Boxoffice-April.1990

'ie business magazine of the motic April 1990, $3.95
e Versus the Volcano
^mic Filmmaking With
^n Patrick Shanley
hema Controversies:
pCaps, Screen Ads,
M Low Grossing Theatres
i
leatre Sound Special:
[paring For Digital Sound
Oind Equipment Buyers Gu4d«

18 YEARS LATER,
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Response No. 1

$45
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EDITOR AND ASSOCIATE
PUBLISHER
Harley W Lono
The business magazine of the motion picture industry
MANAGING EDITOR
Tom Matthews
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
bnawn Levy
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
John Allen
Bruce Austin
David H Chaddefdon
Tony Francis
Jim Kozak
Karen Kreps
Lesa Sawahata
Knsli Turr>quisl
Mon Wax
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
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Mri'v B>»'nnii1e7
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^
APRIL. 1990 VOL. 126, NO. 4
Our trailittim in -"ir •>' /" r- r .; i -r :r atut it is stulttfyiiif^
to celebrate the rebels of the past while we silence
the rebels of the present
— Henry Steele Commagcr
FEATURES
16 Cover Story: Death As A Life-Enhancing Experience
Karmic filmmaking with John Patrick Shanley
20 Inside Exhibition: Exhibition Wars
A look at distribution s controversial per -capita, screen ad. arxl low
grossing theatre policies.
23 Technology: The Free Film Phone
A new phone service offers precise, "one-stop," showtime information
at no charge to the caller.
42 NATO ShoWest '90 Wrap-up
Three days of shoptalk, seminars, sneak previews, arxl sweets.
44 The Numbers Page
Exhibitors celebrate an early "Fourth of July", top 10 independent films
of the 1980s, highest grossing sporls films
MODERN THEATRE
24 Cinema Sound: Digital Sound in the Theatre
26 Cinema Sound: Sound System Considerations for the 1990s
30 Cinema Sound: Getting Ready for the Digital Evolution
32 Cinema Sound: Sound Equipment Buyers Guide
38 Theatre Profile: The 100-Year-Old Brattle Theatre
40 Theatre Profile: The 50-Year-Old AMC Esquire Theatre
REVIEWS— Following page 50
The Hunt For Red October. Nightbreed, Miami Blues, Madhouse: The
Handmaids Tale. Hard to Kill; Revenge: Stanley and Ins; Where the
Heart Is; Flashback. Tremors. Loose Cannons. Kill Me Again, Strike It
Rich. Black Rain; Time of the Gypsies: Longtime Companion. Lonely
Woman Seeks Life Companion
DEPARTMENTS
Opening Credits
ON THE COVER
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in "Joe
Versus the Volcano," screenwnter John
Patrick Shanleys directorial debut The
Warner Bros comedy takes a decidedly
offbeat look at work, love, life and death
(See cover story, page 16)
48
49
49
50
R33 58
59
61
62
65
BoxOFFiC£ ISSN 0006-8527 Copyright 1990 RLD Communications, ' Inc All nghts reserved
Reproduction in wtiole or pari without permission is prohibited Published monthly by RLD Communications.
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4 BOXOFFICE
OPENING CREDITS
;^v--;:.Nr.v^?:^:'SSgy
:**?^J?P?^'l
There's No Business Like Show
Business
BACK
IN THE 1960s, during the height
of student protests against the war
in Vietnam, it became fashionable
to quote China's Chairman Mao Zedong
on how power is maintained in a society:
"Political power grows out of the barrel
of a gim."
The quotation was always misread,
however. Mao was not referring to the
actuality of the "gun" as a weapon
(though China's rulers today understand
that misreading only too well, relying on
gims and tanks as a means of control),
but used the idea of a "gun" as a metaphor
for the mechanism of the administration
of power. Whomever controls
the "gun" (i.e., the administration of
political, economic or cultural power)
also controls the society dependent on
the administration of that power.
Though it may seem a far leap from
Mao Zedong to the motion picture industry,
there is a way in which his political
dictum can help us to understand
some aspects of oor business today. The
issues of per-caps and screen advertising
clearly raise problems in the administration
of power in film distribution
and exhibition: who is going to control
what movies are played on what screens
aroimd the country?
In the case of per-capita charges to
so-called "dollar" or "discount"
theatres. Paramount Communications
has decided that in order to receive a
fair return on their film investments,
they will have to charge discount
theatres a $1.05 per ticket for the privilege
of showing those films. According
to Paramount, one reason for this policy
is to offset the "tendency" of discount
theatres to use Paramount's films as loss
leaders to attract audiences to "overpriced"
concession stands.
That got us thinking, and we began to
wonder about how discount theatres
could "gouge" their customers at the
concession stand. Would movie-goers be
so thankful that admission prices were
so low that they'd be willing to pay
inflated prices for concession stand
items? We don't think so. Movie-goers
are well aware of value-for-price relationships
and just won't put up with outof-line
concession stand prices. Theatre
oviTiers can't force movie-goers to stop
at the concession stand and, faced with
high concession prices, audiences will
just smuggle in their own food.
Another line of reasoning holds that
even if concession stand prices are reasonable
theatre owners will be able to
make enough profits there to offset any
losses at the boxoffice due to per-capita
levies. If that were the case, why then
did many theatres run "Indiana Jones
and the Last Cnisade" (a film that certainly
would pack in customers at the
concession stands) only after per-caps
were pulled?
TALKS WITH discount theatre own-
at NATO/ShoWest '90, we found
INers
the opposite of the above reasoning
to be true. Most discount theatres cater
to lower income families who patronize
discount theatres precisely because
ticket prices and concession prices are
low. In fact, many of the theatre owners
we spoke with charged less for concession
stand items than most sub-nm and
first-nm theatres (many offer special
family pack prices on popcorn /soda
combos). And only the most naive of
observers could feel that concession
stand profits alone could allow theatre
owners to make ends meet.
Another of Paramount's arguments,
that discount theatres are eating into
their profits by paying too little for their
product, also may not ring tnie. By the
time a film makes it to a discount
theatre, it has either recouped its maximum
possible theatrical return (in the
case of a hit), or has been written off by
the studio (in the case of a flop). In the
case of a flop, such as the recent "Flashback,"
Paramount should be grateful
that any theatre wants to run it: not only
does the studio receive extra revenue
from such a run, but the exposure helps
feed audience awareness for subsequent
video release.
The situation with first-run discount
theatres is more problematic. In this
case, such a discount theatre could
clearly pull away audiences that might
nonnally frequent a competing, higher
priced firstnm theatre. And then, conceivably.
Paramount would indeed receive
less total rentals from both the discount
and first-nm theatre. But is that
really the case? One first-run discount
theatre owner we spoke with at NATO/
ShoWest '90 assured us that the rentals
he paid Paramount on first-nm films far
exceeded the rentals Paramount receives
from his higher priced, first-run
competitor. In fact, many of the discount
theatre ovvmers we spoke with
said that they were paying Paramount
more in rentals before per-caps than
after that policy was instituted. So who
really benefits from per-capita
charges?
THE
CASE OF on-screen advertising,
on the surface, has little to do
with money and profits that
might accrue to the studios. Walt Disney
Pictures has alerted theatre ovmers that
it will not allow its films to be shown in
theatres that also nm paid on-screen
advertising. The reason: American movie-goers
do not want to be captive
audiences for on-screen advertisements;
on-screen advertising denigrates
the quality of the movie-going experience.
Shortly after Disney's announcement,
the Hollywood production community
rallied around the studio, decrying
the crass commercialism of onscreen
advertising (despite the fact that
some of those filmmakers shoot films
with home video in mind, giving up the
quality of the wide screen experience
for the safety area of video, or pack their
films with more blatent product plugs
than ever is seen in two hours of prime
time television).
As movie-goers, we're not thrilled to
have to sit through a commercial or a
series of commercials while awaiting
the main attraction. But the issue of
"quality" is a red herring. Disney wasn't
interested in "quality" last year when
they demanded a piece of on-screen
advertising revenues. It
was only after
theatre owners refused to give in to their
demands that Disney announced the
"quality" issue.
So what is going on here?
Certainly, the money accruing to Paramount
due to per-caps is meager com-
(continued p 6}

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Response No. 3

6 BOXOFFICE
.
—
'''^j j^.^'-S
Opening Credits
(cimtuiued from p -i)
pared to their other profits; Disney's
demand for more quahty in the moviegoing
experience likewise doesn't ring
true. On the contrary, there is a greater
agenda at stake here.
Last April, Gulf + Western (the parent
corporation of Paramount Pictures),
which at one time or another was a
leading producer of auto parts, musical
instruments, cigars, farm supplies,
chemicals, shoes, lingerie, oil and gas
Intermission advertising
is money in your
tankers, home funushincis, candy, jet
engine and missile parts, sporting
events, and books (through control or
ownership of such companies as Dutch
Masters, Cole of California, Fruit of the
Loom, Simmons Mattresses, Schraffts,
the New York Knickerbockers, No Nonsense,
and Simon & Schuster, to name
only a few), decided to divest itself of all
non-media industries to concentrate its
energies on worldwide media and communications
growth (subsequently
changing its name to Paramount Communications).
Likewise Disney, of late,
has increased its growth in the media
Intermission
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sector, expanding its amusement parks,
creating a record label, and acquiring
telcNasion stations and cable interests.
WHAT
IS
AT stake herg, then, is
the control of the powKt.jj^^the
mass media. Since the media
have such a big influence on the way in
which we live our lives— from the
clothes we wear, to the cars we buy, to
the laws we enact, to the Presidents we
elect— the giant corporations want to
grab as much of this power as possible.
The motion picture industry is just another
sector of investment and control.
Paramount and Disney, two of the
five companies that control 80 percent
of all motion picture industry revenues
(and two of the five that control 60 percent
of all home video revenues) simply
want to consolidate and maintain their
control. Since the major studies have
bought as many theatre circuits as is
now financially prudent, what better
way to control the remaining independents
than by exerting control over
what goes onto the screens of those
theatres?
V^en discount theatres threaten the
autonomy of the marketplace by threatening
the majors' control over theatre
screens, then new policies such as percaps
are instituted. When theatre owners
find additional revenues from nonstudio
product (from a source such as
screen advertising), the studios seek
stronger controls. It all boils down to
power and control and a jockeying for
position amongst the handful of megacorporations
that vie for a piece of the
almost S200 billion dollars spent annually
on American media and entertainment.
What we have seen happen in the last
30 years in this countiy is a corporate
move toward the conglomeration of media
power into the hands of a ver\' few
groups. And what's happening in the
motion picture indtistry is a microcosm
of this big picture. It's not just a matter
of a few dollars here or a few screens
there. It's a matter of sur\'ival, and independent
theatre owners will have to
band together and voice their opposition
to such conglomeration. Which is why
we welcome such an organization as the
National Association of Discount
Theatres, which is helping to raise the
political consciousness of independent
theatre owners, and why we also welcome
congressional and judicial investigations
into such matters. Without such
intervention, we just might wake up one
day to find that, as in some nightmarish
science fiction future shown on our
theatre screens, control of all our media
has fallen into the hands of a select few
groups. And then, to paraphrase Mao,
power wiW grow out of the barrel of a
corporate gun.
Harley W. Lond
Response No 4

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Resoonsfi No 5

HOLLYWOOD REPORT
John Goodman
"King Ralph" John Goodman,
kissing goodbye the.
supporting roles in which he
has excelled ("Sea of Love,"
"Always"), becomes a leading
man with this comedy
about a Las Vegas lounge
crooner who somehow becomes
the King of England. A
Universal release.
"Edward Scissorhands"
Director Tim Burton, perhaps
only now coming down to
earth in light of the "Batman"
phenomenon, continues
in the whimsical mood
which he struck with "Peewee's
Big Adventure" and
"Beetlejuice." In this new
fantasy drama. Burton tells
the tale of a young man who,
yes indeed, has scissors for
hands. Deprived of the ability
to experience the simple
pleasure of human touch, Edward
leads a troubled life until
he is adopted by a "typical"
American family.
NATO's Stars
of Tomorrow
— Johnny Depp and Winona
Ryder — star, along with
Diane Wiest (Burton, by the
way, was NATO's Director of
the Year). 20th Century Fox
will release the film at
Christmas.
"Pacific Heights" Michael
Keaton, showing a refreshing
integrity by following
his "Batman" triumph
with a rather grim-sounding
role, stars in this thriller
about a San Francisco couple
who find themselves terrorized
physically and psychologically
by the man they
rent a room to. Keaton is the
troublemaker, and Melanie
Griffith and Matthew Modine
play his frightened hosts,
John Schlesinger ("The Believers,"
"Madame Sousatzka")
directs. A 20th Centun,'
Fox release.
"Running Mates" Previously
announced as a vehicle
for Diane Keaton and Kevin
Kline — who instead
have signed to do Bo Goldman's
"Monkeys" (Hollywood
Report, March, 1990) —
this political comedy will
now star Keaton and Dennis
Hopper, with production set
to start in May. The story is
about a respected U.S. senator
considering a run for the
presidency who finds his
campaign rattled when it is
discovered that his fiancee
had once appeared in a porno
film. The comedy, which reportedly
has a Hepburn-Tracy
feel to it, will be directed
by Joan Micklin Silver
("Crossing Delancey"). A Paramount
Pictures release.
"The Big Man" Glasgow
provides the setting for this
drama about an unemployed
coal miner who is forced to
provide for his family by
reentering the boxing ring as
the chosen fighter of a powerful
gangster. Liam Neeson
("The Good Mother," "Darkman")
stars, along with
Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Ian
Bannen and Billy Connelly
The film is directed by David
Leland ("Wish You Were
Here") and produced by
Stephen Woolley ("Scandal").
A Miramax release this
fall.
"Eve of Destruction"
Gregory Hines, overlooked in
the corny but pleasing "Tap,"
returns in this science-fiction
thriller aboiU a lady scientist
who creates a robot in her
own image. Unfortunately,
the nuclear-powered creation
goes nuts, and the scientist
must disarm the thing before
it kills thousands. Renee
Soutendijk plays the creator.
An Orion release.
"The Touch" Steve Martin
and producer Dan Melnick,
who collaborated on Martin's
"Roxanne," reteam for this
romantic satire about an
American TV weatherman
who falls in love with a British
journalist working in Los
Angeles. Martin will also provide
the script, as he did for
"Roxanne"; British filmmaker
Mick Jackson ("Chattahoochee")
will direct. Distribution
plans will be announced
shortly.
"Home Alone" Writer-director
Chris Columbus, the
youthful Spielberg protege
who has been laying low
since his unsuccessful
"Heartbreak Hotel," seems
an ideal choice to direct this
new comedy from producerwriter
John Hughes, himself
a an adept handler of kidthemed
stories. The plot of
this adventure finds a sevenyear-old
boy accidentajly left
alone and forced to defend
his home against two crooks.
The film stars Joe Pesci, the
scene-stealer in "Lethal
Weapon 2," and Macaulay
Culkin, the adorable young
star of Hughes' "Uncle
Buck." A 20th Century Fox
release at Christmas.
"Untitled Gene Wilder
Project" This comic salute
to New York and one of its
major daily newspapers stars
Wilder, along with Farrah
Fawcett, Christine Lahti and
Mary Stuart Masterson. David
Frankel, son of New York
Times executive editor Max
Frankel, co-writes the script,
and "Three Men and a Baby"
director Leonard Nimoy calls
the shots. A Paramount re-
"The Rookie" Two generations
of movie hunks join
forces in this action-drama
which will star Clint Eastwood
and Charlie Sheen,
Eastwood plays a cynical and
tough veteran cop. Sheen
plays his idealistic young
partner, and the story finds
the two of them trying to
break up a car theft ring.
Eastwood will also direct the
film. A Christmas release
from Warner Bros.
"The Object of Beauty"
Andie MacDowell, making a
stunning leap from fashion
model to critically-acclai,med
actress with "sex, lies and
videotape," co-stars with
John Malkovich in this light
drama about a jet-setting
American couple who find
themselves penniless and
stranded in a posh London
hotel. When the wife's most
prized possession — a Henrv
Moore statue — vanishes, a
curious search is launched.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg ("Brideshead
Revisited") Writes
and directs. An Avenue Pictures
release.
Steven Seagal
"Screwface" Steven
Seagal
follows "Hard to Kill"
with this similarly crimethemed
action pic about a
man who becomes determined
to straighten out a
small town corrupted by Jamaican
drug dealers, Dwight
Little, who made some of the
"Halloween" sequels, directs
from a script by Mark Victor
and Michael Grais ("Poltergeist").
A 20th Century Fox
release this fall.
"The Doors" This longanticipated
musical biography
about poet/reprobate
Jim Morrison and his band
has finally gone into production
under the direction of
Oliver Stone, lightening up a
bit on the heels of "Bom on
the Fourth of July." Starring
as Morrison is Val Kilmer
("Willow"), with Meg Ryan
("Joe Versus the Volcano")
playing his drug-dabbling
wife, Pamela. Playing the remaining
members of the
band are Kyle MacLachlan
("Blue Velvet"), Kevin Dillon
and Frank Whaley ("Born on
the Fourth of July"). Also appearing
are rocker Billy Idol
and Kathleen Quinlan as
friends of Morrison, and Crispin
Glover as Andy Warhol.
The film will be released by
Tri-Star next spring.
"Mortal Thoughts" Reallife
husband and wife Bruce
Willis and Demi Moore star
along with Glenne Headly
("Dirty, Rotten Scoimdrels,"
"Dick Tracy") in this dramatic
thriller about two women
drawn into a murder
plot. The film marks the directorial
debut of Claude
Kerven, who won a Student
Academy Award a few years
ago. A Columbia release.
8 BOXOFFICE

Dolby edge code tiims your shows iiito
command perfomiances.
In recent \c.irs, new soiiiKitr.uk torm.its,
iniprovcii sound and projection equipment, and
etVorts to resurrect the comfort and lilamor ot the olil
movie palaces have all contrihuted to hii;her quality
film presentations.
increased.
As a result, attendance has
Hut so has the complexirv' of presentations
and therefore the pressure on theatre staff.
Just as new technologv has iniprovcil ilic iiiialitv
ot'fiim presentations, so can
it
streamline their operation
Dolby l^iboratories has
developed a new technique
Dolby edge code - which
enables .sophisticated "hands
oft"" presentations.
Fhis new technique
starts with special bar codes
located on the edge of the
film.
.Some codes are printed
during film processing with
instructions on how the sound and picture otthe film
siioulii be presented; otliers are added at
the theatre
during film preparation. As tiie film plavs, the cocies
are detected by a Dolby edge code reader w hich
integrates sound processor, projectors, and house
functions into a smooth-running presentation system.
Dt)lby edge code is printed outside the sprocket
holes, where it cannot interfere with picture or sound.
It is
read by an inexpensive slot reader mounted on
the projector.
(!ode formats are standardized to
ensure compatabilitv among tlieatres.
There are two
lode reader models: the
lull fimction Dolby Model
27

10 BOXOFFICE
)
TRAILERS
April Releases
Q&A
Director Sidney Lumet, who somehow
managed to make a bomb starring Dustin
Hoffman, Sean Connery and Matthew
Broderick a few months ago with "Family
Business," tries again for success with this
Vital Signs
poHtical
thriller about an over-eager assistant
DA. who begins digging into a
drug case which his superiors would just
as soon have ignored. Timothy Hutton,
who made "Daniel" with Lumet, stars,
along with Nick Nolte and Armand Assante.
A Tri-Star release. (4/27)
Roger Gorman's
Frankenstein Unbound
Gorman, who perhaps gets a tad too
much mileage out of being a "legendar\'"
producer of cheap, usually quite bad B-
movies, turns legit for this big-budget
retelling of the Frankenstein legend. The
gimmick this time is that a 21st century
scientist is accidentally hurled back in
No doubt hoping to distance itself from
last fall's failed medical school drama
"Gross Anatomy," this ensemble drama
focuses on a group of five young adults as
they make the difficult transition from
students to practicing doctors. The cast
Crazy People
Dudley Moore stars in this satire about
an ad exec-tumed-mental patient who
comes up with the brilliant idea of simply
telling the truth in all of his future advertising
copy. Daryl Hannah, Paul Reiser
and Mercedes Ruehl ("Married to the
Mob") co-star. Tony Bill ("Five Gomers")
directs. A Paramount release. (4/1 1
includes Jimmy Smits ("L.A. Law"),
Adrian Pasdar, Diane Lane, William De-
Vane and Nonna Aleandro. Marissa Silver
("Permanent Record") directs. A 20th
Gentury Fox release
Opportunity Knocks
Dana Garvey, perhaps the most popular
actor to come off of "Saturday Night Live"
since Billy Grystal, makes his leading man
debut in this comedy about a con man
who take over a house in suburban Chicago
and passes himself off as an Ivy League
snob. Donald Petrie ("Mystic Pizza") directs.
A Universal release.
time to 1816, where he leams that Dr.
Frankenstein and his infamous monster
were not simply the stuff of fiction. John
Hurt plays the time traveller, hot newcomer
Bridget Fonda ("Scandal") plays
"Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley, and
Raul Julia plays Dr. Frankenstein. The
script is written by "RoboCop" co-writer
Ed Neumeier and F.X. Feeney. A 20th
Century Fox release. (4/13)
The superhero craze started by "Batman"
will no doubt help this actioner
about the legendarv' World War Il-era
comic book hero who is transported to
present day, where his battles against the
evil Red Skull continue. Matt Salinger
plays the crime-fighter and Scott Paulin
Captain America
plays his nemesis, with Darren McGavin,
Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Michael Nouri
and Melinda Dillon co-starring. Albert
Pyun directs. At presstime, a distnhution
deal between 21st Century and Columbia
Pictures was announced, possibly affecting
the film's release

