It is a pleasure and a joy to be able to watch with enthusiasm these classic science fiction adventures once more. The clarity and fidelity are superb and the DVD supplement is filled with many “gee, I didn’t know that...” moments.
There is something, however, I want to get off my chest. When it shows on the DVD the front of Sid Grauman’s theater in Hollywood, that was not what opening day was like. I should know. I was there.
It was about 6 a.m., early Wednesday morning. I got a call from my good friend, Rick Sanford. He told me to skip work today. He knew I started my shift at 7. He told me there was going to be something special happening and he wanted me to go to it. He said there was a premiere at the Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard at 10 a.m., the word of mouth was that it was going to be spectacular. Now this was a Wednesday. Movies just didn’t open on a Wednesday. They opened on a Friday.
So, I called off and took a bus up Sunset to La Brea, and walked the remaining blocks to Hollywood Boulevard. There was no crowd waiting outside. There was only Rick, waiting in the front section, where all the footprints of the stars are lodged into the cement, a brilliant advertising gimmick. We went inside (Rick and I seldom paid for these things. He always “knew” somebody) and there was already about one third of the seats filled.
The inside of the Chinese is a grand place. I’ve never been in Radio City but I can imagine they are very similar. It is more like a theater than a cinema. There is a huge stage with a wide proscenium. I don’t know what the house seats but it is very large. I had been inside the theater before and had actually seen the film, “Car Wash” just a few weeks earlier. Prior to the start of the film, they showed a preview to “Car Wash”. The trailer was scratched, faded, and very small. The curtain parted just enough to show the practically square picture.
“That’s odd,” I thought. “Why did they do that?” I wondered. We were about to find out.
Rick didn’t say a word. The curtain closed and I thought I heard the orchestra in the pit. Remember, this was the first time any of us had heard Dolby Stereo in optical. It was the Fox fanfare. Rick whispered to me, “This is the first time they’ve used the fanfare since the film ‘Caprice’ in 1966!” The curtain opened, and opened, until this huge screen filled the entire stage. I’d never seen anything like it. Then everything got quiet...
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...”
BLAM! Everyone jumped to their feet, and began to applaud. They applauded right through the opening of the film! Rick leaned over to me and said, “You realize, we’re applauding a screen. There’s nobody here that cares!” But Rick was wrong. In the back of the theater, there were people who cared. By the time the credits came up, people were cheering and applauding even harder. I’d never seen a reaction to something so strong in my life. We ran out of the theater and called everyone we knew. By mid-afternoon, the lines snaked around the block. By the end of the week, they were running the prints 24 hours a day. It played at the Chinese for more than a year! People bragged at how many times they saw it. Rick saw it over 60 times. I saw it 26 times that year.
Two months later, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” premiered on Sunset at the Cinerama Dome, but by then the Star Wars momentum was too much. Spielberg’s brilliant work was eclipsed by the comic book tale of adventure. Lucas had proved the naysayers wrong by making a film that brought fun and excitement back to the movies. John Williams double album was the first movie soundtrack to break all records, and was sold out all over town. It was great being in Los Angeles during that time. Everyone was riding a cloud of overwhelming joy that summer. Just two years later, HIV would rear its ugly head in America. But the summer of ‘77, was one I will remember to the end of my days. To have witnessed something so special on that Wednesday in May I owe to my friend, Rick Sanford, who passed away two decades later of AIDS. Rick loved the movies and his friends. I was proud to have been one of them.
