobby, sorts of spots I would have lingered long at, management to ask eventually if it’s the movie for me or just gawking entryways.

Cat's In the Bag, Bag's in the River --- In this Instance, a River of Grosses

Might as well start at the peak, which as always was the Rialto, New York’s (un)nerve center also a teaching lab for showmen far afield hoping to market Cat People as effectively. Details per Rialto custom are telling. We see review excerpts upon art of clawed hands, “Keep Axis Claws from Our Shores” also to emphasize cat motif. War being ever-present, there was push too toward bond buying by enterers. The Rialto was good always for emphasis not just on features but shorts supporting them, thus a latest Superman from Paramount with the Fleischers getting emphasis. Cat People as emphasized by looming art of many and sundry cat folk implies modern plague of them, patrons getting but one for admission, Simone Simon being sole specimen readily forgiven, as one of her was equal to an army of less descript cats. The Rialto showcased B’s as if they were deluxe A’s. That was essential where goal among insiders was to evaluate new releases and identify a “sleeper” in event one surfaced. Theatre fronts elsewhere were as lush, cats hovering over entrances or enhanced center courts once you got in. Note “Stark Shockery … Killing Chillery” as standee promise, this traversed on ways to auditoria, passing stand at which to purchase all-vital bonds, sternly recommended use for disposable income. To walk by these without stopping needed reasons why, and they better be good ones. Would we feel guilty buying candy or corn rather than another bond? Further query: Was Hershey’s rationed during the war? --- or was there maybe just enough chocolate to supply our fighting force?

Monolithic Wachovia Bank Stands Vigil Over Humble Center Theatre --- But Could It Hope to Achieve Latter's Greatness?

By mid-1966, Winston-Salem had two (deep) downtown theatres (grindhouses really), the Center and the Lincoln, to represent apex for show going, beacons against darkness that was uptown Winston and Carolina (former the site of 2001), plus the newly opened Parkway, for “lobster” first-runs (descriptive term introed by writer Rick Sullivan whose gone and lamented Gore Gazette, like Rick himself, gave gonzo account of 80’s pics). The Center and Lincoln had not long to last, being black sheep among Winston venues even as they served shows I salivated to see. Memorable instance: Mid-July and the Center bowing half-week triple of The Pit and the Pendulum, Tomb of Ligeia, and Premature Burial, these as the Carolina tendered Maya (Jay North and elephants), while the Parkway sold Arabesque (yes, but did they spray patrons with comp perfume?). The Winston at least had The Ten Commandments, which I might have opted for were it not for blockbusting Poes mere blocks away. Was it beyond hope for my mother to drive us down for the Poe shows? To evermore joy and endless gratitude, she acceded, and off we went to a venue yet unknown to me, but stuff of legend for programs booked previous. Disgorged from Winston-Salem craters so far in ‘66 was The Fighting Seabees (1944 return to twenty-two years later kiddie show), The Oklahoma Kid (Cagney and Bogart triple-billed with Call Me Bwana and For Those Who Think Young), and most astonishingly, the 1939 Stagecoach with Half-Human and The Monster from Green Hell, such unexpected oft-expected from W-S show-spots. And who cared if television was playing the same pictures a same day? The Center as entered that summer afternoon was a dreamscape of three-sheets, lobby sets, every accessory known to National Screen Service … I asked if there was any chance I could have one of the posters post-engagement. Sure, said management. I’d wait weeks for a package that would never arrive (But he promised!).

Still, I got to see Pit and the Pendulum for a first-ever time, an experience worth fifty-eight mile walk over nails had such been required. I needed no concessions, Pit being sacred observance not to be profaned by Baby Ruths. As that one ended and Tomb of Ligeia began, my mother leaned over and asked, Didn’t you see this a year ago? Yes, I had to answer, and no, it didn’t matter how good Ligeia was, we’d be heading home, thus no Premature Burial, for which I'd wait years to see finally on video. Knowing you can’t have everything in life (per Pit posters), I gave in, thrilled to have been there at all. Besides, P&P was by far the one I most longed to experience. Never would eyes again behold such extravagant display of promoting paper, memory enhanced by imagination to build the obelisk higher. Matterhorn that was the Center had been scaled, no need begging for all three features to go beyond such peak. The Center persisted in dreams if not reality. A year later found me topmost in the Wachovia building which was Winston’s tallest and stood behind the Center Theatre plus virtually all downtown. I looked out a high window and read the marquee far below at an awkward angle as implied in photo above. It read “Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger,” all three on a single bill. I asked to be left behind in W-S, perhaps sleep on a city bench or even a jail cell if I could provoke arrest. Someone … anyone … could pick me up the next day, or I’d hitch home, ride aback a fruit truck, walk even upon aforementioned nails. Clearly impractical suggestions, if borne of truest desire to experience the Center at least once more. That was not to be however, for it closed in 1969 after valedictory combo of Easy Rider and MacKenna’s Gold (memorialized above). My having been there in 1966 seems now like stuff of specter, this long-gone Smithsonian of showmanship and sensations far from first-running, but who then or now could rationally choose Maya over The Pit and the Pendulum?

More Winston-Salem showgoing HERE, and take a look at the fabulous Winston Theatre 2001 marquee image I came across just last week and added to the post.