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Boris and Natasha
This rather slow-to-reach-the-gate
comedy (it was being hyped at ShoWest
'89) finally debuts, with Dave Thomas
("SCTV")"and Sally Kellerman playing
With Rocky and
the klutzy Soviet spies.
Bullwinkle nowhere to be found, the story
finds them posing as Russian defectors to
the United States — who really want to
get their hands on an invaluable microchip.
The film is produced and distributed
by MCEG, the people responsible for
"Look Who's Talking," and whose owner
— Jonathan Krane — is the spouse of Ms.
Kellerman. Actor Charles Martin Smith
("The Untouchables") directs.
Impulse
Actress-tumed-director Sondra Locke,
more celebrated these days as Clint Eastwood's
cheesed off ex-paramour, directs
this cop drama about the relationship
between a harried lady narcotics officer
who begins dabbling in drugs herself and
the district attorney who enters her life
when she is caught with her hand in the
cookie jar. Theresa Russell and Jeff Fahey
("Last of the Finest") star. A Warner
Bros, release. (4/6)
Cry Baby
Teen hunk Johnny Depp makes the big
screen with this typically strange musical
from writer-director John Waters ("Hairspray").
A tune-filled salute to juvenile
delinquent films of the 1950s, the story
finds two gangs of kids from opposite
sides of the track fighting for turf The
twist is that the wrll-nti kKi> ,iii- the
thugs, and the hoods are surprisingly good
ot heart. Depp stars as an Elvis-tainted
rock singer, leading a daffy supporting
cast that includes Patty Hearst, one-time
porno star Traci Lords, and kitsch classics
Troy Donahue and Joey Heatherton. A
Universal release. (4/6)
This fact-based comedy, which has
worked its way through the pipeline with
curious slowness, marks the first project
from writer-director Lawrence Kasdan
since his acclaimed "The Accidental Tourist."
This time he is telling the tale of a
trouble married couple who renew their
love, only after she is imprisoned for
Tales From The Darkside:
The Movie
In the tradition of the "Creepshow"
anthologies from a few years back, this
three-part thriller features tales of terror
from the pens of Stephen King, Michael
McDowell ("Beetlejuice") and Sherlock
Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The stories concern an artist who makes a
regrettable deal with a monstrous creature;
a yoimg man who falls under a
mummy curse; and a desperate millionaire
who goes to extreme lengths to rid his
house of a vicious pet. The cast includes
Deborah Harry, James Remar, Rae Dawn
Chong, Christian Slater, David Johansen,
William Hickey and Robert Klein, and the
film is co-produced by Richard P. Rubenstein,
who had surprising success last
spring with "Pet Sematary." A Paramount
release. (4/27)
The First Power
Formerly known as "Transit," this supernatural
cop thriller stars Lou Diamond
Phillips as a homicide detective who reluctantly
consults a physic as he attempts
to stop a strong of brutal killings. Tracy
Griffith co-stars; Robert ResnikoflF writes
and directs. An Orion release. (4/20)
Ernest Goes To Jail
Having already gone to camp and saved
Christmas in two inexplicably popular
romps, mug-master Jim Vamey returns in
this new comedy which promises to double
the fun by offering us two Jim Varneys:
one a ruthless criminal, and the other
a lame-brained janitor who somehow
swaps places with his lookalike John
Cherry, who directed the previous two
films and therefore knows the subtle
I
Love You To Death
repeatedly trying to kill him for his infidelities.
The charming couple is played by
Kevin Kline and Tracey Ullman, with William
Hurt (unrecognizable under a beard
and long, stringy hair) and Keanu Reeves
playing very dumb hit men. A Tri-Star
release. (4/13)
nuances of Ernest, is back on board. A
Buena Vista release. (4/6)
The Guardian
Director William Friedkin, who hasn't
toyed around with the horror genre since
his blockbuster "The Exorcist," returns to
give audiences the creeps with this thriller
about a young couple terrorized by
their new nanny. The film stars Dwier
Brown (who played Kevin Costner's father
in "Field of Dreams"), Carey Lowell
("Licence to Kill") and Jenny Seagrove. A
Universal release.
Pump Up The Volume
christian Slater, the homicidal teen in
"Heathers," stars in this suburban drama
about a kid who begins transmitting radio
broadcasts from his basement and who
quickly gains dangerous control of his
teenaged audience. Once he's got them
organized, they begin a plot to oust their
cruel high school principle. Allan Moyle,
who made 1980's "Times Square," writes
and directs. A New Line release.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Miramax, currently the indie to beat,
will probably find its hot streak continu-
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.
.
ing with this latest comedy from Pedro
Almodovar ("Women on the Verge of a
Nervous Breakdown"), The film, about an
obsessive fan who kidnaps a movie star,
stars Victoria Abril and Antonio Bandras.
Also In April
"Last Exit to Brooklyn" Hubert Selby
1964 novel, a gritty and rather lurid
Jr.'s
tale of life on New York's East Side.
comes to the screen with a cast that
includes Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen
Lang, Burt Young, Jerry Orbach and Ricki
Lake. A Cinecom release.
"Lisa" Cheryl Ladd stars in this thriller
about a single mother whose young
daughter inadvertently invites a dangerous
man into their lives. An MGM 'UA
release.
"The Man Inside" A powerful German
tabloid is the focus of this political thriller
about a journalist who goes undercover at
the paper in an attempt to uncover a plot
against up-and-coming liberal factions.
Peter Coyote and Jurgen Prochnow star;
Bobby Roth ("Heartbreakers") directs. A
New Line release.
"The Icicle ThieP' Italian filmmaker
Maurizio Nichetti offers both a satire of
Italian television and an homage to Vittorio
De Sica's classic, "The Bicycle Thief"
An Aires Film Releasing release.
"Watchers 11" Marc Singer, Tracy
Scoggins and Tom Poster star in this
sequel to the Corey Haim thriller which
received only a meager release from Universal
in 1988 The story is based on a
novel by horror specialist Dean R. Koontz.
A Concorde release.
"Def By Temptation" Troma turns
slightly upscale with this horror-comedy
about a divinity student being seduced by
a beautiful demoness. Bill Nunn (Radio
Raheem in "Do the Right Thing") and
Kadeen Hardison ("A Different World")
star; Melba Moore and Freddie Jackson
provide songs for the soundtrack.
"Sgt. Kabukiman, N.Y.P.D." When a
hardnosed New York cop mysteriously is
transformed into a Japanese superhero,
cultures clash and bad guys take a beating.
Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman,
the brains behind Troma, share directorial
duties. A Troma release.
"Dusted" A new actioner from the currently-hot
Jean-Claude Van Damme. A
Cannon Releasing release.
"Santa Sangre" From director Alejandro
Jodorowsky ("El Topo," "The Holy
Moimtain"), this surrealistic and disturbing
drama focuses on circus folk and their
curious peccadillos. The film initially received
an X-rating from the MPAA, leading
to certain cuts. An Expanded Entertainment
release.
"The 22nd Tournee of Animation"
More mind-blowing animated shorts from
all over the world. An Expanded Entertainment
release.
"Why Me?" French heartthrob Christopher
Lambert stars in this wild comedy
about a jewel thief who inadvertently
steals more than he had bargained for.
Christopher Lloyd ("Back to the Future")
and Kim Greist ("Brazil") co-star. A Triumph
release
"Wild Orchid" Writer Zalman King,
responsible for the steamy "9 l./Z Weeks,"
writes and directs this equally erotic drama
about a lady lawyer's sexual awakening
in Rio. Jacqueline Bisset and Mickey
Rourke star. This one has already been
getting audiences hot and bothered in
Europe, and initially received an X-rating
from the MPAA, A Triumph release.
"Monsieur Hire" Patrice Lecont directs
this dark drama about a man's illfated
obsession with the woman across
the way. An Orion Classics release.
"Jesus of Montreal" Denys Arcand
("Decline of the American Empire")
writes and directs this sure-to-be-controversial
comedy about an actor who begins
to believe he is Christ The film was
acquired by Orion Classics at presstime,
with an early April release tentatively
planned in 15 top markets.
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COVER STORY
Death As A Life -Enriching
Experience
Joe (Tom Hanks), near the end of
his rope.
Writer John Patrick
Shanley stares down
the Grim Reaper in
"Joe Versus the
Volcano."
HEY,
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
John Patrick Shanley, Oscar-winning
writer of "Moon-
. struck," tell us about your new
movie, "Joe Versus the Volcano."
"It's an existential adventure and a
romantic comedy."
Huh?
"It's about this guy's journey, but it's
sort of a kamia journey. He's on his karma
road, and he comes up against karma
woman. She keeps reoccurring in
different incarnations until they finally
resolve their differences and go forward
into the unknown together. Or into the
volcano."
Huh»
"It's a very unusual film," Shanley
finally concedes with a laugh, trying
earnestly to explain the terrifically
strange movie which even he can't quite
describe. "I've shown it to people and
they've enjoyed it, but they've said, 'I've
never seen anything like it'."
Shanley surrenders once again to his
explosive, infectious laugh; he's really
not trying to be difficult. The fact of the
matter is that "Joe Versus the Volcano"
could be one of the oddest movies that
Hollywood has turned out in years, a
loopy, globe-trotting saga about a dying
man who embarks on a journey that
ultimately infuses him with the very
essence of life. Or at least that's the
one-sentence blurb that will probably
run in "TV Guide" in a few years.
Who Is This Joe?
"Joe Banks [played by Tom Hanks] is
a guy who suffers from something
called Weltschmertz, which has taken
the form of hypochondria at the beginning
of the film," Shanley offers, warming
to the challenge of trying to explain
his own movie. "He had been a fireman,
and he had had a scare. He had felt his
mortality. Nothing serious happened to
him, but he just didn't feel very good
after that.
"So after quitting being a fireman he
gets this honible job that is a safe job,
but it's killing him. He's a wreck. So he
goes to the doctor, and he finds out that
he's suffering from this really esoteric
disorder called a 'brain cloud,' which is
terminal. He discovers that he's got
maybe six months to live, and this
immediately clears up his hypochondria.
He feels great. It changes his whole
life."
Suddenly eager to make his remaining
time on Earth count, Joe is receptive
to a mysterious industrialist who wiW
benefit financially if Joe will only agree
to jump into a volcano on the small tropical
island of Waponi Woo (don't ask
why). Promised that he'll be treated like
a god right up until the time that he
leaps to his molten death, Joe accepts
the job and embarks on a fantastic
voyage to Waponi Woo (which means,
by the way, "the island with the big volcano").
Along the way, he meets three
women — all played by Meg Ryan —
who are instrumental to his quest.
When he finally gets to the island, Joe
and the last of the Meg Ryans fall in
love and jump into the volcano together.
"But then there's more," Shanley
promises. "It turns out all right."
We repeat; Huh^^^
"It's a very unusual film," the vmter
16 BOXOFFICE

The
repeats. "It's very beautiful, and it's got
fine performances in it, and it takes
place over half the world, and it's very
stylized, and it's about a big subject, and
it's pretty short. It's an hour and thirtyfive
minutes long I keep looking at it
and everything that's in it, and I siiy,
'Are you sure this thing is only an hour
and thirty-five minutes'.' Why am I so
tired? "
Why H«: Is So Tired
The reason Shanley is so tired is that
with "Joe Versus the Volcano," the
acclaimed New York pla\^vright has
made the move to movie director At th

When Tom met Meg. and Meg, and Meg: Co-star Ryan plays three different women in the film, each of whom is
crucial to Joe's quest.
''Volcano
(continued from p 17)
}}
do exactly what they did the night
before. Maybe last night the play was a
comedy, and tonight it's 'Macbeth.'"
But the real reason Shanley dragged
himself away from his comfortable existence
in his beloved New York City and
accepted the "Joe" challenge goes back
to the very reason he had written the
screenplay in the first place. On the
heels of winning the Oscar for "Moonstruck,"
Shanley plummeted into an
odd funk, wondering how he was going
to continue to grow as an artist after
having found success so quickly. The
dread manifested itself as a severe hypochondria
of his own, so the writer
came up with the story of Joe Banks in
an attempt to deal with his own fears.
But when it came time to film this saga
of a glum man who goes on a terrific
adventure in order to shake up his life,
Shanley realized that this was an opportunity
to live his own script. And like
Joe Banks, he knows what awaits him at
the end of his journey.
"Making the movie is for me very
much like the story, and it's getting
more like it," Shanley smiles, thinking
of the movie's imminent release.
"And
in a few weeks, I'm jumping into the
volcano."
Hi
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Response No. 9

INSIDE EXHIBITION
EXHIBITION WARS:
WITH
By Shawn Levy
Associate Editor
THE REVIVAL of the discount
theatre marketing concept, the
moods of the exhibition and distribution
industries have imdergone a
great many shifts. The most apparent of
these changes, Paramount Pictures'
controversial per-capita pricing policy
for discount theatres, has been the subject
of a great deal of verbal sparring
between Paramount, NATO, the MPAA,
the newly-formed National Association
of Discount Theatres, the legislative,
judicial,
Per-Capitas Battle Fought At ShoWest
and executive branches of the
U. S. government, and consumer
groups.
The matter received a great
deal of
attention at February's NATO- ShoWest
conclave, where NATO President William
Kartozian spoke publicly about Paramount's
tactics for the first time. Addressing
the opening session of the convention,
Kartozian called the per-capita
controversy "the most time-consuming,
vexatious problem I have had to deal
with since taking this position."
Kartozian spoke in favor of clearances
— timeframes established by distributors
after which they make their
first-run films available for sub-nm and
discount bookings — instead of per-capita
policies, which, he said, "infringe" on
the rights of exhibitors. At the same
time, Kartozian recognized that it was
not a violation of law for a distributor to
establish a per-capita policy. He even
went so far as to point out that the success
of discount theatres could "adversely
affect the range of the industry
based on the continued flow of profit."
On the whole, Kartozian characterized
the matter as having "a complex, deeper
meaning that raises questions of a
long-term nature."
In a meeting of NATO's independent
theatre owners committee, the issue
took a new turn when Mike Rembusch,
chairman of the trade practices committee
of the Theatre Owners of Indiana,
revealed that his organization had
asked U. S. District Court Judge William
Conner, judicial administrator of the Paramount
consent decree, to force the U.
S. Justice Department to intervene in
the matter and require Paramount to
cease its policy. The basic argimient
proposed by Rembusch was that the
per-capita policy was a foim of pricefixing
and was therefore implicitly prohibited
by law. Although Kattozian, who
was in attendance at the session, agreed
in general with Rembusch, he seemed
to feel that the Justice Department
would argue that the consent decree did
not outlaw per-capitas.
Also at ShoWest, the National Association
of Discount Theatres, which
held court in a suite of offices abuzz
with tales from the front lines of the
battle, issued a newsletter which
claimed that per-capitas "could ultimately
lead to the demise of second-nm
theatres." NATD president Jack Clark
also spoke out against the multi-tiered
clearance policy in practice at Buena
Vista, which he claims "keeps films out
of discount theatres for an unreasonable
time," and against Warner Bros.' infamous
short film-to-video window for
"Batman," which, he said, "moved second-run
film availabilities imreasonably
close to video release dates. Clark also
revealed that NATD member theatres
nationwide have gotten over 7000 patrons
to write letters to protest per-capitas
to their elected representatives and
to Paramount Chairman Martin S. Dav-
Finally, Paul Roth, NATO's 1973-74
president and current chair of the
group's governmental relations committee,
spoke in perhaps the most barbed
terms of all. In a speech to convention
attendees in which he outlined NATO's
plans to fight antagonistic legislation
through a computerized monitoring and
early warning system, Roth had this to
say about the legality of per-capita pricing
policies: "Certain guns are legal to
own and keep, but it's not legal to use a
legal gun in a robbery."
The issue of per-capita ticket
pricing has become so involved that
BoxOFFiCE will devote a series of
articles in coming issues to the various
questions it raises. We will be
speaking with exhibitors, distributors,
and other interested parties in
an effort to give the widest possible
coverage to the matter. W^e will also
spend time on related subjects such
as clearances, video-release windows,
low-grossing theatre policies,
and other controversial matters
that arise between distribution and
exhibition. The following two articles
— on Buena Vista's announced
plans to withhold its films
from theatres which play on-screen
advertisements and on low-grossing
theatre policies in effect at Warner
Bros, and 20th Century Fox — are
the first of what we hope will be a
series of timely and informative discussions
of the crucial issues affecting
the industry.
H
]\ADT
MUCH
OF THE opposition to Paramoimt's per-capita ticket-pricing policy
has come from the National Association of Discount Theatres of
Seatde. The group has done an impressive job of rounding up previously
unorganized small exhibitors and imiting them into a unified body with substantial
political presence.
NADT had its start in a convention of discount theatre owners, bookers and
concessionaires held in Seattle in August of 1989. Since that start, the group has
20 BOXOFFICE

Per-Caps, Screen Ad Bans and Low-Gross
Booking Policies Liven Up the 90's
Buena Vista to Exhibs: No Ads With Our Films
IN
A MOVE greeted by ShoWest seminar-goers
ivith applause and murmurs
of approval. Richard Cook,
president of distribution for Buena Vista
Pictures (representing Disney, Touchstone,
and Hollywood I'ir.tures), annoimced
that his c.onip.iny would no
longer allow its films to play in thc.itn^s
which show advertising along with features
The policy, which comes into
effect on March 23 with the release of
"Pretty Woman." mirrors one in effect
at Warner Bros., biu Buena Vista is the
first distributor to go public with such a
move.
c:alling it an effort to "help preserve
the quality of the theatri( al experience
as something special and uni(|u'
factored into the fonnulation of the policy
The matter ot Buena Vista's refusal to
book its films on screens which feature
advertisements raises a great many
questions beyond the immediate response
as to whether or not one likes to
watch commercials in a movie theatre.
For starters, exhibitors will still be permitted
to show slides of advertist^nents
during intermissions, since the policy
only prohibits the use of ads which arc
spliced onto the feature and screened as
part of the show. Buena Vista is not,
apparently, bothered by ads which plaster
the screen as patrons take their
seats.
Nor. apparently, is any change to
occur within Buena Vista films. The
company had no comment on queries as
to whether or not the quality of a film
presentation is eroded by the continual
and conspicuous display of brand-name
products in the film Such subliminal
use of product names is labelli'd by Alex
Szabo, president of Screenvision, the
nation's largest placer of screen advertising,
as "subversive." Similarly, Buena
Vista did not see any relation between
its new policy and the use of commercials
or product tie-ins on hoine video
cassettes, through which, according to
Cook, viewers can fast-foward
The news from Buena Vista could
make for some annoying problems for
theatre managers around the countr\'.
Take Los Angeles, for example, where
moviegoers have been watching ads for
the "Los Angeles Times" before films
for years. The ads are screened by
exhibitors in return for discounted
prices on theatre timetable advertising
in the newspaper. Now. multiplex managers
with Buena Vista films showing on
one of their screens will have to be certain
that the platters in those particular
projection booths arc free of all advertising
trailers. And how, just to play
devil's advocate, is the "Los Angeles
Times" going to bill theatres which
show its ads on all but one ot their
screens?
Buena Vista says that it definitely
plans to monitor theatres in which it has
booked its films to sec if the policy is
being adhered to. NATO president William
Kartozian, for his part, would not
take a side on the matter, pointing oiu
there has been a long-standing division
of opinion among his group's metnbers
over the subject of screen advertising.
Other major distributors have applauded
the move, but none has vet
announced plans to follow suit. HI
come to represent 42.5 member screens nationwide. It is headed up by a board consi.sting of Jack D. Clark, Jr., (Pullman,
WA), president, Tanoy Mitchell ( Dallas), vice-president, Mac Montague (Seattle), secretary-treasurer, and Dale Koessel
(Pasadena, CA), Robert Gamer (El Paso), Randy Hester (Dallas), Joy Houck (Metiarie, LA), and Dan Tocchini (Santa
Rosa, CA), directors. In Washington, D. C. where tnany of NADT's legislative arid lobbying activities are focussed, the
group is represented by Peter Segall of the Madi.son Public Affairs Group. Legal coun.scl is provided by Tom Boeder of
the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle.
NADT has helped make the plight of discount exhibitors a visible one through a f)etition campaign and a letter-
(iiintinucd)
April, 1990 21

Exhibition Wars
(continued from p 21)
W.B. and Fox Have Rates for Low-Grossing Houses
OPERATORS
OF DISCOUNT and SllbiTin
theatres have often complained
about booking terms,
clearance policies, print shortages, and
other aspects of dealing with major distributors.
As the Paramount Pictures
per-capita war rages, and as exhibitors
strain at Buena Vista's clearance policy
of 28-day tiers, it may be suiprising to
note that two major distributors have
actually established temis and policies
that might make the life of the smalltheatre
owner more comfortable.
Of all the major distributors, only
Warner Bros, and 2C)th Centuiy Fox
have in operation booking policies that
give special preference to low-grossing
and/or small-town theatres. While
these policies were designed by distributors
working in tandem with NATO to
benefit theatres nationwide, very few
exhibitors have actually applied for acceptance
into them.
The lack of participation in his company's
low-giossing plan is, according to
Barry Reardon, president of distribution
at Warner Bros., due to a lack of awareness
of the program ainong distributors
(among distributors or exhibitors), this
despite a 1989 campaign by NATO to
make the policy more visible. Reardon
says that only 50 to 75 theatres nationwide
have signed up for the program, far
below the number he had anticipated
Tim Warner of NATO of California, a
former chair of national NATO's Independent
Theatre Owners' committee,
agrees with Reardon's assessment of the
program's profile: "The awareness factor
in the marketplace has been very
low. The distributors were pretty enthusiastic
about setting up the plans, but
there was a lack of follow-up in the
marketplace."
Another explanation of the lack of
participation in Warner Bros.' plan may
be found, however, in the temis of the
plan itself Initiated in 1984 and reiterated
in 1988, the plan promises to make
prints available to low-grossing/smalltown
theatres which can meet the following
criteria:
1) A gross of less than 575,000 in
the preceding fiscal or calendar year,
computed as a total and not perscreen;
2) Verification of the gross via an
IRS statement or independent audit;
3) Location in a non-competitive
town; and
4) Theatre-operation neither as a
secondary business nor as a seasonal
business.
Once accepted into the Wainer Bros,
program, a theatre would receive prints
on an "as available basis" after paying a
flat rental fee up front or on delivery.
The theatre would not be allowed to
participate in co-op advertising, and
would be charged according to the following
pricing categories: (AA) 40 percent
against S350 minimum; (A) S250,
with a seven-day maximum; (B) S125,
with a seven-day maximum; and (c)S75,
with a seven-day maximum.
All Reardon has to say about the economic
terms of the plan is that "Maybe
exhibitors are reluctant to send in their
tax returns." The plan, he explains, was
designed for "Mom and Pop houses,"
and not necessarily for the discount
sub-nm market.
Twentieth Centuiy Fox, whose president
for distribution, Thomas Sherak,
announced thomgh a spokesman that
he had no comment on the subject,
recently revised its clearance terms for
low-grossing theatres (see National
News, p. 45). Its criteria for classifying a
theatre as low-grossing are as follows: a
theatre must have grossed an average of
SI, 500 or less for its first week's booking
of Fox product over the last three years.
Theatres qualifying under these terms
are eligible to receive second-nm prints
after a clearance window set by the
company's regional or divisional managers.
Although it is trtie that the low-giossing
plans of Fox and Warner Bros, are
unique in the industry in that they
attempt to cater to a deprived segment
of the exhibition world, one wonders if a
lack of publicity or a lack of realistic
qualifying temis is the cause of their
limited appeal to theatre owners. For
example, even after meeting Warner
Bros.' fairly stringent financial terms
(575,000 a year total gras^ including concessions,
on-screen ad revenues, and
merchandising sales?), a theatre is only
assured a print at a discount on a contingent
"as available" basis. In the Fox
plan, theatres are given sub-nm films on
shorter-than-normal clearances only if
they have a proven record of perfoirning
poorly when they've booked Fox
BoxoFFiCE is heartened by the
efforts of distributors to attempt to
create new ways to serve the varied
wings of the exhibition industrv. We
are eager to publicize such efforts
and to report on their operation and
progress. How do you fee! about the
Warner Bros, and Fox low-grossing
plans? Do you now feel informed
enough to apply for them or do you
think that the terms of admission
are too strict? Write to us to let us
know about your feelings on this or
any other issue concerning exhibitors'
relations with distribution.
writing drive. Over 7000 discount theatre patrons across the U. S. signed letters to congress and to Paramoimt chair
Martin Davis protesting the institution of per-capita pricing policies after the letters were distributed in NADT member
theatres. Additionally, NADT has provided legal counsel to its members on various anti-competitive business practices
they face.
Membership in NADT entails a one-time fee of 5200 and an annual fee of SlOO per screen. Members reveive the
organization's newsletter "The Deal" and may attend NADT meetings and conferences. For infomiation, contact
NADT at (206) 283-2108 or write to National Association of Discount Theatres, 1906 Overview Dr. NE, Tacoma, WA,
98109,
22 BOXOFUCE

TECHNOLOGY
"
The Free Film Phone
A new phone service offers precise showtime
information. ..at no charge to the caller.
WHILE
B\ Tom M.itlhcw s
NEWSPAPERS AND a theatre's
Du-n answering machine continue
to be reliable sources of
showtime information for the moviegoer,
revolutionar\' telephone technology-
has introduced yet another means by
which cnicial theatre information can
be dispensed
Thanks to a year-old enterprise called
MovicFone, moviegoers in Los Angeles
and New York can dial 777- FILM to pinpoint
precisely when a specific movie is
playing at a specific theatre, without a
charge and without having to wade
through the cumbersome, catch-all
tapes offered by the average- multiplex.
J. Russell Leathemian, who founded
MovieFone in Los Angeles, says that the
system is now pulling in between 30,000
and 50,000 calls a week in the two cities,
and the secret to its early success no
doubt has a lot to do with the novel idea
of a free phone service.
"There's no place in the marketplace
for a company giving similar information
and charging the caller." says
Leatherman "We knew going into this
that we had to figure out how to make
money on the back end. W(! knew that if
the consumer felt that they were being
charged S2.00 for the service, it would
be just as easy and certainly cheaper for
them to turn to the newspaper, or to put
up with a few busy signals by calling the
theatre. We developed other revenue
sources, so that the consumer has no
hesitation about picking up the phone
and calling the service."
L.uuiched with an initial funding of
.SI .S million, uith as much as S5 million
planned for additional support, L

24 BOXOFFICE
MODERN THEATRE
Digital Sound in
the Motion Picture
Theatre
ULTIMATELY,
By John Eargle
JBL Incorporated
IN ONE form Or another,
digital multitrack sound will become
a reality in the motion picture
theatre. This prompts us to consider what
ready" actually means when we
"digital
look at the entire electroacoustical system,
including certain acoustical characteristics
of the house itself. Fortunately,
the decade of the 1980s saw a good bit of
industry upgrading, largely through the
efforts of concerned filmmakers and general
implementation of new power-flat
loudspeaker systems in major postproduction
houses and theatre chains. Many
125 250 500 IK 2 K
of these installations may in fact be considered
"digital ready" today.
Actually, the overall characteristics of
digital sound transmission may not be
considerably different from the best of
current film recording technology, at
least in the initial stages of industry
changeover. The comparison to make is
not with the consumer who has just
replaced his LP player with a CD player
and has heard a night-and-day difference.
Rather, think of it in tenns of high-quality
analog noise reduction being replaced
with a system only slightly better.
The real driving force may not be technical,
but economical. Today, the cost of
70mm prints with multichannel magnetic
Frequency (Hz)
Figure 1. Noise Criterion (NC) curves
4 K 8 K
capability is extremely high. The prospect
of a digital-on-film medium could
change all of that, affording multichannel
capability on an optical medium requiring
only one pass through the laboratory.
It is appropriate to outline general performance
requirements for digital sound
in the theatre, inasmuch as there will be
great expectations for it. Certainly, many
of the initial "digital" releases will emphasize
sound for its own sake.
Noise levels in the theatre: While a
noise criterion of NC-30 is generally regarded
as an acceptable noise level in the
theatre, NC-25 is preferred if extremely
quiet effects are to have their full impact.
Figure 1 shows the family of NC curves,
indicating one-octave band measurements
on ISO center frequencies. The difference
between NC-30 and NC-25 in
many theatres may be a matter of air handling
or possibly noise from the lobby/
concession area which has not been adequately
closed off from the house. These
problems can be fixed, but they may not
be trivial. Noise from an adjacent theatre
(in a multiplex installation), or noises due
to nearby freeways or airlanes, will be
more difficult to fix because of structural
implications. Be prepared to have an
acoustician conduct a thorough sound
survey.
Subbass extension: It is a sure bet that
sound designers will want to exploit the
unlimited low-frequency response which
digital provides. Today's subwoofer modules
generally reach down to the 30-35 Hz
range, but it is likely that 20-25 Hz is more
appropriate. Today, there is considerable
engineering developinent in the area of
double-tuned subwoofer systems. JBL's
Triple Chamber Bandpass (TCB) design
uses high-output transducers to create a
low-frequency bandpass system which is
considerably smaller than its equivalent
in standard ported enclosure technology.
Such systems can cover the required frequency
range and, in multiples, can produce
the necessary air volume velocity to
achieve the needed levels in the theatre.
Power-bandwidth concepts: JBL pioneered
the concept of flat power response
in theatre systems', and the class of componentry
which JBL introduced in the
early 1980s has become standard in contemporary
theatre installations. Stated in
its most basic way, a system which has
flat power response exhibits controlled

.\Dril. 1990 25
Cinema Sound
on-jxis and off-axis response, both of
which are essentially unitomi across the
spectrum Such systems require relatively
little external equalization in order to
conform to standard ISO equalization requirements
Another characteristic of such systems,
if they have been well engineered, is that
they exhibit wide power bandwidth This
implies that the system can handle its
rated input over its stated frequency
range Many systems of marginal design
can handle their rated power only over
the low-trequcncy ponion of their range,
with reduced capability at high frequencies
The penalty paid for this is simply
that the system is no stronger than its
weakest link; a wide-band input signal
will cause distortion (or burnout) of the
high-frequency section, while the woofers
are coasting along with room to spare
It is not uncommon to find surround loudspeakers
with this problem.
Digital recording is itself a flat power
bandwidth process, and it is likely truly
flat spectra will, in sound effects and rock
music, be recorded over those systems
and presented unaltered to the loudspeakers
We would propose that, as a
minimum requirement, all systems intended
for theatre use should be able to
handle flat power bandwidth out to 10
kHz. as well as down to the frequency
where the subwoofers take over
House fquali/.ation rt^quirrmcnts:
When one-third oi tavc equalization was
introduced into the motion picture
theatre in the early 1970s, few systems
could be properly equalized to 8 kHz. As
better drivers and lower loss screens have
come into use, equalization can be routinely
carried out to 16 kHz in many
screening rooms (This may be more difficult
to achieve in the held because of
excess high-frequency losses over the
greater distances encountered )
Systems equaliz

Cinema Sound: Monitoring Performance
Sound System Considerations
For tine 1 990s
So
By Buzz Hays
The THX Group
YOU'VE GOT this great sound system.
Now what? How do you keep it
sounding its best a year or two from
now? What is the most cost effective
means of performing service on the system?
These are just a couple of the questions
that exhibitors are asking today.
These questions have one thing in common.
Money. With inflation rising as fast
as it has been in the past few years,
theatre sound system installation and service
isn't getting any cheaper. Equipment
costs are being scrutinized more closely
than ever. Your sound and projection systems
should be considered an investment,
not an added building expense. After all,
the whole purpose of motion picture
theatres is to show motion pictures, right?
The sound and projection systems are not
areas of cost that warrant penny-pinching
when budgeting time comes around. Besides,
it's not as though you need to
replace them every two years or so.
Today's projection and sound systems are
built to last for years and years, and if the
costs are looked at over time, they really
become insignificant in relation to the
operating expenses of the theatre itself
Now that your projection and sound systems
are considered as investments, let's
see what can be done to protect these
investments.
Once the right equipment is chosen for
the theatre, and the installation is complete,
the initial alignment of the sound
system takes place. More often than not,
this occurs while carpenters, painters,
and electricians are scrambling around
the projection booth and the auditorium,
trying to get things together at the last
possible moment. Although it may be difficult,
it is very important to spend the
time to ensure that the system is working
to its fullest potential, and that all of the
components are functioning properly
during the alignment procedures, as most
equipment failures happen shortly after
installation. If the system is fully tested
and documented before opening the doors
for the first time, future routine and
emergency service will be much faster
and easier. The documenting of the system
that I am referring to is one of the
primary concerns to bear in mind when
trying to protect your investment.
The current performance data of the
system can be compared to the data gathered
during the initial alignmetit of the
system to aid in detennining where problems
lie, should they arise at some point
in the future.
Here is a list of items to include in the
documentation of the sound system alignment:
1) AC Mains Voltage

MOnr-l
^ADC
QSC Customers
Are Buying More
ThanA Product;
They re Also
Buying Our
Support."
Barry Andrews
President,
QSC Audio.
"What if it breaks?" That's an ugly question, but an
unavoidable one for anybody who buys a pro audio
product. At QSC, we won't leave you high and dry if you
have a problem with one of our amplifiers. We pride
ourselves on the reputation we've earned for quick and
couneous
service.
We offer a
3 -year warranty
on
our Series
TTiree amps
and a 2-year warranty on our Series One, For QSC.
anticipating problems before they occur is a part of
effective design. Through careful engineering, we've
been able to make service easy for our customers, our
dealers and ourselves. Protection from real-world
hazards is built right into QSC amplifiers. Take the
patented Outjiut Averaging Circuit " used in our top-ofthe-line
Series Three and more economical Series One.
It provides complete protection from short circuits
without compromising the
amplifier's performance. Both the
input and output stages of QSC
amplifiers are fully isolated against
overdrive. RF burnout or unstable
loads. Even your speakers are
proteaed against destruction
caused by DC fault The modular
design of our Series Three amplifiers makes service easy
in the event that something does go vwrong. Each
channel is built into its ovm front-removal module, which
can be easily taken out for service. Modules are
conneaed to the mainframe by means of a locking goldplated
conneaor on a flexible cable-an interface that
stands up to rough handling. For QSC. service means a
lot more than just fixing things. It means listening. We
listen to your problems as well as your praise. And we've
incorporated that real-world exf>erience into the design
and service of every produa we make. For more information
contaa: QSC Audio Products. 1926 Placentia
Avenue. Costa Mesa. CA 92627. (714) 645-2540.
Response No. 15
Quality
Service
Cominitment

Cinema Sound: Monitoring Performance
chain has been fully aligned (azimuth,
crosstalk, focus, track placement, frequency
response, and preamp level) an
electrical response measurement should
be taken of both Lt and Rt on each projector.
This will allow you to see what the
optimum alignment for your system is,
and will allow you to pinpoint problems in
the future that may crop up. (It is also a
good idea to ensure that you are using 0.75
mil slits in your optics assembly, and note
this along with the frequency response
data.)
4) Magnetic A-Chain Frequency Response
(Va Octave): Once the magnetic
A-chain has been fully aligned (azimuth,
head height, track placement, frequency
response, and preamp level) an electrical
response measurement should be taken
of each track (1-6) from each projector.
This will, again, allow you to see what the
optimum alignment for your system is,
and will allow you to pinpoint problems in
the future.
5) Wow & Flutter Measurements (%
DIN WTD): These measurements are often
difficult to get in the field, but can be
helpful in diagnosing soundhead related
problems in both optical and magnetic
systems. Bearings and bent shafts are
usually the cause of wow & flutter problems,
and measuring the performance of
the soundhead mechanisms over time
will help to predict potential service problems.
6) B-Chain Electrical Frequency Response
(Vs Octave): Upon completion of
the room equalization, electrical response
measurements should be taken for each
channel of the sound system. You will
find that this is extremely useful when
having to undo the tuning or tweaking
done by unauthorized personnel. By
keeping a record of the electrical response
of the equalized sound system, the
EQ cards can be reset easily and quickly
without having to set up microphones in
the theatre should an emergency situation
arise and require retuning of the
cards under pressure of a time constraint.
It is still recommended that the four
microphones be set up in the seating area,
and a re-equalization of the channel in
question performed if time pennits in
order to obtain the best performance from
the system.
7) B-Chain Auditorium Frequency
Response (V3 Octave): Documentation
of the acoustic response of the sound system
should be performed following the
tuning of the system. By keeping a record
of the frequency response of each of the
speaker channels in the auditorium, a
rather simple but effective system monitoring
scheme can be devised that will
allow you to check the system performance
every day in a matter of ininutes,
giving you the opportunity to spot problems
as they occur. (See the following
section entitled Daily Monitoring of the
Sound System.)
8) B-Chain Sound Pressure Levels
(dBC Slow): It is very important to document
the SPL with reference to a standard
playback level of 7 on the volume
control. This can help in assuring that all
films will play back at their proper levels
in the theatre.
9) Power Amplifier Output Voltage
(VAC): This measurement should be taken
for each channel of the system using a
pink noise generator as the source, with
the volume control set at 7. The voltage at
the output of the power amplifiers will
give you an indication of what gain setting
was chosen upon initial installation, allowing
resetting of the controls in the
event that they were changed. The usual
practice is to turn the power amplifier
The THX Spectrum Analyzer
gain controls to the full open position,
thus preventing guesswork in resetting
the controls.
10) Background Noise Level (NC 1/1
Octave): The background noise level
should be measured from a minimum of
four microphone positions within the auditorium.
By saving this data, you will be
able to track the frequency of air-handling
system filter replacements by noting
the changes in noise levels over time.
As filters become dirty, the background
noise levels will invariably rise, and early
detection will give you early warning that
they need replacement
11) Reverberation Time (RT 1/1 Octave):
The reverberation time of the
theatre will usually not change over time,
although any modifications to the auditorium
in the form of tiew seats, drapes,
paint, etc., will require that it be measured
again, to assure that the intelligibility
of the system is not adversely affected.
A record should be kept of the reverberation
times in each octave band for future
reference.
Now that I've outlined all of the measurements,
how do we actually measure
and document them? THX has been
studying the tuning and documentation of
sound systems for a few years now, applying
existing technology where necessary,
but until recently, have come up short in
the documentation area due to a lack of
hardware to accommodate the task. We
realized that the only sure way of keeping
a sound system aligned is to document
everything and use that infonnation during
routine service visits to make sure that
all system components are calibrated
with the same precision as the first alignment.
We test each of the 500 THX theatres
once every six months (a total of nearly
1000 recertification visits per year). As a
result of our needs to service these
clients, we embarked on the design of a
new audio spectrum analyzer that would
meet our needs and the needs of other
audio engineers around the world. Our
primary concern was to ensure proper
alignment of the THX systems with the
means to quickly and accurately check
the calibration of the system over time,
while offering the same flexibility for other
professional audio engineers' needs as
well.
The THX Digital Spectrum Analyzer is
the result of our research and development
efforts. The system is designed to
work with any 100 percent PC compatible
computer, and will provide a host of features
ranging from frequency response
measurements to reverberation measurements.
Utilizing the PLEX microphone
multiplexer with four calibrated microphones,
the system can be configured to
automate many of the measurement and
alignment procedures performed during
system calibration. The system is software-intensive,
allowing the flexibility of
growing with the needs of the professional
community. The product will be available
this summer.
Daily Monitoring of the
Sound System
One of the new developments that has
evolved out of the spectrum analyzer
project is the use of a permanently
mounted reference microphone in each
theatre to check the system calibration
following the initial certification visit.
Coupled with the THX Digital Spectrum
Analyzer, the theatre service technician
is now afforded the means to check the
performance of the THX system on a daily
basis, all in the span of 15 minutes or
less. The analyzer looks at the frequency
response of each channel in the system
via the reference microphone. The data is
compared with that of the initial certification
visit (through an offset to emulate
the actual measured response), and any
deviations from the original data are reported.
Any malfunctions in the A&B-
28 BOXOFFICE

i P.O.
'
AdHI. 1990 29
chains can easily be spotted in this manner
The process is automated, so that the
complete system check can take place
very quickly In fact, the process can be
controlled over normal phone lines if necessary,
offering held engmeers a new
flexibility in response to emergency calls
when time is of the essence The actual
maintenance of the system is still handson,
as there are too many physical operations
that must be performed during any
routine service call (such as cleaning of
the soundhead optics and the projector
assembly) in order to thoroughly align
and maintain the system
What does all of this mean? Well, by
proper alignment of your sound system
(see Theatre Sound Ah^iment Is It T/ic
Lxist Creative Step In Film-Making^ Bo.x-
OFFICE, January 1989), and by proper doi
umeniation of the system. ser\'icing costs
can be kept down while maintaining the
high quality standards of the sound system
over a period of many years The use
of sophisticated technology in theatre alignment
really only makes sense if the
quality is kept high, while keeping an eye
on the costs associated with servicing the
system
^
Buzz Hays is the director of eni;ineertng
with the THX Group, a division of the
LucasArts Entertainment Company He
holds an MFA m Film Productum from the
University of Southern California and has
worked in the technical and production
facets of the motion picture industry since
1980
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obtrusive hooks, eye-bolls & chains or
door hinges, either Such support methods
are tedious, cumbersome and also expensively
time consuming to install
' Carefully engineered and qualify manufactured in U S A
Contact us for further information.
Response No. 27
I
MODEL
lOOWA
(70 LBS MAX)
Mounts 10
bacK o(
speaker
Sleel lube
Die-cast atummu
(JMSQW/.
10850 Vanowen Sueei
Nonh Hollywood CA 91605*

Cinema Sound: Digital Sound
Getting Ready for the Digital Evolution
THE
By John F. Allen
AGE OF digital stereo soundtracks
for motion picture films is about to
begin. In the January 1990 issue of
BOXOFFICE, I described the digital soundtrack
jointly developed by Optical Radiation
Corporation (ORG) and Eastman Kodak.
While other manufacturers have said
that they are developing a composite digital
release print, ORG is the first to
announce a viforking system.
This technology delivers an audio signal
with the purity and dynamic range
equal to a compact digital disc and presents
unprecedented challenges as well
as opportunities to theatre sound system
designers. How does one best equip a
theatre to handle these superior recordings?
There will be little choice when it
comes to the digital sound reader or the
actual processor. Initially, the only such
units available will presumably come
from the company manufacturing the
processor. However, the selection of the
amplifiers and speaker systems will be up
to individual sound system designers. It is
these items which must be up to the job
for digital stereo to live up to its full
potential.
To understand some of the electroacoustic
issues raised by digital's introduction,
a brief review of some of the
basics is in order.
Basic Air
In his landmark book Acoustics, Leo
Beranek describes sound simply as a pressure
wave in the air at a frequency we can
hear. We can generally be expected to
hear frequencies from about 27 Hertz (vibrations
per second) to 17,000 Hertz.
Younger ears can usually hear even higher
frequencies, although there is very little
material in this range to listen to.
When we hear something, it is because
something has caused air to move.
If you consider the sources which make
loud low frequency sounds, they are typically
large and powerful. Our ears are less
sensitive to bass. Therefore, the lower the
frequency, the louder it must be for us to
hear it. Obviously, the realistic reproduction
of the loudest low frequency sounds
will require the largest inovements of air
by the loudspeakers. This is one of the
reasons low frequency speakers (woofers)
are bigger than high frequency systems.
Dynamic Range
In most commercial audio venues such
as long-playing records, radio broadcasts
or motion picture films, the range between
the softest and the loudest sounds
is considerably reduced from what we
would hear if we were to listen to the original
live sound. This is done for many
reasons. Particularly with 35mm optical
soundtracks, the dynamic range which
can be recorded is highly limited by the
medium itself. Noise and distortion would
result if a full dynamic range recording
was attempted.
Another villain involved in the loss of
dynamic range is the inability of many
loudspeakers to move enough air. Many
people have become so accustomed to the
distortion and compressed dynamics of
analog recordings and small speakers that
they have convinced themselves that this
represents good sound. After all, this is
what has been sold as "High Fidelity" for
years.
A look at the nature of the true dynamic
range in music and sound reveals that the
loudest sounds are short, instantaneous
peaks. If you ask 10 people which has
more dynamic range, a symphony orchestra
or a rock band, most will say the latter.
Actually, in true dynamic terms, the orchestra
produces greater peaks while the
rock group has a greater average level. Of
course film sound contains explosive effects
in addition to music and speech.
Among other advantages, it is these
huge peaks, often called punch, which
digital recordings can deliver. This necessarily
changes the way in which we must
think about cinema sound systems. For
the first time, digital motion picture
sound systems iriust become reproducers
of sound with live dynamics.
The Reproducers
In the digital age, theatre speaker systems
must be more powerful than ever.
By far, the loudspeakers are the MOST
IMPORTANT item in ANY sound system;
they're also usually the weakest. This is
because the speakers are the only part of
the audio chain working on the air itself
They are the air pumps.
Large bass sounds move more -air than
high frequency sounds. As an example, a
30-inch bass drum or an explosion makes
larger sound waves in the air than a piccolo.
To accurately reproduce sound
through loudspeakers, one must move the
same amount of air past a listener's ears
as was created by the original sound
source. When you realize how much air is
moved by large low frequency sounds,
you begin to understand why larger
speakers are better.
Large vs. Small
In the speaker business, as the cabinet
size becomes larger, it typically moves
more air but becomes harder to sell.
Decor-conscious home speaker buyers
and portability-minded professionals
have tended to give up large air movers in
favor of smaller boxes with considerably
less performance. Faced with this situation,
manufacturers have generally offered
what is easiest to sell: small speakers.
Those wishing greater speaker outputs
and less distortion have often used
lots of small speakers to get what they
want. While all this has seemed to make
everybody happy for now, I think digital
sound ought to bring us back to reality.
Large speaker systems are nothing new
to the theatre industry. Since the speakers
are hidden, they can be as big as necessary.
Everyone is familiar with the old
U foot tall, two-way speaker systems
found behind many a screen. (Big as they
are, these older systeins should not be
confused with horn loaded speakers,
which they are not. These designs actually
employ a large ported bass reflex woofer.
Their very short horns do little to nothing
in the bottoin octaves. The high frequency
sections are, of course, fully horn
loaded.) These systems have served this
industry very well for years. In fairness,
however, they were never designed for
the frequency range or dynamic range
required for digital stereo and cannot be
fully upgraded. Of course, any speaker
will "play" digital recordings. Selecting
the appropriate speaker is a matter of
quality and full accurate reproduction.
Digital Thinking
believe that two-way speaker sys-
If you are seriously thinking about exploiting
digital's full potential, I am recommending
to my clients the coinplete
replacement of any theatre speaker system
manufactured before 1980 and many
made thereafter. For the best digital results,
I
tem designs (woofer and tweeter) should
be abandoned in favor of at least threeway
configurations (woofer, midrange
and tweeter). A designated super tweeter
30 BOXOFFICE

is much more effective in gelling digital's
extended high frequencies through the
screen and also ehminates the high frequency
boost required with two-wav systems,
which can overstrcss the driver
KaHi<
h.iss
When the Sensurround'" system was
developed, fully horn loaded woofers
were chosen as tht^y ottered the greatest
clean low frequency output
per i:abinet
cubic foot and per dollar
I have myself ni-ver encountered a low
frt:(|uenc:y speaker more eflective and
natural than a fully horn loaded woofer
Compared to the direct radiator types
(speakers in a box), and I do work with
both, horns have piTformance advantages
not availble elsewhere
A compari.son of the radiating an-as of
both types shows what I mean A diri!ci
radiator woofer with two l.S-inch drivers
has an actual radiating area of about Id
.square feet. The radiating area is the total
piston area of the two drivers which,
alone, acts on the outside air This is completely
independent of the size of the cabinet.
A full
Serious Mr I'umps
horn wooler is a totally different
machine Its column of air functions as an
acoustic transformer The two 15-inch
drivers move muih more air by acting on
the air in the horn which, in turn, provides
far more effective control of the
outside air The large mouth area of the
horn becomes the radiating area of the
speaker and is typically 6 to 10 square feet
or more This represents a four- to eightfold
increase in radiating area over a
direct radiator with two 15-inc;h drivers
Unlike the direct radiator, as the horn
(cabinet) is extended, its radiating area
increases.
The differences between these two designs
are huge .ind cannot be overemphasized
In addition to greater acoustic output
and radiating ar

Cinema Sound:
AB INTERNATIONAL
ELECTRONICS
1830-6 Vernon Street/POB 1105
Roseville, CA 95678
916-783-7800, 714-777-2290
Fax: 714-586-8229
Robert Bird, President
Irwin Laskey, Vice President
Sound equipment Manufacturer of a broad
line ofpower amps.
Response No. 301
AVL SYSTEMS
5540 S.Vvf. Sixth Place
Ocala, FL 32674
904-854-1170, 800-228-7842
Fax: 904-854-1278
J. Philip Hale, President
Acoustical sound control systems, meeting
and exceeding THX specs
Response No. 302
ALPRO ACOUSTICS DIV.
600 Saint George St., Suite A
Jefferson, LA 70121
504-733-3836
Fax: 504-733-3851
Harold Hawkins, President
Yvonne B. Foerster, VP
Acoustical for reverberation control.
Response No. 303
ALTEC LANSING
P.O. Box 26105
Oklahoma City, OK 73126
405-324-5311, 405-324-8981
Karen Treadwell, Advertising/Comm.
Mgr.
"Voice of the Theatre" sound equipment
& systems
Response No. 304
ALTEC LANSING DIV. OF
CANADA
345 Herbert St.
Gananoque, Ontario, Canada K7G 2V1
613-382-2141, 613-382-2955
Fax: 613-382-7466
Doug MacCallum, VP/General Mgr.
Shirley Eastman, Gust. Service Mgr.
Power amps, mixers, compressors, "Voice
of the Theatre" sound systems.
Response No. 305
ASHLY AUDIO INC.
100 Femwood Ave.
Rochester, NY 14621
716-544-5191
Bill Thompson, President
Robert C. French, Sr. VP/Marketing
MOS-FET power amplifiers,
professional
audio signal processing equipment.
Response No. 306
AUDEX
713 N. 4th Street
Longview, TX 75606
800-237-0716 (U.S.A.), 800-442-8489
(Texas), 214-753-9546
Charles W. Beatty, Jr., President
Infared assistive listening devices.
Response No. 307
BGW SYSTEMS INC.
13130 S. Yukon Ave.
Hawthorne, CA 90250
213-973-8090
Fax: 213-676-6713
Brian Gary Wachner, President
Barbara Wachner, VP
Don Carson, Controller
Manufacturer of audio power amps, signal
processing amps
Response No. 308
BARCUS-BERRY
5500 Bolsa Avenue/Ste. 245
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
714-897^^6766
Fax: 714-895-6728
John McLaren, Chairman
Fred Coyner, National Sales Mgr.
Complete line of sonic maximization processors.
Response No. 309
BOSE CORP.
100 The Mountain Road
Framingham, MA 01701
508-879-7330
Fax: 508-872-6541
David H. Bell, General Manager
Timothy Dorwart, Natl. Fid. Sis. Mgr.
Peter Borchard, Cinema Specialist
Mark R. Mayfield, Market Area Mgr.
Cinema sound system products: loudspeakers,
Acoustic Wave Cannon subwoofer
system
Response No. 310
BOSTON ACOUSTICS
INC.
70 Broadway
Lynnfield, MA 01940
617-592-9000
Ira Friedman, Director of Marketing
Lenny Provost, National Sales Mgr.
Surround sound speakers.
Response No. 311
BREJTFUS BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENTS
1329 E. University Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85281
602-968-1112
Fax: 602-968-7173
Ron Brejtfus, President
Artistic soimd ahsorbant ivall panels and
baffles.
Response No. 312
CERWIN-VEGA
555 E. Easy Street
Simi Valley, CA 93065
805-584-9332
Rich Mandella, Pro. Sales Mgr.
Mark Silverman, Dir. of Mktg. Comm.
Roland McBeth, Hi-Fi Sales Manager
Stage and cinema sound systems.
Response No. 313
CHACE PRODUCTIONS,
INC.
7080 Hollywood Blvd., Suite 515
Hollywood, CA 90028
213-466-3946
Fax: 213-464-1893
Rick Chace, President
Sound enhancement processing.
Response No. 314
32 BOXOFFICE

Buyers Guide
COMMUNITY LIGHT &
SOUND
:UJ East 5th St.
Chester. PA 19013
215-876-3400, 800-523-4934
Fax; 215-874-0190
Bnir.e Howze, President
lohn T Wiggins. VP Sales & Marketiiii;
l.oudspeakxrs, systems and components,
surround sound speaker, featuring the
TheatreStar III hehind-the-screen systems
and the SurrnundStar XII system
ReHponse No. 315
DECOUSTICS LIMITED
15 Webster Street
North Tonawanda. NY 14120-5874
716-692-6332
65 Disco Road
Etobicoke, Ontario, M9W 1M2
416-675-3983, 800-387-3809
Fax: 416-675-5546
Steve Wilson, VP Int'l Sales
High performance interior acoustical
products.
Response No. 316
DOLBY LABORA TORIES
INC.
100 Potrero Ave.
San Francisco. CA 94103
415-558-0200
Fax: 415-863-1373
Ray Dolby. Chairman
Bill Jasper. President
Ed Schummer. VP Marketing
Sam Chavez, Cinema Tech. Mgr.
1149 N McCadden
Hollvvk-ood, CA 90038
213-464-4596
Fax: 213-464-1845
David W Gray. Dir. Holly. Film Div.
SR & NR duhhing equipment, post-prod
services, cinema processors, edge code
readers
Response No. 317
ELECTRO-VOICE DIV.,
MARK IV

Cinema Sound:
HIGH PERFORMANCE
STEREO
64 Bowen Street
Newton Centre, MA 02159-1820
617-244-1737
Fax: 617-244-4390
John F. Allen, President
Computer designed digital & SR ready
HPS-4000 sound systems.
Response No. 325
INTERSONICS INC.
3453 Commercial Avenue
Northbrook, IL 60062
708-272-1772
Tom Melzer, Laura Danley
Bass Technology Series suhwoofers.
Response No. 326
JBL PROFESSIONAL
8500 Balboa BlvdVP.O.B. 2200
Northridge, CA 91329
818-893-8411
Fax: 818-893-3639
Ronald H. Means, President
Steve Romeo, Market Manager
Mark Gander, VP Marketing
Ken Lopez, VP Sales
Amplifiers, equalizers, speakers, stereo
sound systems
Response No. 327
KINTEKINC.
224 Calvar\' St.
Waltham, MA 02154
617-894-6111
Fax: 617-647-4235
Zaki Abdun-Nabi, President
Dan Taylor, VP Marketing & Sales
Paula Polcaro: Marketing & Sis. Adm.
Full line of audio equipment, including
stereo optical processors, power amps and
accessories, powered suhwoofers, speakers,
complete turn-key stereo sound systems.
Response No. 328
KLIPSCH&
ASSOCIATES
P.O.B. 688
Hope, AR 71801
501-777-6751
Fax: 501-777-6753
Kent W. Sheldon, National Sales Mgr.
Speakers.
Response No. 329
MARK IV CINEMA
SYSTEMS
600 Cecil Street
Buchanan, MI 49107
616-695-1304, 616-695-6831
Fax: 800-544-2154
Todd Rockwell, Mktg. Mgr. Cinema
Prods.
Cinema sound systems.
Response No. 330
MASSA STUDIO SOUND
1514 W. Magnolia
Burbank, CA 91506
818-848-5633
Fax: 213-475-2712
Charles Massa, Owner
Theatre sound systems.
Response No. 331
MEYER SOUND
LABORA TORIES INC.
2832 San Pablo Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94702
415-486-1166
Fax: 415-486-8356
John Meyer, President
Mark Johnson, Dir. of Technical Mktg.
Loudspeaker systems for sound reinforcement
applications
Response No. 332
MONSTER CABLE
PRODUCTS INC.
274 Wattis Way
So. San Francisco, CA 94080-6761
415-871-6000, 714-677-4668
Fax: 415-871-6555
Noel Lee, President
Barry Thornton, Pro, Products Mgr.
Gary Reber, Special Projects
High performance interconnect and
speaker cables.
Response No. 333
OMNIMOUNT
10850 Vanowen Street
N. Hollywood, CA 91605
818-766-9000
Fax: 818-766-9669
Susan Michelson, VP
Bruce Chantra, Sales Manager
Universal speaker mounting assemblies,
approved by Lucasfilm for hanging surround
speakers.
Response No. 334
PEA VEY ELECTRONICS
711 A Street/ Box 2898
Meridian, MS 39301
601-483-5365
Fax: 601-484-4278
Ken Valentine, Product Manager
Loudspeakers and power amps for
theatre environment
Response No. 335
34 BOXOFFICE

.
Aoril. 1990 35
:
PHONIC EAR
Mill Vdllev, CA9-1941
•415-;J83"4600, 800-227-0735
Fax: 415-332-3085
Rick Pitnantel, VP Marketing
Yvonni: Ho, Consultant
Easy Listener FM hearing enhancement
systems
Kfspnllsi- \(i. t Ui
QSC AUDIO PRODUCTS
HJJh I'Ln 1 :.;... .\.'.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
714-645-2540
Fax: 714-645-7927
Barn" Andrews, CEO
.John Andrews, COO
I'ai Qiiilter, VP Engineering
('(ic Kalnian, National Sales Manager
Creg McVeigh, l)ir ot Marketing
Professional power amps
Response No. 337
ROM INDUSTRIES
\.U1 Lillian ISlvd.
Titiisville, FL 32780
407-269-4720
Fax: 407-269-4729
Konald Goigel, President
Lillian P. Goigel, VP
Stereo sound equipment
Response No. 338
Buyers Guide
RANE CORP.
Everett. WA 98204
206-355-6000
Fax: 206-347-7757
l^rrv' Winter, VP Marketing
Terr\' Pennington, Dir. Mkig./Dev.
Amplifiers, sound processors, mixers,
crossovers
Kl'spOMsl- \( i !'l
REED SPEAKER MFC
CO. INC.
7530 W Kith Ave.
Ukewood, CO 80215
303-238-6534, 303-237-8773
Sam Reed, President
in-car speakers, raw speakers & repair.
Response No. 340
RENKUS-HEINZ INC.
1 I -I ] Al 1 1 1.^1 I ling /\\\-
Ir\'ine, C;a 92714
"14-250-0166
I ax: 714-250-1035
llarro K Heinz, President
Carl llorwaldt. Natl Sis Mktg Mgr
Smart Sound Systems and professional
sound products
Response No. 341
••••••••••••
PIKE
PRODUCTIONS
makes trailers
that reach out
and pull in
more customers
for theatres!
• A A • A- • A ^ A * * A
Ask about Pike's
Frequent
Movie-Goer*^
Program!
Ask about Pike's
co-op radio
campaigns
CUSTOIVI
POLICY TRAILERS
ANIMATED LOGOS
FEATURE PRESENTATIONS
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
••••••••••••
GENERIC:
POLICY TRAILERS
SNACK BAR TRAILERS
HEADERS & DATERS
••••••••••••
CALL: (617) 332-5560
FAX:(61 7) 332-3997
••••••••••••
WRITE:
PIKE PRODUCTIONS
OF BOSTON
PO Box 309
Newton, MA 02159
••••••••••••
PiK riiVEOr303a>n
••••••••••••
Response No 29

Cinema Sound:
SENNHEISER
ELECTRONIC CORP.
6 Vista Dr. P.O. B. 987
Old Lyme, CT 06412
203-434-9190
Fax: 203-434-1759
Tony Tiidisco, VP Marketing
Infra-red assistive listening devices.
Response No. 342
SMART THEATRE
SYSTEMS
3856 Green Ind. Way
Atlanta, GA 30341
404-452-1820
Fax: 404-455-4066
Norm Schneider, President
Broad range aj saunii compauvnts and
systems for monaural, optical stereo,
magnetic, and 70mm applications.
Response No. 343
SOUNDFOLD INC.
P.O.B. 292125
Dayton, OH 45429
513-293-2671, 513-293-9341
513-293-9542
Arthur C. Sickels, President
Tony Sickels, VP
Julie Huntington, Sec. /Bookkeeper
Acoustical wallcovering systenis.
Response No. 344
SOUNDSPHERE SONIC
SYSTEMS, INC
Til Canal St. Bldg. 23B
Stamford, CT 06902
203-356-1136
Fax: 203-324-0893
John J. Karamon, VP Marketing
Spherical speaker systems.
Response No. 345
STRETCHWALL
42-03 35th Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-729-2020
Marty Gurian, Director
Don V^eber, Product Manager
Fabric covered acoustical ivall systems.
Response No. 346
THX SOUND SYSTEM
PROGRAM/LUCASFILM
LTD.
P.O. Box 2009
San Rafael, CA 94912
415-662-1900
Fax: 415-662-2186
Laurie MacPherson, VP/GM THX
Group
Jeffrey Davis. GM THX Systems
Buzz Hayes, Dir. Eng. THX Systems
film provides certain proprietary hardware
which includes the THX monitor
Janine Masten, Dir. Sis. /Ser. THX Sys.
Ross Hering, GM TAP Division
Jane Mutony, Dir. Operations TAP
Joel Hanan, Mktg. Mgr. THX Group
THX is a comprehensive approach to
theatre sound system desigri and installation.
The program encompasses theatre
acoustics and sound equipment Lucasand
crossover systems.
Response No. 347
TECCON ENTERPRISES
LTD.
686 CHffside Dr./P.O.B. 38
San Dimas, CA 91773
714-599-0817, 818-915-4244
Fax; 714-592-2408
Jack Dimmers, President
Susan E. Adams, VP
Magnetic sound recording heads, magnetic
& optical pre-amps, power supplies,
calibration films.
Response No. 348
UREI/JBL
PROFESSIONAL
8500 Balboa Blvd., P.O.B. 2200
Northridge, CA 91329
818-893-8411
Fax: 818-893-3639
Ronald H. Means, President
Steve Romeo, Market Manager
Mark Gander, VP Marketing
Ken Lopez, VP Sales
Sound and signal processing equipment:
amps, soundheads, etc.
Response No. 349
36 BOXOFFICE

utod
used
used
used
Buyers Guide
ULTIMATE WALL
CONCEPTS INC.
47S UrsMiii strcit
San Franc;i.sc:o, CA 9-1 lUJ
415-861-4.S94, 415-763-1351
Fdx: 415-763-3913
Ron Graham, Sales Manager
Fabri-Trak acoustical wall system
Kis|H>nsc Nil.
{SO
UL TRA-STEREO LABS
INC.
18730 Oxnard St , Unit 208
Tar/ana. CA 91356
818-609-7405
Fax: 818-609-7408
James A. Cashin, President
Felicia Cashin, VP
Theatre smintl processnrs
K

THEATRE PROFILE
Miracle on Brattle Street
A Landmark Reaches a Milestone
By Shawn Levy
Associate Editor
THE
YEAR 1890 marks, well, nothing
much in the history of the cinema.
Edison and the Lumiere
brothers were tinkering with kinetoscopes
and cinematographs in New Jersey
and Paris, and the first moving picture
shows were being screened (actually,
given the technology of the day, 'bedsheetted'
would be a more appropriate
word) in New York, but nothing resembling
the movies or movie theatres as
we know them was about. Benjamin
Harrison was president, Eisenhower and
de Gaulle were bom. Van Gogh died.
Dull year in the timetables of history,
duller still in the annals of the entertainment
business.
Or was it? They might not have
known it at the time, but some friends
of the legitimate stage, the Cambridge
Social Union, a dramtic club in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, were opening
what was to become the nation's first
and oldest repertory cinema, and what
is arguably the single oldest theatre in
America, if not any^vhere, to show films
today on a regular basis. With a step that
seemed to auger nothing for the artfonn
that at the time was little more than a
curiosity, the founders of the Brattle
Theatre (known then as Brattle Hall)
were marking a historic starting-off
point for movies in America, for movies,
in fact, all over the world.
Situated in Harvard Square, smack
across the river from Boston, the bamlike
Brattle Theatre has been at the center
of the cultural life of one of the
nation's most culturally-vibrant cities
for exactly one century as of January
27, 1990. The Theatre served the university
community as a live theatre from its
opening until 1953, when it was purchased
by Cyrus Harvey and Bryant
Haliday, who turned it into a cinema
that would specialize in repertory and
art and specialty films.
Harvey, a Harvard graduate, had recently
returned from Paris, where he
had spent a great deal of time at Henri
Langlois' Cinematique Francais, and felt
that the intellectual, bohemian population
of Cambridge would welcome a
chance to view a mixture of the finest, if
not very well-known, American films
and to glimpse the most recent avantgarde
works of international filmmakers.
The problem, he discovered, was
that no distributor in the United States
handled the sorts of films he wanted.
In an effort
The Brattle as it looked in 1953.
to bring the best of the
world's cinema to their 247-seat art
house in Cambridge, Harvey and Haliday
did something that turned American
cinema around forever, introducing
all manner of foreign masterworks to
filmmakers and filmgoers all over the
country. They founded Janus Films, the
legendary foreign film distributorship
which brought the works of Fellini,
Bergman, TruflFaut, Godard, Kin-osawa,
and countless others to these shores for
the very first time. The Brattle, which
had started out as a local curiosity, had
become a fountainhead. Janus finally
folded in 1966, a victim of its own success,
unable to outbid bigger distributors
for the rights to films made by directors
it had discovered for American audiences.
Lest they be accused of some sort of
xenophilia (irrational love of foreigners),
it must be said that Harvey and
Haliday made a contribution to the cinema
that is so gosh-damed American
that the whole idea that it began in offbeat
Cambridge might have some of
Boston's brahmins a bit uneasy. There
was this actor, see, who'd recently died,
and who they both loved, and whose
films, one in particular, they screened
again and again, until a cult grew around
the actor, and his name and his face
became synonymous with an attitude
and a way of life that the whole world
recognized as American. Surely this idol
whom the Brattle helped to carve was
James Dean, no? No — it was Humphrey
Bogart, whose 1941 "Casablanca" is
probably the Brattle's nimiber-one alltime
boxofifice draw, and whose emergence
as an iconic emblem of cool, cynicism,
toughness, and class can be traced
to a long string of repertory screenings
at the tiny bam near Harvard.
"Casablanca," in fact, was the film
chosen by the Brattle's current owners,
Marianne Lampke and Connie White of
Running Arts, when they planned the
theatre's centennial bash this past January
25th. After a select audience of
critics, business connections, supporters,
and friends enjoyed the sights and
sounds of Rick's Cafe Americain, they
hustled on over to a local hotel where a
buffet, champagne corks a-popping,
was enjoyed by all. The evening was
38 BOXOFFICE

.
)
part of a two-month long celebration at
the theatre, during which several traditional
Hrattle favorites were unspooled,
some under conditions as ground-breaking
as the ones which gave birth to Janus
Films
Lampke and White had long wanted
to do a retrospective of the seven hlms
that Marlene Oietrich made with director
Joseph von Sternberg, but only two
of them — "The Blue Angel" and
"Blonde Venus" — were available in
(crummy) 35mm prints Thev contacted
Universal Pictures, which owns
the films, with thj; idea of striking new
35mm prints ot all seven of them When
the company balked at footing such a
large bill for such a tiny theatre.
Lampke and Whiti- contacted a whole
network of repertory houses around the
countn.' and got commitments from
managers to book the entire series This
convinced Universal to go through wth
the project, and left Lampke and White
looking for more such series to restore.
The effort to obtain new prints of
classic films is seen by Lampke as "our
contribution to the hundredth antiiv- ." t)ihcr
celebratory events have included a Began
festival, a salute to Janus Filins, a
full-scale Dietrich festival, a series of
screenings of James Bond films in new
35mm prints pronded by MGM, and a
salute to Boston-area independent filmmakers
In addition, the Brattle hosted a
live performance of Shakespeare's "The
Winter's Tale" for a three-week nm.
All of these glamorous events and retrospects
aside, howt-vcr, the Brattle is
primarily a repenon,' house, dedicated
to vertical programming, such as its
two-year-long Monday-night him noir
series, lo gourmet concessions (baked
goods, imported chocolates and coffee,
natch), and to educating its audience in
the best of the world's cinema past and
present.
You know what sort of place you're
getting involved with when you call the
Brattle's message tape and along with
learning about the tiered pricing (.S5
max, as little as S3 for students) you get
a brief critique liiston,' of each of the
hlms on that day's program. (It might be
worth calling, even long distance, on
some days just to hear if a cogent 90-
second synopsis can be made of "The
Seventh Seal" or "L'Avventura".
Lampke thinks of such a touch as more
than just good marketing. For a rep
house, she explains, an educated public
is an essential. "Repertor\' really needs
to be catered to. You have to be committed
to a calendar and to your audience.
If we slipped and didn't nurture it, it
would die."
Not that she thinks repertory is waning.
On the contran.', Lampke feels that
it
is on the rcboiuid. "The whole idea of
renting videos and going home and
watching them has lost its novelt\'. As a
result of the Wdco boom, there is a new
consciousness of old movies People
who didn't grow up unth them now want
to go out and see them on the big
screen."
True, many rep houses have shut
down in the last decade, but Lampke
blames that trend not on the public's
lack of interest but on the theatre owners'
interest in their real estate. Since
most rep houses are in urban centers,
they occupy expensive ground, and are
often more profitable wh('n sold than
when nin. Of course, that too benefits a
plart; Vikr. the Brattle. What with Boston
losing its other rep houses in recent
years, Lampke points out that "the
remaining ones really stand out."
The Brattle will close this spring for a
brief remodelling spell, and reopen soon
after with a renegotiated lease and, it is
hoped, a few new series of newly-struck
prints of classic I loUywood films to
share with its loyal fans. Stepping back
from all the hubbub, looking at the
theatre and its centennial purely from
the point of view of a fan and a cinema
buff, Lampke can't help but be warmly
amazed. "It's just a funky little place,"
she says, "but the Brattle seems to
always survive."
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April, 1990 39

THEATRE PROFILE
AMC's Esquire Theatre
Half-a-century old; this St. Louis landmark is still
going strong thanks to ambitious reconstruction.
ON
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
November 8, 1939, the Esquire
Theatre in downtown St. Louis
opened its doors for the first
time, offering the Joan Crawford hit
"The Women" at 35 cents a ticket
Boasting "iron, steel and mechanical
ingenuity in its perfected twentieth century
form, to guarantee your motion picture
pleasure," the Esquire was a 2,000-
seat palace with luxury to spare and a
truly wonderful slogan: An acre of seats,
a garden of dreams. Many of the finest
American movies ever made were produced
in 1939, so it was only fitting that
opulent theatres like the Esquire were
built to play host to them.
Fifty years to the day from that opening,
the Esquire was not only still
around to mark its anniversary, biu it
was able to celebrate a whole new birth
under its new owners, AMC. Having
acquired the theatre when it bought up
the RKO circuit in 1985, AMC at first
wasn't sure what to do with the aging
movie house. Like many pre-war showcase
theatres, the Esquire had seen better
days.
"The Esquire had always had a name
in St. Louis as a quality theatre, but it
had gone downhill for about ten or fifteen
years before we bought it," says Bill
Timper, AMC's regional director of design
and development. "We had initially
considered tearing the theatre down
and building a new multiplex, but the
public demand to keep that old theatre
was phenomenal."
Indeed, the city had a real fondness
for the theatre, having supported it
through a series of drastic renovations
in its latter years. In the 1960s, the
Esquire's balcony was split up and
turned into two additional theatres,
making it one of the country's first triplexes.
Then, in the '70s, a whole new
Neon treatments of the St
Louis skyline punctuate
the walls of the Esquire's auditoriums.
addition was added onto the building,
housing an additional screen. Forced to
conform to the new economics of the
day, the stately single-screen Esquire
had mutated into a four-plex.
Seven Screens For The '90s
But AMC wanted to take that expansion
even further. Having decided to
preserve the grandeur of the Esquire
rather than tear it down and start over
from scratch, the company launched a
two-pronged attack which would see
the original building gutted and restored
to its former glory (maintaining the two
houses in the balcony), while the newer
single-screen addition would be torn
down and replaced by a four-plex. Committing
S2.25 million in construction,
plus an additional million for fixtures,
AMC launched the rebuilding in January,
1989, determined to have the work
completed by the theatre's 50th anniversary
in November.
The construction of the new fourplex
was a fairly straightforward affair,
conforming to AMC's standard policy of
state of the art engineering and spaceefficient
design. It was the refurbishment
of the original house which was
the real challenge. According to Timper,
part of the problem was simply
undoing some of the "beautifying" done
by previous owners.
"When the theatre was first built, all
of the side walls and the ceiling of the
entry foyer were done in mirrors, but in
the '60s they had covered all that up
with sheet rock. Everybody I talked to as
I researched the theatre thought that
the mirrors had been destroyed, but on
the first day we ripped out the sheet
rock and all of the mirrors were still in
place," Timper says with pride, sounding
like an archaeologist who was able
to uncover treasures from a past civilization.
40 BOXOFFICE

April, 1990 41
"The theatre originally had a porcelain
panel exterior. It had a kind orb

NATO/ShoWest '90
ShoWest '90: Three Days of
Shop Talk, Seminars,
Sneak Previews, and Sweets
By Shawn Levy
Associate Editor
THOSE
WHO ATTENDED 1990'S Nato/
ShoWest at Bally's Hotel in Las
Vegas this Febniary came away
with more than tote bags, candy samples
and gambling winnings (or debts).
Generally perceived to be the most professional
ShoWest of all, this year's convention
was highlighted by exhibitors'
review of last year's phenomenal gross
totals, by the surprise annotmcement
from Buena Vista that they will no longer
license their films to theatres displaying
on-screen advertisements, by the
288 booths' worth of trade show exhibitions
of new technologies, new marketing
strategies and new concession products,
by the vocal battles over video windows
and per-capita pricing policies,
and by the sobering prospect that 1990
will probably be a leaner year than
1989.
This dim note was sounded by MPAA
president Jack Valenti at the convention's
opening ceremonies. Valenti
pointed out that the cost of striking
prints of films has risen drastically over
the past few years and that the number
of films that earn 320 million plus has
been whittled down to a total of six percent
of all releases. In giving the official
MPAA boxoffice tally for 1989 (S5,033.4
billion on 1,132.5 tickets sold), Valenti
did manage to keep his talk upbeat,
however, and the appreciative reaction
of the audience to his remarks led one
to believe that the ShoWest crowd had
already known that they shouldn't expect
another 1989 very soon.
So, smiling at their past year's fortunes
and glad to see old friends and to
finally meet the faces behind all those
phone calls and faxes, conventioneers
launched into three days of banquets,
seminars, trade-show-booth hopping.
and even a bit of factiousness. Luncheons
and dinners were sponsored by
Orion, Universal, Warner Bros., and
Coca-Cola (this last featured entertainment
from 20th Century Fox). As always,
these events featured forgettable
food, take-away goodies (tote bags and
t-shirts were distributed at ShoWest to
such an extent that not a single exhibitor's
teenage child need ever wear the
same garment twice or carry books to
school in the same bag on consecutive
days), long, entertaining product reels,
and stars — big-time Holh'Avood celebs
all lined up at a two-tiered dais like
prizes at a carnival midway game.
Of the big meals, the most delightful
was the one hosted by Warner Bros.
Boasting a veritable galaxy of talent —
Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Tom
Hanks, John Candy, Jessica Tandy, Ray
Liotta, Harrison Ford, and Tom Selleck
— the lunch would've passed into pleasant
memory had the studio's trailer reel
not suffered a technical snafu as it
began to unwind. Chase leapt to the rescue,
acting as an ironic emcee and cajoling
Aykroyd, Hanks, and Candy to do
impromptu stand-up bits as the projection
problem was righted.
The most disappointing banquet was
Universal's 75th anniversary celebration,
which attempted to make up for its
lack of star nuinbers (there was one) by
sheer star clout (it was Jimmy Stewart).
Those expecting a celestial display of
celebs had to settle instead for a nifty
laser/hologram show, a filmed message
from Stewart's old Hollywood pal
'Dutch' Reagan, and the sight of Stewart
breaking a cake knife on a fake cake
large enough to hide any star Universal
wanted to pop on the crowd (nobody
popped). The little silver candy plates
the studio distributed aftenvards made a
nice thank-you-and-good-night.
ShoWest '90 featured only a handful
of seminars, but each had its highlights,
and the range and variety were very
satisfying. Those interested in discussions
of the technical elements of exhibition
could listen to loan Allen of Dolby
Laboratories and Buzz Hayes of THX/
LucasFilm describe innovations in
sound system maintenance and standardization
and to Donald McClendon
of Houston-based Bunch-McClendon
Studios, who urged conx'ersion to threesprocket
film fonnats and introduced a
three-to-four-sprocket conversion kit
for projectors.
Marketing concerns were addressed
by a seminar at which Pathe Entertainment
worldwide marketing president
Greg Morrison called for a move away
from newspaper advertisements and toward
greater reliance on cable-tv ads
and toll-free phone information services.
At the same session, Howard
Lichtman, head of marketing and communications
for Cineplex Odeon, spoke
of his desire to see more generic industry
advertising to promote the moviegoing
experience in general and not just
specific films or circuits.
The liveliest seminar dealt with the
relation between exhibitors and distributors.
There, Warner Bros, distribution
president Barr\' Reardon defended his
company's short theatre-to-\ideo window
for "Batman" and National Amusements
CEO Ira Korff stingingly refuted
Reardon's arguments. Soon after these
sparks flew, Buena Vista distribution
head Dick Cook announced his company's
new ban on the display of onscreen
ads with its product (see "Exhibition
Wars," p. 21). And for toppers.
42 Boxoffice

NATO/ShoWest '90
Salah Hassanicn. Wamt-r Bros International
Theatres' president, urged seminar
attendees to build theatres overseas,
where p

THE NUMBERS PAGE
Exhibitors Celebrate
Early "Fourth of July"
About the only Americans who can be said
to have won anything in the Vietnam War are
the ones who make movies about it. joining
the ranks of Vietnam War hits such as "Platoon"
and "The Deer Hunter," two other
December releases that grabbed up gobs of
dough and Oscar nominations, "Born on the
Fourth of luly" racked up $43 million in January,
putting it atop a surprisingly handsome
lanuary boxoffice of $352 million total
Other late- 1989 releases which hung on
into the new decade for sizeable reward
were "The War of the Roses" ($32 million in
lanuary), "Tango & Cash" ($31 million),
"Driving Miss Daisy" ($23 million), "Steel
Magnolias" (Hi million), "Always" ($22 million),
and "The Little Mermaid" ($2 1 million).
Among the lanuary releases, nothing fared
quite so well, Paramount's "Internal Affairs"
pulled $19 million in and Universal's "Tremors"
grossed $11 million, making them the
only two 1990 releases to enter double-digits
in boxoffice take. The month's take, down $5
million from lanuary 1989, wasn't too shabby,
especially considering the sorts of releases
offered as bait. Audiences somehow man-
Ron and Ollle: Cruising
aged to avoid "Ski Patrol," "Downtown,"
"Heart Condition," "Everybody Wins," and
"Leatherface" without suffering any emotional
harm.
Top 10 Grossing Domestic
Indy Films of the 80's
(in millions)
1) "Dirty Dancing" $62,916
2) "Time Bandits" $55,000
3) "Nightmare on Elm St, IV" $49,362
4) "Nightmare on Elm St. 11!" $44,068
5) "Dressed to Kill" $42,857
6) "The Sword and the Sorce[er" $39,103
7) "jazz Singer" $37,143
8) "Private Lessons" $34,260
9) "Teen Wolf" $33,087
10) "The Fog" $31,430
Source: Kagan Movie Stats
THE NUMBERS GAME
HIGHEST CROSSING FILMS
FOR SELECTED SPORTS
(in millions):
BASEBALL
"Field of Dreams"
FOOTBALL
"Heaven Can Wait"
BASKETBALL
"Hoosiers"
HOCKEY
"Slap Shot"
GOLF
"Caddyshack"
Won!
TRACK AND FIELD
"Chariots of Fire
BOXING
"Rocky IV"
Source: Entertainment Data Inc.
44 Boxoffice

April. 1990 45
High Court Won't Hear
Fox's Block-Booking Appeal
Ihc L' s Su()riTiic Court ha-. n-KiM-i; U)
consider jn appeal by Twenlielh Cenlury Fox
Film Corp on the company's conviction on
charges of bicxk-booking in the Milwaukee
area Fox's atlorneys had hoped to show that
the company had been held unfairly accountable
for the actions of an employee who had
knowingly violated corporate policy The refusal
of the Supreme Court to hear the case
means that Fox's conviction by the Federal
District Court in New York will stand, )ust as
the U S Second Circuit Court of Appeals had
ordered
The case is not entirely settled, however
The original District Court trial had ended in
the assessment of a $500,000 penalty against
Fox, a levy which the Circuit Court found to
be in excess of the S l(X),000 maximum tine
(or cases heard without a )ury trial The District
Court must now decide whether to
reduce the fine to the acceptable maximum
or, if the justice Department chooses to pursue
the matter, hear the case anew before a
jury
Consumer Group Forms to
Protest Paramount
Per-capita Policy
A new national citizens action group calling
itself AFFORD (American Filmgoers for Reasonable
Discounts) wrote a strong letter to
Paramount chairman Martin Davis to protest
that company's institution of a per-capita
pricing policy for subrun and discount movie
theatres The group accused Paramount of
establishing a policy which would essentially
force low-income Americans out of the movie-going
audience
Comprised of a coalition which includes
the National Council of Senior Citizens,
Black American Cinema Society, the U S
the
Hispanic
Chambers of Commerce, and other
groups representing minority citizens and
anii-taxation interests, AFFORD has petitioned
members of Congress to investigate
Paramount s policy, which has already come
under the scrutiny of the House of Representatives
In other news about Paramount's controversial
policy of charging subrun and discount
theatre owners $ 1 05 per ticket or 35 percent
of the gross, whichever is higher, various wings
of the exhibition industry responded with
outrage to charges by Paramount copresident
Barry London and MP A A president lack
Valenli that discount exhibitors were gouging
their customers at the concessions stand and
selling tickets at a loss in a bait-and-switch
strategy designed to increase concession, video
game, and screen advertising revenues
The National Association of Discount
Theatres vowed after heanng of London and
Valenti s inflammatory remarks that it would
step up Its effort to see the federal government
establish legislation outlawing per-capita
pricing NATD planned to use NATO's ShoWest
convention, at which it devoted a suite of
offices to Its efforts, as a starting block for its
campaign
"Little Mermaid" Swims
to Top of
Animated Film Gross List
SijiiR-iiinf ilunnn .Is i-if;ti;!i .-.iik of release,
Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid"
became the holder of the record for the largest
first- release gross in the history of animated
films With a 52-day total of
Under the Sea" goes over the lop
$56,126,383, "The Little Mermaid" outswam
Disney's own "Oliver & Co., ' which grossed
just over $53 million in its 1988 release The
film continued to gross well passed the 10-
week mark as well, and, while it doesn't look
likely to pass the $100 million threshold, 'The
"
Little Mermaid could set a record for firstrelease
gross that no animated film will catch
for a long time
In a happy sidelight to the story, the soundtrack
for ttie film became, in January, the largest
selling animated film soundtrack of all
time So popular was "The Little Mermaid"
soundtrack as a Christmas gift, that in their
rush to get more into record stores, the packagers
of the cassette-tape version inadvertently
boxed sides one and two of the tape
fjackwards Luckily, most of the recipients of
these mislabelled cassettes were probably
beginning readers at best.
Fox Establishes
Flexible Sub-run Rates
Bowing lo pressure lr( .ni \ \ I ( ), 2()th Century
Fox has announced that it has reconsidered
Its policy of setting fixed dates for subrun
releases and has begun to use a more
flexible scheme for determining when lowgrossing
small-town theatres can book its
films Whereas Fox previously operated by
establishing a single date after which its films
could be shown at subrun rates for the entire
nation, the company is now allowing its
regional and divisional distribution managers
to determine when any given film ought to
be introduced into subrun in their territories
Thomas Sherak, Fox's president of domestic
distribution, altered his company's subrun
fwlicy after meeting with NATO president
William kartozian and a delegation of NATO
representatives The new Fox terms will make
it easier for theatres which tall into the company's
"low-grossing category to obtain Fox
"
films for subruns In order lo qualify for such
treatment, a theatre will have had to have
demonstrated that it has grossed an average
of $ 1500 or less per week when showing Fox
films during the last three years Sherak
stressed that the new flexible policy was not
intended to assist owners of discount
theatres, but acknowledged that such
theatres would in fact benefit from the policy
Universal Lives Up To Its
Name With Huge Screen
Count
Universal Pictures may have to Ijorrow the
advertising gimmick of Sherwin Williams
Paints, another company that uses a globe in
its logo, because the studio can say without
bragging that it indeed covers the world
With the January 18 opening of "Tremors,"
Universal could lay claim to 6,792 screens in
the U S and Canada, a record amount for
any single ciistnbutor on a single day The previous
record, Paramount's 6,401 of last summer,
was cracked by a combination of
"Tremors'" 1,475 opening-day screens and
the expanded distribution of "Born on the
Fourth of luly," "Always" and "Back to the
Future Part II."
— Rancho Cucamonga and
Tix Tax Not Dead Yet;
Two Cities Continue Levy
Although the U S Supreme Court etlectively
stopped the city of Montclair, California
from charging a six-percent admissions tax on
movie and legitimate theatre tickets by refusing
to hear the city's case, two other California
municipalities
Fresno - are attempting to maintain their
rights to charge the very same sort of taxes
Rancho Cucamonga is appealing a Fourth
Circuit Court Decision which barred the city
from collecting a 10-percent tax on theatre
admits, while Fresno is awaiting trial on its
five-percent tariff Another California city,
Chico. has ciecided to drop the idea altogether,
though, and has voluntarily dropped its
five-percent tax, cited the Supreme Court's
Montclair ruling as its reason.
AMC and UA Can't Wiggle
Free of Harkins' Suit Links
lei^.il eltorls lo exclude Ihe nations two
largest theatre circuits — American Multi-Cinema
and United Artists Theatre Circuit
-
from liability in Ihe large aniitrusi suit being
waged f)y Phoenix's Harkins Amusement Enterprises
failed, meaning that the mega-cir-

cults would be forced to stand as defendants
In a jury trial.
AMC and UA attorneys tried
to pre-empt
their companies' participation in the trial by
attempting to separate their liability from any
potential liability assessed In the trial of codefendants
Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA,
and 20th Century Fox. The U, S. District Court
In Phoenix ruled, however, that the doctrine
of residual conspiratorial liability linked the circuits
to the distributors, even though the Plitt,
Mann and General Cinema circuits had already
settled out of court with Harklns. The
matter went to trial In Phoenix on February
13.
"Born on the Fourth
of July" Has
'Em Rolling In the
Aisles, Literally
Boy that Oliver Stone is some powerful
filmmaker, huh? "Salvador," "Platoon," "Talk
Radio," knockouts all, and now the bitter
VIet-vet saga "Born on the Fourth of — luly"
what a bunch of roundhouse punches! In
fact, "Born on the Fourth of luly" may pack
too much of a wallop, at least for some viewers.
When it first opened in late December,
and on through the first few stages of its platform
release In early January, theatres in
wing of NATO to a total of 30 people The
roster of officers for 1989-1990 remains the
same, with Malcom Green as chairman of the
board, William Kartozian as president,
George Kerasotes as treasurer, Irwin R. Cohen
as finance committee chairman, and Seymour
Smith as secretary.
Tri-State ITA Names Execs
Larry Smith, former vice president of the
Tri-State Independent Theatre Association,
has been named president of that body,
which is comprised of exhibitors from Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. Tri-State
also named three new board of directors
members, Malco's lonny Glascock, Wendy
Shaw of lackson, Mississippi, and lohn Hopkins
of Memphis, Tennessee.
mmtmmmmmmmmKmmm
EASTERN NEWS
BOSTON
Loews has quadded their Cheri Theatre
here. The former three-plex operated as a
twin for several weeks while the circuit split
one of its screens and augmented the size of
the concession area.
Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, and
the 30-by-50-foot backllt photo, the world's
largest, premiered with a night scene from
Tri-Star's civil-war epic "Glory" The Kodarama
screen, which includes a moving message
board underneath the photo, is seen by 45
million people each month
PHILADELPHIA
The new Ritz Theatre, to be located In the
Bourse Building, an upscale retail, food, and
entertainment complex in Center City, will
open this spring. Owner Ramon Posel, whose
Ritz Five has been wildly successful as the
city's plush art house, plans to use his new
theatre, which will also boast five screens, to
continue "the same devotion to the film
experience and the same respect for our
audience" as are evident in his other
theatres.
AMC Theatres staged a week of "Customer
Appreciation Days" here. For the celebration
the concession stands at all of the area's
AMC theatres offered a small popcorn and a
small soda for 89 cents, plus tax, each.
AMC has secured the zoning change necessary
to begin construction on a 12-screen
theatre in a contemplated Upper Moreland
Township shopping center. Plans call for
completion of the theatre and the mall, the
Train Station at Willow Grove, sometime this
year.
Enough to make you faint
Washington, D. C , Virginia, New York, and
Chicago reported that moviegoers had to be
treated for fainting, shortness of breath and
various other minor hysterical symptoms during
screenings of the award-winning movie.
Reports from the theatres did not indicate,
however, whether viewers were reacting to
the film's grueling portraits of battles, wounds
and physical rehabilitation or whether young
female Tom Cruise fans were aghast at that
mousey hair and moustache.
CHESIRE, CT
A $40 million community shopping center
which will occupy a 6-t-acre passel of land will
house a multiplex theatre, though no circuit
has yet committed to developing in the complex.
The mall In which the theatre will be
built will be anchored by six national retailers,
according to developers Chicago-based Homart
Community Centers.
NEW YORK
Eastman Kodak has installed a new Kodarama
display on the facade of the New York
BALTIMORE
A theatre which will show specialty films,
foreign films, Hollywood classics, B movies,
cartoons, newsreels, silents and locally-made
Independent films will be erected in the Fells
Point section of the city by "film historian and
movie fanatic" George Figgs Figgs, who has
worked as an assistant manager and projectionist
at the Charles Theatre, will call his new
house the Orpheum Theatre, and plans to
decorate the lobby of his 70-seat theatre like
a classic I930's movie palace and show his
eclectic fare for the bargain price of $4 for a
double feature, $3 at matinee screenings. The
Orpheum, which cost $35,000 to construct,
will open in its locale near the city's Harbor
this spring.
NATO Roster Changes
NATO's fall meetings in Carlsbad, California
resulted in a number of additions to the
group's organizational chart. Alan Silverman
of Chicago's Excellence Theatres was named
to NATO's executive committee, making him
the seventeenth member of that body In
addition, Sperie Perakos, lerry Siegel, Mike
Mercy, Ed Durwood, lerome Esbin, |ud Parker,
Kent Dickenson, John Rochester, Salah
Hassanein, and Walt ,'\man were all named
directors-at-large, swelling the ranks of that
WASHINGTON, D. C.
The city that brought us Deep Throat (the
Watergate informant, not the film) now casts
the Big Chill (the silent treatment, not the film)
on anyone that sounds too much like Talk
Radio (the chatty medium, not the film).
AMC's Union Station multiplex has announced
that it will give the boot to any
patron who receives two warnings for talking
during the film to the distraction of other
viewers. The policy, begun in December,
employs a Problem Patron Patrol of ushers,
46 BOXOFFICE

"
over
April, 1990 47
who stalk the theatres on a regular basis, ever
alert for chatter or feet on the seat Patrons
snared by the Patrol are ejected without
refunds, in accordance with the policy statement
that IS clearly displayed at the t)oxotlice
window and announced both on the
theatres timetable recording and in its pnnl
adi.
WILLIAMSBURG, VA
The Williamsburg Theatre, a 57-year-old
landmark with 538 seats, has begun a new lite
as a fine arts cinema The theatre marked its
January 12 birthday with the opening ot Kenneth
Branaghs "Henry V,' the tirst entry in its
new format The Williamsburg Theatres
managers have hired George Mansour ol
Cinema Selections in Boston (see "On The
Move" below) to help program their JO-by-
17-toot screen, which is located |ust a short
walk from the city's historic district Area
moviegoers can now be spared the drive to
Washington, D C or Norfolk to see independent
and foreign films
MIDWEST NEWS
COLUMBUS, OH
State Representative lean Lawrence of Galena
plans to introduce legislation in the Ohio
General Assembly that would give small independent
theatres a fairer shot at first-run
films The bill would require distributors to
reopen negotiations for lilms alter 28 days
and would require them to allow more
theatres to enter into negotiations The legislation
was prompted in part Ijy the plight ot
the 70year-old Strand Theatre in Delaware,
Ohio Owner George Johnson has complained
of his being unable to book first-run
films in his downtown theatre because of distributors'
exclusive deals with the nearby
Delaware Square Cinema he recently succeeded,
however, in obtaining a copy of
"Born on the Fourth My," a feat which he
credits in large part to the letter-writing
efforts of a group calling itself the "Committee
to Keep Movies in Downtown."
The Cinema East Theatre, a single-screen
house on East Broad Street, closed on January
7 after its last showing of 'Harlem Nights "
Chakeres Theatres of Spnngfield, Ohio, said
the theatre, which boast the largest screen in
the city, had lost its lease The Cinema East
was built in l%5 by the late Charles Sugarman
It boasted a balcony and 1.600 seats.
Chakeres has now closed all of its Columbus
theatres except the East Main Dnve-ln. whose
marquee has sported a "For Sale
over a year.
sign
for
The Ohio Theatre opened in 1928. at
which time a ticket to see Lon Chaney's "The
Phantom ol the Opera" would've cost 25
cents, live organ accompaniment and all The
classic silent film showed at the Ohio on January
1 1 of this year, with accompaniment by
organist t^-nnis lames and the Pro Musica
Chamber Orchestra, who performed from an
original lt25 score to the lilm which was
obtained Irom silent film organist Violet Egger.
who'd performed it in Philadelphia The
cost of a night ol thnlls in ISSO' Between
$15 50 and $19 50 Of course, a quarter
went a lot farther in the 20's.
CENTRAL NEWS
SAN ANTONIO
The Majestic Theatre, which had recently
been restored and remodelled, was forced to
cancel a number of holiday performances
and events when an unusually cold spell of
weather caused a pipe in the theatre's sprinkler
system to burst, flooding the lobby, the
iirst floor auditorium, the orchestra pit, and
the basement Considerable damage by suffered
by carpets and seats, and several sections
of the 1929 theatre's ornate plaster
work were harmed.
DALLAS
The U S Supreme Court has struck down
a key clause in a city ordinance aimed at
movie theatres and other businesses dealing
primarily in pornography ,^ccording to the
nullified clause, sex-oriented fjusinesses
would have had to apply to the Dallas police
chief's office to receive operating licenses
The chief could use a broad array of methods
involving fire codes, health permits, and long
waiting penods to effectively deny licenses
While some other aspects of the ordinance,
such as the part governing motels that rent
rooms by the hour, were upheld, the Court
ruled b-5 that the manner in which the permits
were issued constituted an unconstitutional
prior restraint
NATO of Texas elected its latest slate of
officers here, naming Bob Scarborough of
Carmike Cinemas as president Cineplex Odeon's
Bill Hurting took the vice president's
chair. Skeet Noret of Noret Theatres is the
new secretary, and treasurer's duties will be
handled by UAs Dennis Daniels
ALIUS, OK
This summer. Southwest Investment Croup
will open a 20,000-square-foot lour-plex
here, with plans to add two more screens by
the summer of 1991
David Mason, president
of the SIG and longtime Alius resident, will
oversee the facility, which will seat over 1200
patrons
GRANT'S PASS, OR
Act III theatres is turning the Redwood
Drive-In here into a walk-in six-plex Targeted
for completion next summer, the 5.000
square loot theatre is being designed by
Thompson Vaiavoda & Associates, the firm
which has designed several other new Act III
cinemas in the northwest.
MEDFORD, OR
.A new nine-screen theatre has been scheduled
for the Medlord Center mall The
theatre will by Act Ill's first in the area The
35,000 square foot multiplex will feature
three THX screens and is expected to be
ready for a Chnstmas opening.
SAN FRANCISCO
Delayed by earthquake damage to the San
Francisco Film Society's offices, the 33rd San
Francisco Film Festival, the oldest such event
in North America, will be held from April 30
to May 13 this year The festival is usually held
in March, but the delay has been a sort of
benefit to its programmers, who have been
able to include films screened at the Berlin
Film Festival and films from Eastern Bloc
nations in their schedule Such materials
wouldn't have been available had the festival
already taken place A complete program of
the festival calendar will be announced in early
April.
NEWPORT BEACH, CA
In Ifdnk-N-f urler c)i The Rocky Horror
"
Picture Show has his hands in all manner of
lewd and immoral behavior, but robbery was
never among his sins, until now Landmark
Theatre's Balboa Cinema, which regularly
shows the midnight cult classic to 500 viewers
per weekend, reported the theft of the first
reel of their copy of "Rocky Horror " the
New Year's weekend The b.OOO-foot reel of
film turned up missing on a Monday morning
following a Sunday night New Year's Eve party
attended by theatre employees and
friends The film was last seen after the Saturday-evening
Sunday-morning screening The
Balboa was able to purchase another copy of
the missing reel in time for its next scheduled
show, but knowing how perfectly the legions
of faithful "Rocky Horror" acolytes have

memorized the thing, the managers could
simply have asked their patrons to perform
the film if the duplicate reel hadn't been available
screened 12, and Columbia/Tri-Star exported
8. The 522 imported pictures, 34 more than
were released in 1988, were marketed by 57
different distributors.
Pacific has also announced the realignment
of two of its departments. Tom Moeller of
the snack bar division has been named direc-
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
UNITED KINGDOM
Pathe Corporation has sold 2 ) of its cinemas
here, as well as all of its holdings in Holland,
to Cinema 5 Europe NV, an Amsterdam
company previously unknown in exhibition
circles- The deal, which was consummated
for $210 million, allows Pathe to lease the
theatres back, effectively keeping the operation
of the cinemas unchanged. One oddity in
the sale is the fact that no one in the European
film community has ever heard of Cinema
5 Europe, nor is the company listed in the
Amsterdam phone book This has lead experts
to speculate that it is in fact a shell company
established by Pathe majority shareholders
Ciancarlo Paretti and Flono Fiorini,
who have in the past been unsuccessful in
shifting the organization of Pathes European
exhibition holdingslohn
Wilkinson has been named to the
new post of chief executive of the Cinema
Exhibitors' Association, Britain' version of
NATO. Wilkinson, former Secretary to the
Association of British Chambers of Commerce
and director of a management consultancy,
will helm the group whose members
include National Amusements, United Cinemas
International, and Warner Bros. International.
AUSTRALIA
Move over Mr. Trump. Village Roadshow
and the Greater Union Organisation have
announced plans to build a cinema complex
in Sydney at an estimated cost of $ 16 1 million
American. Before you try imagining a 92-plex
or something, you should be aware that the
plans call for a 40-story office retail complex
to sit atop a 10-plex theatre to be operated
by Village Roadshow. The plans are so grand
that they've become something of a political
football (Aussie rules), with the Sydney City
Council expected to get into a lather over the
thing before it's approved.
ON THE MOVE
Lisa Paulsen has been named Executive
Director of the Permanent Charities Committee
of the Entertainment Industries Paulsen
had served as vice president of development
in the organization, which she joined as a field
representative in 1984.
Pacific Theatres has been busily rearranging
its organizational chart. Dan Chernow has
been named vice president of governmental
Tom Moeller
SPAIN
In a move that underscores the desire of
American exhibitors to grab a share of the
European theatre market, it has been rumored
that United Cinema International, the
U. K. circuit jointly owned by Cinema International
Corp. (distributors for Paramount and
Universal) and United Artists Communications,
are about to purchase an interest in
Cinesa, Spain's most prestigious theatre
chain. UCI has apparently held talks with
Michael Forman of Los Angeles, maiority
shareholder in Cinesa, about buying into and
then helping expand the Iberian circuit
JAPAN
It
you can't make better hardware, you can
the other guy's hardware with your
at least fill
software. 522 foreign films were released in
lapan last year, a record, and nearly half of
those — 25 f to be precise — were American.
UIP released 3 1 pictures in Japan last
year, Warner Bros 24, 20th Century Fox
Dan Chernow
affairs and labor relations for the circuit,
which he joined as an usher in 1962 Chernow
has served Pacific in a large variety of
capacities, and was instrumental in establishing
Pacific's Academy of Courtesy and Excellence.
tor of swap meet operations and special projects
(the circuit operates a great many driveins)
and Michael Collins, director of purchasing,
will now have snack bar operations
under his purview.
Tom Elefante, former executive vice president
and general manager of Loews
Theatres, has been elected president of
NATO of New York. Former NATO NY president
Bernard Goldberg of Golden Theatre
Management is the new chairman of the
board of the group
Laurie Clarke took over the helm ot Rank
Odeon cinemas from )im Whittell, who has
become managing director of Rank's hotels.
Clarke began his film career as a trainee assistant
manager with Rank 35 years ago, and
recently returned to the circuit as its manag-
48 BOXOFFICE

and
"
ing director.
George Mansour, an independent film
booker who serves as a consultant to Loews
Theatres and as director oi the Boston Film
Festival, has been named curator of film at
Boston's Institute ot Contemporary Art, replacing
lules Levinson, who has moved on to
a post with the New England Foundation tor
the Arts
Greg Morrison has been given the title of
president of worldwide marketing at Pathe
Entertainment, where he had been handling
responsibilities for marketing, advertising,
publicity, promotion and some distribution
since August Pnor to his status change, Morrison
had served Pathe as a consultant via his
own Greg Morrison Entertainment Marketing
agency He is a former worldwide marketing
president of MCM.
OBITUARIES
Burton lones, longtime theatre owner active
in politics in the San Diego area, died in
that city at the age of 82 lones entered the
entertainment industry as a youngster, working
in vaudeville houses, and eventually came
to own as many as seven theatres at a time in
Southern California His Capn In San Diego
was the first house in the city to establish a
reserved-seat policy lones pursued a successful
lawsuit against major distributors and
circuits in the 1950s in order to gain the right
to bid on first-run films, and was active in the
Motion Picture Pioneers, the Vanety Club, the
Rest and Aspiration Society, and NATO, of
which he was a past vice president.
lames E. Gardner, Sr , longtime projectionist
for several New Haven, Connecticut
theatres, died in December at the age of 75
He IS survived by his wife, three children,
eight grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren
George Anthony (Buddy) Freeman Sr , retired
motion picture projectionist, died in Philadelphia
at the age of 73 Freeman, who
learned his trade from his father and taught
the art of projection to two of his three sons,
was, along with his father, a charter member
of lATSE IcKal 307 A, and was active in the
union throughout his career An amateur
inventor. Freeman devised a gadget which
would trip a projection machine for a changeover
before the film ran off the reel He is
survived by his wife Pearl, his sons and two
daughters, 25 grandchildren, and 12 greatgrandchildren
Martin H. Newman, executive director of
the Will Rogers Memorial Fund, died in New
Martin H Newman
York at the age of 76 Newman was with
Century Theatres tor lour decades, leaving
the circuit in 1974 when he was still president
He joined the Rogers Institute soon after He
was a past president of the Metropolitan
Motion Picture Theatre Association, director
ot membership services for NATO, past president
ol Variety Club of New York, and treasurer
and board member ol the Motion Picture
Pioneers He is survived by his wife lean,
two daughters, and a grandchild.
Robert M Campbell, for more than 50
years an associate of Carey Alexander
Theatres, died in Lebanon, Indiana at the age
of 7 1. Campbell managed the Avon and Sky-
View Drive-In Theatres in the Lebanon area,
and served as mayor of that city from 1969 to
1985, the longest tenure of any mayor in the
city's history
Architect S. Charles Lee, who designed
movie theatres around in the world in Art
Deco style, died in Los Angeles at the age of
90 Lee designed hundreds of theatres, including
the Tower and Los Angeles theatres
in downtown L A and the Wilshire Theatre
in Hollywood Born in Chicago, he opened his
Los Angeles architectural firm in
1922, using it
as the base from which he launched one of
his most radical (now widely common) ideas
- underground parking garages 'Auto traffic
wasn't so great back then, " Lee said in a
1984 interview, 'and city otticials thought the
Idea absurd, but 20 years later they built it
survived by his wife and daughter.
He is
Robert Craig DiDonato, a film administrator
in AMC's Encino office, died of AIDS in
Santa Monica at the age of 43 DiDonato
entered show business in 1969, working in
the mailroom at the old CMA agency He
then served as an assistant to producer Freddy
Fields and to agent Ed Bundy DiDonato
joined AMC in 1987, and worked there until
last year.
Les Cripe, director of publicity for Buena
Vista International since 1986 died of complications
of AIDS in Los Angeles on January 15
at the age of 36 Chpe oversaw publicity for
all Touchstone and Disney films in the international
marketplace Prior to his service with
Buena Vista. Cripe was a senior account executive
with Dennis Davidson Associates, director
of magazine publicity at 20th Century Fox,
and had been Freddy Fields' personal assistant
William Blum. 88. died in Cincinnati of heart
failure on lanuary 1 1 Blum was a longtime
stage a film publicist who began his film work
on Disney s "Snow White and The Seven
Dwarfs " "Fantasia He joined RKO " in
Cincinnati in the 1940s, and became. In the
1950's, Universal-International's branch manager
and salesman in the area In the mid-
1970 s, Blum formed the film distribution firm
of William Blum Enlerpnses He was an original
member of the Motion Picture Pioneers
and a member of Variety Clubs International
Festival and Event Calendar
April 3-8
April 5-29
April 2-21
April 12-26
April 20-29
May 1-13
May 4-13
May 10-21
May 17-19
May 23-28
May 27-|une 2
June 2-14
June 8-17
lune 13-17
lune 23-)uly 1
lune 28-luly 1
lune 28-|uly 3
lune
lune
Wildlife FesI (Missoula, Montana)
Baltimore Film Festival
Hong Kong Film Festival
AFI/L.A. Film Festival
Houston Film Festival
Israel Film Festival (New York)
Braga Film Festival (Portugal)
Cannes Film Festival
New England Film & Video Festival
National Educational Film
& Video Festival
American Film & Video Festival
Israel Film Festival (L. A.)
Troia Film Festival (Portugal)
Midnight Sun Film Festival (Finland)
Munich Film Festival
Roskilde Film Festival (Denmark)
Asian American International
Film Festival (New York)
AFI/European C ommunity Film Festival
(L. A., New York, Washington, Minneapolis)
Canadian Film Celebration (Calgary)
April, 1990 49

HOLLYWOOD UPDATES
Production Notes
Once flourishing Orion Pictures is regrouping
following a string of embarrassing
boxoffice failures. Production chief
Mike Medavoy, who co-founded the
company in 1982, handed in his resignation
in Februars', a week after distribution
head Joel Resnick also announced his
departure, Medavoy will be replaced by
32-year-old Marc Piatt, Resnick's spot
will be taken by recent MGM/UA distribution
and marketing chief David M.
Forbes. At the same time of these executive
changes, it was announced that billionaire
John Kluge was seeking a buyer
for his controlling 70 percent stake in
Orion.
Following a year filled with broken buyout
promises, MGM/UA is going forward
on its own under the leadership of studio
president Richard Berger. With a reported
S170-185 million in ready production
funding, the company intends to
bring itself back to life with the production
of at least eight films over the next
year. Piojects in development include
"Delirious," a John Candy comedy to be
directed by Tom Mankiewicz ("Dragnet");
"Conundrum," a psychological
drama about a police woman to star Sally
Field; and a Steve Martin comedy called
"Pinsky." The company is also planning
a 17th James Bond adventure, despite the
disappointing business done by "Licence
to Kill." This unnamed Bond film will go
into production with star Timothy Dalton
this fall.
Making its first long-view announcement
since appointing Joe Roth head of
its motion picture division, 20th Century
Fox has made public its new production
slate which represents a tripling of its previous
in-house action. The studio now has
production deals with filmmakers like
Martin Scorsese, John Hughes, Jim
Brooks, Joel Silver, Penny Marshall
and James Cameron, as well as with
actors such as Tom Hanks, Harrison
Ford, Melanie Griffith and John Candy.
Among the first projects to go into
production under the new regime will be
"Home Alone," a John Hughes project
about a seven-year-old boy defending his
home from a couple of btuglars ("Gremlins"
and "Goonies" writer Chris Columbus
directs); "Screwface," another action-thriller
from "Above the Law" star
Steven Seagal; and "Love Potion #9," a
comedy which will mark the directorial
debut of "Ruthless People" writer Dale
Launer. Fox reportedly has a total of 15
projects ready to go, with an ultimate goal
of 25-30 pictures a year.
Not surprising in light of the amazingly
lucrative Sony Guber-Peters deal, blockbuster
producers Don Simpson and Jerry
Bruckheimer have been showered
with appreciation by Paramount Pictures,
their longtime home. In a deal
which is thought to be unprecedented, the
savvy makers of "Flashdance," "Beverly
Hills Cop," "Top Gun" and the upcoming
"Days of Thunder" have been given almost
complete autonomy by the studio
and have been given a production fund
that could run as high as S300 million to
make virtually any movie they choose.
The deal also opens the possibility for the
duo to begin dabbling in directing and, in
Simpson's case, acting (he plays one of
Tom Cruise's rivals in "Days of Thunder").
Unlike Peter Guber and Jon Peters,
who had little or no hands-on experience
with the making of the hits that bear their
name, Simpson and Bruckheimer take ati
active role in the development and production
of their films and are thought to
be a safe bet for the vast sums Paramount
has entrusted them with
Concorde Films, the production facility
run by Roger Corman, has announced
a typically ambitious, typically low-brow
slate of 15 films to be produced over the
next year. In addition to previously announced
quickie dramas based on the San
Francisco earthquake and the dismantling
of the Berlin Wall, the company is
also producing "Rock 'N' Roll High School
Forever," a sequel to the 1979 cult hit.
Most of the rest of the slate falls into the
action/exploitation genre; many recent
Concorde productions have gone straight
to video.
The art film distributor Castle Hill,
having kept a low profile of late, has
signed an agreement to release all product
from Full Moon Prods., the company
run bv former Empire boss Charles
Band.
A distribution entity has been formed
between Epic Prods, and Triumph Releasing,
the dormant art film division of
Columbia Pictures. Epic, rim by Moshe
Diamant of the now-defunct Trans
World Entertainment, will now handle
all previously-produced TWE product, including
such titles as "For Better or
Worse," starring Kim Cattrall, and "WTiy
Me?" with Christopher Lambert and
Christopher Lloyd. Linda Ditrinco has
joined the company as vice president of
domestic sales and distribution, and will
be based in Epic's New York offices. The
debut release from the new company was
"Triumph of the Spirit,"
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For the first time in its historv'. New
Line Cinema has hired a director of
exhibitor relations. Elizabeth Forte, formerly
manager of theatrical services and
creative adveriising for New World Pictures,
will be based in New Line's Los
Angeles offices and will be responsible for
coordinating the flow of all theatrical
advertising and marketing materials between
New Line and exhibitors.
ACQUISITIONS
Original Cinema: "The Laser Man,"
a crossculture comedy about the responsibility
which must be accepted by the
creators of lethal weapons. Directed by
Peter Wang ("A Great Wall"), the film
will begin regional runs in mid-February.
Original Cinema was previously responsible
for the successful release of "A Taxing
Woman."
Panorama Entertainment: "Simple
Justice," an action-thriller starring Cesar
Romero. The company, which recently
rereleased the cult classic "Carnival of
Souls," is planning a release ^vithin the
first quarter of 1990.
50 Boxoffice
Response No. 37

—
:
play) There is no subplot, no sense of a world outside the
Tremors R-30
chase. And like a fair>- tale, "The Hunt for Red October" has
Where The Heart Is R-29
such a manichean vision of good and evil that its political
depth about matches its emotional depth — that is to say, it
has roughly the same ability to inirror the world as a one
panel political cartoon.
The only outright goof in the otht!rwise crattmanlike "Tlic
p^^^^*"^^^^^^^^^l^^
"
Hunt for Red October is the teTriblt: process photography I'l
Its epilogue, in which the cold war reaches a gooily sentimcMi
tal thaw The tenor ot this st;cne. poor as written and as shoi
may be a key to the entire him Nothing ambivalent is allow.irt it is tliill .mil
out to
uni onsini inff. Auilirni i-s took thr plunf;r, houcicr, uith
be the culprit) but he believes the shrink and flees, onh
to be gunned down by cops when they catch him near a gravi
opi-nirifi HCfkiTiil fimssfs of .$17. J iiiillion.
yard through which he believes he can enter a inonster-filhsl
underworld and find salvation The dead Boone joins tb^
monsters and tries to wage war on hostile humans and to sa\ i
to emer>;e into licsli an. Conic tu tlnnk ot u, "The Hunt tor his girlfriend from the evil doctor.
Red October" is also quite a bit like an 18th-ccntur>' mano'-war:
Of course this is insipid, but what the hell, it's a horror film
wooden, subject to doldrums, and populated bv a so let's go with it. But not too far Barker is after too man\
bunch of men's men possessed of out-of-date political and things here — slasher-doctor, gothic-monsters. young-love -
social ideas At any rate, it's less like a movie than like a big and nothing is followed long or. frankly, well enough to pan
and, though impressive and occasionally entertaining, out The great idea about the devious shrink, for instance
f/ii»i,t;,
"The Hunt for Red October" simply draws too much water for might've made a nice Hitchcockian thriller (something like h
its own good
was the plot of an "L. A Law" arc a few years back), bin
The him is nothing more than one big chase A canny old Barker is too baroque for that .So instead we get half-bakcil
Soviet sub commander (Sean Conner>') at the helm of a silent
submarine filled with nuclear warheads decides to defect with
Blake and a bunch of silly sets and costumes that are toci
this apocalyptic technology rather than let it be used as an
ottensive strike weapon The Americans, of course, think that
his becline across the Atlantic is an act of war, and only the
counsel of a canny young American naval analyst (Alec Baldwin)
convinces them to wait and see whether an attack or a Review Index
surrender is in the works Meanwhilt;, subs, boats and helicopters
ot both superpowers scour the ocean for the renegade
Black Rain R-32
vessel, hoping to sink or capture it.
Flasfiback R-30
McTiernan keeps things moving, and to his credit the action
Hard To KIM R-28
is never confusing or obscure. (This guy doesn't mess around
Hunt For Red October, The R-26
— in his last picture ("Die Hard") he assaulted a .SO-story
Kill Me Again R-31
office tower, and here he's got a sub the size of the L A.
Lonely Woman Seeks Lite Companion R-33
Coliseum to play with.) The cramped environments always
Longtime Companion R-32
seem spacious, and he never, never dwells on anything (not
necessarily
Loose
his most
Cannons R-31
laudable stylistic tic) It is a tale crisply
told The man Madhouse R-27
is a confident director and he's loaded for
bear.
Miami Blues R-27
Unfortunately, the bear he is loaded for is red, and hereabout
lies the big flaw in the him. As adapted from Tom Clan-
Revenge
R-2e
Nightbreed R-26
cy's novel, the script by Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart is
Stanley & Iris R-29
often dull and simplistic. No character emerges from the
Stella R-29
screen as written (though Connery, Sam Neill, Scott Glenn
Strike It Rich R-31
and Richard Jordan make humans of the cardboard parts they
Time ol the Gypsies R-32
April, 1990 R-26

—
—
—
uncomfortably like the day-after-Halloween-discount-sale
stuff on display in last year's hideous "Little Monsters." As
Cronenberg has brilliantly demonstrated, plastic and gauze
are okay, but what resonates in horror is the imaginable, not
the imaginary. The less you rely on com syrup and makebelieve
gods with absurd names the better.
"Nightbreed"'s first 10 minutes, as has been noted, promise
much, none of which is delivered. The film's last 10 minutes,
on the contrary, are such a jumbled mess of vagueness, pretensions,
and misplaced hopefulness that the thought of them
may be the scariest thing in the whole picture. For no good
reason, the final frames hint at a sequel. A sequel! The film
ends in such confusion that something like another reel, one
filled with explanations, would be more in order. Clive Barker
is scary all right — if you're the sort who is scared by an
arrogant klutz
Rated R for violence, nudity Shawn Levy
MIAMI BLUES
Starrmg Alec Baldwin. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Fred Ward.
Produced by Jonathan Demme and Gary Goetzman Written
and directed by George Annitage
An Orion release Dramatic-comedy, rated R Running tunc
97 min Screening date: 2/12/90
"Miami Blues" revives an abysmal movie genre which we
thought had been killed off following the anti-hero days of '60s
and early '70s. Telling the bleak, pointless tale of a smooth,
immoral killer, the dim-witted woinan he manipulates, and
the rough-hewn cop on their trail, this dull and extremely
unpleasant dark comedy will do nothing to correct Orion's
prolonged losing streak.
The movie defies us to find anything even the slightest bit
engaging about Junior and Susie, a lovely couple bound
together by ruthlessness (his) and stupidity (hers). Junior
(Alec Baldwin) is a psychotic ex-con who fancies himself to
be some kind of Robin Hood because he only steals from
people who commit crimes. Susie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a
blank-brained Southern sparrow who first meets Junior while
she's dabbling in prostitution to support her college education.
He sees her as a doting and unquestioning stooge; she sees
him as Mr. Right and doesn't ask many questions.
They "marry" and move to the suburbs, Susie cheerily staying
home to cook and clean while Junior goes out to earn a
considerable salary from his "investments." Meanwhile, a
scraggly cop named Hoke (Fred Ward) is hot on Junior's trail
for killing a Hare Krishna when he first arrived in Miami.
When the two cross paths. Junior beats the tar out of Hoke and
takes his badge, giving the increasingly-demented punk a handy
tool with which to commit even more daring crimes. Needless
to say, the cop is thus motivated to track Junior down in a
typically bloody finale.
This is an awful, awful film, fueled by writer-director
George Armitage's misguided belief that this study of Junior's
soulless anti-social behavior somehow adds up to cool irony.
We suppose we were supposed to be intrigued by Junior's
warped criminal inind, or moved by Susie's pathetic need for
affection, or amused by the sight of the killer and the exhooker
setting up the ideal home in suburbia. But it was all
overwhelmed by the oppressive meaninglessness of the story
and the gore which punctuates it (the most memorable
tnoments in the movie are when Junior has his forehead
stitched back together with a sewing needle, and later when
he gets three of his fingers hacked off with a cleaver).
is
To his credit — if that's the right way to look at it — Baldwin
creepily effective as the detestable villain; his hollow blue
eyes, stubbled good looks and sun-burnt skin work together to
make an eerie portrait of a cover boy monster. And Leigh is
equally skilled, although her Susie — just as docile, witless
and helpless as can be — is certainly one of the most appalling
female characters to grace the screen in ages. Two good young
actors, working hard to portray people which audiences can't
possibly want to spend time with.
Rated R for language, violence, nudity and sexual situations.
Tom Matthews
MADHOUSE
Starring Johu Larroquette, Kirstie Alley and Alison LaPlaca
Produced by Leslie Dixon Written and directed by Tom Ropelewski.
An Orion release. Comedy, rated PG-13 Running time: 90 min
Screening date: 2/20/90
Orion Pictures was put up for sale the week that this
rotten little comedy opened, although it may be the
closest thing they've had to a hit in ages. Two weekends
grossed an inexplicable $9.6 million.
It's eerie, in a way, sitting here in the first few months of
this new decade and knowing with an almost inescapable
degree of certainty that ten years from now, "Madhouse" will
still be remembered as one of the worst movies of the
decade.
A flailing mishmash of shrieking, mugging and bad taste,
this appalling waste of money, talent, film stock, electricity
and oxygen tells the tale of Mark (John Larroquette) and Jessie
(Kirstie Alley) Bannister, a yuppie couple who have just
bought their dream house. But before they can settle in — and
start enjoying the wild sex which is apparently the core of
their dumb little universe — bothersome house guests start
showing up: a dim-witted cousin (John Diehl) and his crass,
pregnant wife (Jessica Lundy); a redneck neighbor (Robert
Ginty) and his malicious kids; and Jessie's man-crazy, recently-divorced
sister (Alison LaPlaca) and her dope-selling son.
This vile gang soon takes over the Bannister household, until
the harried homeowners freak out and decide to violently
seize back control. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.
Vomiting cats, homy divorcees, adolescent girls seducing
adult men, gross pregnancy jokes ("I hope my water breaks all
over you!!"), Arab-bashing, diarrhetic elephants — what a
delightful bouillabaisse of comedy, and what a proud moment
in the careers of everyone involved. Larroquette builds upon
the sterling big screen career which has recently included
"Blind Date" and "Second Sight," Alley efl!"ectively squelches
whatever coasting power she may have attained from "Look
Who's Talking," and the husband-and-wife filmmaking team
of Leslie Dixon and Tom Ropelewski ("Overboard," "Loverboy")
perhaps even eclipses our longtime favorite awful husband-and-wife
team, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck ("Lucky
Lady," "Best Defense," "Howard the Duck"). We salute you,
one and all
Rated PG-13 for language, sexual situations and gross
goings-on. Tom Matthews
THE HANDMAID'S TALE
Starring Natasha Richardson, Robert Duvall. Faye Diinaway.
Elizabeth McGovein and .\idan Qiann
Produced by Daniel Wilson Directed by Volker Schlondorff
Written by Harold Pinter
A Cinecom release Drama, rated R Running time: 109 min
Screening date: 1/6/90
"The Handmaid's Tale" is an uncommonly disturbing film
for these trivial movie times. The controversy it generates
should jtistify Cinecom's considerable investment.
It is the tail end of the 20th Century, disease and chemical
pollution have rendered most American women infertile, and
the fascist, right-wing fundamentalists who now rrm the coimtry
have come up with a simple, glorious way to perpetuate
R-27 BOXOFFICE

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April. 1990 R-28
the human race Young women who can still bear children —
"handmaids," in customar,' parlance — are captured and contained
within concentration camps, where they arc brainwashed
to serve as nothing but dispassionate baby-makers. It
they fail to comply, they are banished to clean up toxic waste
for the rest of their lives
When she is deemed worthy, the; handmaid is turned over to
a wealthy married couple, which will use thr. powerless
woman as a surrogate mother, all the while treating her as a
mere servant Kate (Natasha Richardson) has thus foimd herself
in the service of the Commander (Roben Duvall) and his
cruel wife (Faye Dunaway), who demand a baby from the
rebellious young woman (since infants are in short supply,
they are the ultimate status symbol) Kate follows orders,
eventually developing an illegal and costly relationship with
the Commander, but all the while she is engineering an
escape
"The Handmaid's Tale" is a cautionary tale that should
inflame female viewers The theorem espoused by the hlm's
right-wing oppressors is that modem woman and her newlywon
independence has nearly destroyed the country, and that
only by turning her into a ser\'ant valued only for her childbearing
abilities can a "civilized" ivorld exist Novelist Margaret
Atwood, on whose book the movie is based, would have us
believe that modem society's treatment of women has already
staned us down the path to this seemingly far-fetched scenario,
and the serious, non-hysterical tone of the movie makes it
difficult to completely dismiss her conjecture
The movie does move at a deadened, lifeless pace, but that
is to director Volker Schlondorff and screenwriter Harold
Pinter's credit The urge might have been great to turn this
into an amped-up science fiction
thriller in order to draw a
more mainstream audience, but by approaching the story "rationally"
— quietly documenting this profane society without
moralizing loudly against it — its power is simply magnified
Only a dissatisfying and abnipt conclusion trips up the filmmakers,
but with a story as far-reaching as this, comers apparently
had to be cut somewhere. It's a disappointing flaw in
what is otherwise a thought-provoking and chilling drama,
"thought-provoking" being words which are rarely wheeled
out these days in relation to modem American cinema
Rated R for language, violence, sexual situations and nudity.
— Tom Matthews
HARD TO KILL
Miiniiig Stftrn Sccificil, Kelly Le Brock, Frederick Coffin, and
Hill Sadler
Produced hy Gary Adelsim, Joel Simon and Bill Todman ]r
Directed hy Bruce Malmulh Written hy Steven McKay
A Warner Bros Release Action Rated R Running time: 103
minutes Screening Date: 2/10/90
RrnirmhiT thi- fiinid old il.iy.s, it Tien guys in pony tails
< Diild grnrr.ilh hi- (//s(;iis.sc

—
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drugged and sold as a common prostitute. The movie then
becomes a violent quest as Cochran scours the Mexican countryside,
attempting to rescue Miryea and get revenge on
Tibey.
By appearing in "Field of Dreams" and "Revenge" backto-back,
Kevin Costner demonstrates a range which is truly
remarkable and which rightfully earns him a place alongside
such Golden Age journeyman actors as Henry Fonda and Gary
Cooper. In the former movie, he used his implacable earnestness
to lead moviegoers through a tale which was damned
near ridiculous, and in the latter, he returns screen manliness
to almost mythic levels. Stoic, good-humored, recklessly brave
and somehow even more attractive when he is unshaven and
beaten down, his is a presence which simply demands to be
projected across a huge screen. The label no doubt makes him
cringe, but he is perhaps our finest movie star, a term which
has been cheapened grotesquely of late
Columbia Pictures, for reasons which are lost on us, is treating
"Revenge" as something less than an A-quality release.
Costner's name will certainly draw a crowd, but if the studio's
marketing support is half-hearted audiences may consider the
film damaged goods and will keep it from becoming the hit it
deserves to be.
Rated R for language, violence, sexual situations and brief
nuditv. Tom Matthews
STANLEY AND IRIS
Starting Jane Fonda. Robert De Niro, Swoosie Kurtz and Martha
Plimpton
Produced by Arlene Sellers and Ale,\ Winitsky Directed by
Martin Ritt Written by Hamet Frank Jr & living Ravetch
An MGM/UA release Drama, rated PG-13 Running time: 104
min. Screening date: 2/15/90
"Stanley and Iris" is an excruciatingly earnest, wellintended,
deflatingly bland film. It feels almost sacrilegious
not to like it, because it's really trv'ing very hard: the film is
about blue collar romance. ..and illiteracy. ..and teenaged pregnancy,
..and loneliness — in fact, "Stanley and Iris" is so
loaded with "meaningful" subplots that it's difficult to grasp
exactly the point of the film, and the intention of its makers.
Jane Fonda plays Iris King, a recently widowed bakery
worker whose existence is one grinding responsibility after
another. She's struggling to support her two children, sister
and brother-in-law on her small income (and her rebellious
teenaged daughter — a role custom-made for Martha Plimpton
— has simply neglected to inform Iris that she's five
months pregnant). Stanley Cox (Robert De Niro) is a cook at
the same bakery where Iris (and in fact most of the town)
works. He's friendly and forthright, and he has a talent for
tinkering. He is also, as Iris discovers, completely illiterate.
The son of a travelling salesman (Feodor Chaliapin), Stanley's
education was a long succession of different schoolrooms in
which he napped. ..and slid through school without learning
how to read and write.
When Iris inadvertently blows the whistle on Stanley, pointing
out his illiteracy in front of his supervisor, he's fired from
his position at the bakery and begins to sink to ever-lower jobs.
He cleans public restrooms, he digs ditches, and his income
drops to the point where he's forced to put his beloved father
in a state home for the aged. Finally, in desperation, he asks
Iris to teach him to read. She begins nightly "classes" at her
dining room table, and a tentative relationship begins to develop
between the two.
This is where the film should get really tender — the point
at which Stanley begins to thaw Iris's frozen emotions like a
microwave melting Velveeta. But. even though we see the
characters getting closer, even spending a weekend in Boston
together, there is never a sense of chemistry between the two
actors. It just ain't believable. ..in large part because Fonda is
so hopelessly miscast. She does everything right: her Iris is
gritty, full of forbearance, dumb determination and strength
of character. But looking at Fonda, the words "blue collar" do
not come to mind. She's elegant, long, fine-boned, a touch
ers from last year's "Jacknife." Ultimately, Stanley leams to
read, gets the girl, even wins a job with comprehensive health
care and a company car. and "Stanley and Iris" gets weaker
and more wincingly predictable by the moment.
Rated PG-13 for language and sexual situations. Lesa
Sawahata
WHERE THE HEART IS
Stamng Dabney Coleman, Uma Thunnan, Suzy Amis, David
Hewlett and Joanna Cassidy
Produced and directed by John Boorman Written by John
Boorman and Telsche Booiman
A Buena Vista release Comedy, rated R Running time: 94
min Screening date: 2/27/90.
"Where The Heart Is" is a ponderous, astonishingly fruity
fable which is equal parts Flower Power gobbledygook and
Whooo-boy, what a bad trip. This light-headed attempt
at social commentary means well, but it belly-flops
embarrasingly. Scant promotion earned it dismal
opening weekend grosses of $530,893.
chilly, and aerobecized to a point of such leanness that she
looks ridiculously out of place glopping frosting onto cupcakes.
De Niro has a gift of belie vability; in his case, the question is
why he made the film, which really looks like reheated leftovouttakes
from one of those insufferable Obsession For Men
commercials. We know we have made this claim before, but
this really is one of the oddest, most inexplicable big studio
movies we have ever seen.
The story is simple enough: A wealthy industrialist is sick
and tired of his pampered, ungrateful children living under his
feet, so he banishes them to an unwanted building he owns in
the middle of some ghetto and demands that they fend for
themselves. Using their unique skills the kids flourish, while
the
the father — unseated by dirty corporate doings — hits
skids and is saved by his humbled and wiser offspring.
But, man, oh man, what a dippy pastiche director John
Boorman and his daughter Teische have come up with to tell
this perfectly serviceable tale. With plenty of brightly-colored
paints and floppy costumes — and evidently no studio interference
— Boorman decided to make this a rant against the
modem world, as performed by a hack acting company from
the nearby Renaissance Faire. The three kids — played by
Uma Thunnan, Suzy Amis and David Hewlett — are all flowery
types, not really bad enough to have been thrown out of
their house by their father, but probably annoying enough to
warrant being smothered in their sleep. One is a painter, one
is a computer artist, one is an aspiring magician, and they just
twitter about their funky ghetto pad endlessly, transported by
their own grooviness.
Meanwhile, Dad (Dabney Coleman) is slowly being made to
see the cruelness and futility of his materialistic ways. By the
time that he is finally forced out of his own company due to
some kind of stock screwup and about to be launched on his
journey of soul-restoring, he's spouting things like this to his
employees: "Your loyalty to me is an accusation! Find someone
else to blame!" Is that high-brow hippie-speak, or what?
We ask, because the statement — delivered with much import
at a crucial point — makes not a lick of sense to us.
We suspect that Boorman was attempting to do something
quite adventurous in making a kind of urban fairy tale —
complete with all the fragrant trappings — but he fails like a
second-hand Hyundai. Theatres looking for a new camp classic
to play at midnight for taimting, sarcastic audiences would
be advised to consider "Where The Heart Is." It will be the
only way that this surrealistically bad movie will make mon-
ey-
Rated R for language and nudity.—Tom Matthews
STELLA
Starring Bette Midler, Trini Alvarado, Stephen Collins and
John Goodman
Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr Directed by John Ennan
Written by Robert Getchell
A Buena Vista release Drama, rated PG-13 Running time: 1 14
mm Screening date: 1/29/90
"Stella," which is just as creaky as a tin monkey, is about a
good-hearted, well-intentioned, lower-class gal (Bette Midler)
R-29 BOXOFFICE

—
or
Aorii. 1990 R-.'^O
whose pride and stubbornness reach almost malicious proportions
Stella has a teenaged daughter from a tr>'st with a wellto-do
medical student (Stephen Collins) but despite his continued
attempts to help out tinancially. Stella has repeatedly
(and with unexplained venom) turned it down This makes
Stella out to be a shining example ot a strong-willed, selfreliant
woman of the 'yOs (actually the '80s, when this movie
was originally supposed to have been released) It also means
that Jenny (Trini Alvarado), Stella's daughter, has to suffer
the ridicule of her typically class-conscious friends and do
without a lot of the basics ("Gee. I'd like to go to the prom, but
my mom's making a statement and I can't afford the
dress"!
This story, which has been around since the silent days of
1925, should have been buried along with Samuel (ioldwyn,
the emotionally-unsophisticated mogul who made the bestknown
version of this stor\' with Barbara Stanwyck in 1937 and
who reportedly burst into tears at every screening; it's hard to
think of a more anachronistic storyline Surely, when a
woman's role in relation to the family and the working world
was more simply defined, heartstrings could be fairly tugged
with this weepy saga of a woman's attempts to do right by her
daughter despite her limitations.
But in this modem world. Stella's behavior is unconscionable
When she fiercely turns down child support, Stella is
grossly irresponsible; when she raises a morally-upright
daughter despite these self-induced hardships, only to cut
herself out of Jenny's life "for her own good" — to the extent
that she won't even attend her wedding — Stella is a chump.
Instead of being a brave woman who accepts her lot
in life,
Stella just ends up a door mat. giving endlessly and ending up
with nothing. Midler no doubts sees this as noble; audiences
will probably see this as stupid.
Rated PG-H for language. Tom Matthews
FLASHBACK
still iDii; iJcnius Hopper, Kicfcr Suthcrtand, Carol Kane, Cliff
l)i: Young, Richard Masur, and Michael McKean
Produced by Margin Worth Directed by Franco Amurri Written
by David Umahery
A Paramount Release Comedy Rated R Running time: 108
minutes Screening Date: 1/25/90
Iff srem to hf J.s ainnr J.s .i Spiiti l^-jicu ^i mipir in our
prji.sf for this liiiniv, pi-rt i-ptiti- politii .il lonu-dy. Four
uffkfiids took in only .i mty niodoi Sli.J million.
If every buddies-on-the-road movie were as clever and fresh
"
as "Flashback then the lot of the reviewer would be a kingly
one indeed. Writer David Lou.ghcry has concocted a witty
romp of a social .satire and director Franco Amurri has all the
tun in the world with his gags, his sets and his terrific cast.
"Flashback" belongs to that most likeable ol all American
movie types — the genri: film that works
When San Francisco police nab madcap 60's radical Huey
Walker (Dennis Hopper) after 20 years on the lam. the FBI's
straightlaced rookie of the year John Bucknttr (Kiefer Sutherland)
is sent to escort the slippery devil to jail Before long.
Walker has ingeniously switched places with Buckner, posing
the yoimg Reaganite as a dnmken draft dodger and. cutting his
own beard and hair, passing himself off as a G-Man
Walker's escape is thwarted when a pair of grown-up hippies,
antagonized by his act as a fascistic cop, kidnap him and
demand the release of their old idol Iluey Walker as ransom
The town's yuppie sheriff, hoping to make a name for himself,
tries to take advantage of the situation by framing both Walker
and Buckner. while Buckner wants merely to bring his man to
justice In an effort to do so, he is forced to confront his own
past, hiding himself and Walker on the hippie commune
where his parents, whose values his life has been an effort to
contradict, raised him as a child named Free
This is complicated stuff for an action comedy, but Loughery's
script is so well-stmctured that one just goes right along
"
with it. much as one did with "Midnight Run." "Flashback is
at least as funny as "Midnight Run." and Hopper laps up the
dialogue like a delightfully mischievous Cheshire cat. Sutherland
doesnt play a wrong moment, but one hardly notices him
when Hopper is whirling in the other half of the screen like .i
g>'roscope The supporting cast is superior, with Richard Mas
ur and Michael McKean stealing ever>' scene they're in as thi
nostalgic radicals and Carol Kane at her most attractively diy
pv as the sole remaining inh' to a minimum, a move which pays oil
because of the depth of the material When we leam aboiii
Buckner's hippie-child past, "Flashback" shifts from the staii
dard buddy movie odd-couple opposition to a study of thi
return of the repressed — the culture of the 60's dnig from
within into the light of the 90's. Walker vs. Buckner is mon
than just hippie vs yuppie: it is a battle for the collectivi
memory of the nation The commune, a creaky bam plastered
with day-glo posters, anti-Nixon placards and other hippie
gear, is not some dumpster for the memorabilia of an alien
day. It is a part of the intemal landscape of all Americans, a
place within that the 80's succeeded in making us forget, the
site of humor, of passion, of romance, of anything, in short,
that youth wantonly flaunts and maturity niggardly obscures.
"Flashback" tells us that before we give in to our urge to throw
away the hedonistic bathwater of the 60's we ought to take a
careful look at the baby sitting in the tub. because that baby is
us.
Rated R for language, a brief scene of suggestive sexuality.—
Shawn Levy
TREMORS
Starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward. Finn Carter and Michael
Gross
Produced by S S Wilson and Brent Maddock Directed by Ron
Underwood Written by SS Wilson and Brent Maddock
A Universal release Comedy-thriller, rated PG-13 Runnitv
time: 96 min Screenini; date l'29'90
Gi.inl irnrni.s.' \ifclon'l nri-d your stinking fxi.int
.\ppjrcntly, ni-ithfr did \nii-rii,in nit)\ ii-^oi-rs. I)i-spitf
little ( ompfiition, thi> diiml) liltir i omi-dy took in .i
so-so $14. -4 million in >i\ itcc/i.s.
itortti->.
When it comes down to it. all you want Irom a movie -
"
whether it's "Fat Man and Little Boy
"Ski Patrol" — is foi
it to accomplish what it set out to do. "Tremors" wanted to b(
a silly, occasionally scar\' thriller about giant, stinking earth
worms attacking a band of rednecks, and darned if it doesn i
succeed to a surprising degree This still doesn't mean you'n
going find anyone willing to call this a great movie, but it is
entertaining and that's what it's all about.
Set somewhere in the deserts of the American west, ihi:
movie is about two Southern-fried dummies named Val ( Kevin
Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) who are out to improve their lot
in life Currently earning a meager living cleaning out septic
tanks and hauling garbage. Earl — the idea man — and Val are
on their way out of town to seek their destiny when they find
the only road destroyed It seems that four huge worms arc
travelling beneath the sandy soil, eating folks and tearing up
the real estate, and it quickly becomes up to our two duml
heroes to kill the beasts and save the lives of the handful ot
local yokels trying to avoid a wormy death.
Much of "Tremors'" sense of fun comes from its dogged
faithfulness to horror movie conventions — particularly thos(
of the post-nuclear monster flicks of the '.'50s. A desolate setting
A group of disparate, bickering souls trapped in a funkv
outpost. A remarkably smart monster which remains one step
ahead of its prey. This is old stuff, and "Tremors" wallows in ii
without really becoming a parody To be sure, there are plent\
of self-mocking laughs here, but the movie also has its share ol
legitimate scares (for what is a modestly-budgeted movie, thi
worm effects are superb — the mega-budgeted "Dune" tried
for a similar stunt with inferior results).
Bacon and Ward attack the silly dialogue with relish and an:
consequently a lot of fun. as are Finn Carter as a lovely lady
scientist (gotta have one of those), Michael Gross as an overarmed
survivalist, and, for no apparent reason, country singer
Reba McEntire in her acting debut as Gross' wife. "Masterpiece
Theatre," this ain't, but teenagers out for a good time on
a Saturday night will seek out a couple of hours of dumb fun

—
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—
like, well, giant, stinking earthworms to a frightened redneck.
"Tremors" should provide them their fix, at least until Bon
Jovi comes back to town.
Rated PG-13 for language and monster carnage. Tutn Matthews
LOOSE CANNONS
Stanuig Goic Hctckiiuin, Dan Aykroyd, Dom DcLuise and
Nancy Travis
Produced by Aaron Spelling and Alaii Greisman. Directed by
Bob Clark Wutten by Richard Christian Matheson & Richard
Matheson and Bob Clark
A Tri-Star release Comedy, rated R Running time: 93 mm
Screeriiyig date 1/7/90
Going to the "mismatched cop" well one more time, "Loose
Cannons" pairs homicide detective Mac Stem (Gene Hackman)
with forensics expert Ellis Fielding (Dan Aykroyd).
Stem is playfully crazy, living out of his car like a gypsy and
performing his job with a mischievous glint, like when he
mockingly harasses a couple who are having sex too loudly at
the beginning of the film. Fielding, however, is legitimately
crazy. He had witnessed a brutal gangland murder, and the
experience has affected his mind. Now, whenever he is in a
life-threatening situation, he takes on the personality of a
character from movies or television. Put a gun in his face; he
turns into Ricky Ricardo. You get the idea.
The case that binds the wary Stem and the well-meaning
Fielding together is genuinely weird. It seems that a dated,
homosexual pomo film, featuring none other than Adolf Hitler
and several young boys, has fallen into the hands of an
American pomographer (Dom DeLuise). Unbeknownst to
him, however, the film also contains footage of Hitler's suicide
in his bunker, footage which reveals a current high-ranking
European leader to be a war criminal. This leader is now running
for a higher office, his henchmen are dispatched to
retrieve the incriminating film at any cost, and the movie
quickly turns into one of those mad scrambles for hidden
booty that often pass as action-comedy these days.
The pleasures to be found in "Loose Cannons" are meager,
but they're still worth an honest chuckle or two. For his wellnoted
productivity, Hackman rarely does comedy, and that's a
shame based on his light-hearted efforts in this dumb little
movie. When he gets a devilish twinkle in his eye, or when he
is simply exasperated by the ridiculous events unfolding
around him, he is a sensational comic presence; why filmmakers
don't ask him to play against type more often is a mystery.
And for Aykroyd these days, he's doing well if he just doesn't
embarrass himself. Having long ago lost track of the anarchistic
magic which he nurtured to greatness on "Saturday Night
Live," he is now just another coasting, well-paid and doughy
movie comic. The gimmick of him slipping in and out of
strange characters is a good one for him — he milks it better
here than he did in "Doctor Detroit" and "The Couch Trip,"
feint praise indeed — but it's a safe perfonnance from an
actor who used to be anything but.
Rated R for language and violence. Tom Matthews
KILL ME AGAIN
Starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whaley-Kilmer, and Michael
Madsen
Produced by David W Warfield, Sigurjan Sighvatson. and
Steve Colin Directed by lohn Dahl Written by John Dahl and
David W Waifeld
An MGM/UA release Drama Running time: 94 mins Screening
date 1/29/90
If ever a film hitched its pants, rolled up its sleeves, and
dealt with its responsibilities as a film noir in a knowing, competent
way, then "Kill Me Again" is that film. Spare, sudden,
and engaging, it is as fine a little bit of thriller as we're likely to
see this year.
After bad girl Fay (Joanne Whaley-Kilmer) steals the dough
that psycho boyfriend Vince (Michael Madsen) stole from the
Vegas mob, she hires small-time Reno private eye Jack Archer
(Val Kilmer) to help her fake her own murder. Archer proves
so good at the job that the Reno cops and Vince both come
calling on him, and Fay, who has long since hit the gaming
tables of Las Vegas, is more than happy to let him answer to
both of those parties and to the vengeful mobsters. Archer
takes off with Fay and the money, hoping to start a new life in
coastal Maine.
"Kill Me Again" is "Detour," Edgar Ulmer's classic little
noir, writ slightly larger, true, but there's nothing wrong with
that if you do it right. Fortunately, scenarists John Dahl and
David W. Warfield keep the pace and the dialogue taut and
crisp. Dahl also directs, and he's got the sort of appreciative
eye which leaves him open to extremes of dust and neon, of
glaring desert light and steamy bogs. The film looks plain and
inexpensive (not cheap), but that could as well be a function
of the skill of its makers as one of the budget, so fully and
coherently realized is the basic premise.
If any two things keep "Kill Me Again" from really taking
off, they are a lack of resonance in the material and a surfeit
of baby fat in the cheeks of the lead actor. On the first score,
although it's true that film noir is an inherently nihilistic
genre and therefore resistant to grand ideas, that stance was
much more compelling under Truman than it is under Bush.
Without more to it (such as we got with the Freudian weirdness
of "Dead Calm"), noir becomes a fonn of puppeteering.
As for the second problem, Val Kilmer may be able to convince
folks that he's many things, but hardboiled private eye
isn't one that leaps to mind. He could be 13 years old, upper lip
aswim in peach fuzz, his glare the look of a guy who did
crummy on a math quiz. Jack Archer is supposed to be gullible,
yeah, but prepubescent?
Val's missus, on the other hand, is such a hot number that
she threatens to melt the screen with each flick of her eyelashes.
Blessed with a pair of doe eyes that'd make Bambi
forget his mother, a carmelly voice and a believable passion
for naughtiness, Whalley-Kilmer proves here, as she did in the
overrated "Scandal," that she is a major talent. If film noir
isn't your thing (your loss), at least see "Kill Me Again" to see
how wonderfully tempting wickedness can be.
Rated R for gunshots, blood, lust, all that good stuff.
Shawn Levy
STRIKE IT RICH
Starring Robert Lindsay, Molly Ringwald and Sir John Gielgud
Produced by Christine Oestreicher and Graham Easttm Written
and directed by James Scott.
A Miramax Films release. Romantic comedy, rated PG Runrung
time: 85 min Screening date: 1/4/90
The 1990s, say industry analysts, will bring to cinemas
well-produced star vehicles carefully contrived to satisfy
viewer expectations; "Strike It Rich" is a fine example of such
a formulated production. Based on the Graham Greene novel
"Loser Takes All," it is an entertainingly campy period romantic
comedy that, from the opening split-screen credits, is
faithful to the lavish, storybook style of the early technicolor
films of the '50s.
In keeping with our new moral climate, the movie glorifies
love and marriage, and in a reaction to what's been called the
"decade of greed," the movie's theme makes the novel assertion
that money isn't the most important thing in life. Indeed,
it is marriage that magically transports a drab middle-class
couple into the opulent lifestyle of the ultra-rich.
The film opens on the plain black & white life of corporate
accountant Ian Bertram (Robert Lindsay), but things become
more colorful when he meets Cary (Molly Ringwald), a girl
half his age, on a London bus.
After exchanging shy smiles and, later, greetings, they are
soon madly in love and ready to exchange wedding vows.
When Bertram solves a problem with the balance sheets for
his company's CEO, Herbert Dreuther (Sir John Gielgud), the
grateful exec generously offers to finance a wedding in Monte
Carlo and a honeymoon on his yacht.
The wedding takes place, but Dreuther fails to show up as
promised to foot the extravagant bill. Panicked as their funds
run out, Bertram directs his mathematical skills to breaking
the bank at the casino and wreaking revenge on Dreuther. In
doing so, he neglects his bride and turns into just the kind of
boorish materialist he used to despise, causing Cary to turn
her attention to an impoverished but handsome Frenchman.
Bertram finally sees that money and power are useless without
love, and he makes a bold and successful bid to win back
his wife.
Film buffs will have a good time spotting from which masters
of comedy — from Chaplin to Lemmon — the gags in
"Strike It Rich" have been lifted. The screenplay may not be
R-31 BOXOFFICE

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original, but its predictability is a comforting rtras-suranci; that
things haven't changed much from the halcyon days ot the
post-war era Paced like a screwball comedy, the film has
plenty of funny dialogue and visual gags, and the stars —
especially Gielgud in a cameo appearance — seem to be having
such a good time acting in it that the audience can't help
having an equally good time watching them
Director of photography Rob«!n Paynter, production designer
Christopher Hobbs and costume designer Tom Rand have
managed to stretch a tairly limited budget a long way From
the c|uaint images of post-war London to the pl.iygrounds of
the rich and famous, the production is inventive and stylish It
captures the essence of kitsch, but it's a fairytale for the
90s
The PG is for matrimonial subject matter. Karen Krcps
BLACK RAIN
Stamng Yushiku I'anaka. Kazuo Kitamura and Elsuko Ichihara
Prtiiluccd by Hisa lino Directed by Shohci Imamiira Written
by Toshirii Ishidi) and Shi))iei Inuimura
An Angelika Films release Drama, not rated In Japanese with
Eni>lish subtitles Kunning time 117 min Screening date UW'
90
It's been a long time coming, a Japanese movie about what
happened in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and in the months
and years that followed
The realistic production that went into this startling black &
white him is terrifying Based on accounts of a

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dies; their struggle for self-respect; the nurturing of the sick
by the not-yet-fallen; and the maturity with which these
people confront the end of life as they know it.
A distinguished production of American Playhouse Theatrical
Films ("El Norte," "Stand and Deliver," "The Thin Blue
Line"), "Longtime Companion" features a very strong ensemble
of 1 1 male actors and one female. The likeable characters
— all friends and lovers — are connected through their work
in the television industry, their co-ops, or their vacation activities.
Despite some shoddy attention to period detail (e.g.,
filming bus models which weren't on the streets eight years
ago), the movie is anchored in realism — from the luxurious
beach homes on Fire Island to the emergency rooms of city
hospitals.
The mortality rate among the small clique studied in the
film seems incredibly high, but it's probably not too much of
an exaggeration. Scenes revealing the hideous decay of oncehealthy
men dying of AIDS-related pneumonia or Kaposi Sarcoma
are all painfully faithful to reality.
Even though the film is witty, short and fast-paced, its grim
topic does wear on the viewer — the grotesque deathbed
scenes are particularly difficult to watch. There are also
scenes of homosexual foreplay which may dismay some viewers,
although it seems highly unlikely that homophobic
audiences will be drawn to this film in the first place.
Rated R for subject matter and sexual situations. Karen
Kreps
LONELY WOMAN SEEKS LIFE
COMPANION
Starrmg Irma Kupchcuki) and Alexander Zbniyev
Produced by Kiev Film Studin, USSR Directed by Viacheslav
Kfishtofovicli Written by Viktor Merezhko
An Interrtatiunal Film Exchange release Comedy, not rated
Russian with English subtitles Running time: 91 min. Screening
date: 1/24/90
A dull little import from the Soviet Union, "Lonely Woman
Seeks Life Companion" has only two things going for it: its two
stars. At her most complex and powerful when she is not
delivering dialogue, Irina Kupchenko captures the private
behavior of a middle-aged woman who, in desperation, posts
ads soliciting Comrade Right. Her tightly controlled performance
(which won the award for Best Actress at the Montreal
film festival) dramatizes the plight of isolated women everywhere.
And Alexander Zbruyev, as the pathetic little man who
answers her ad — an alcoholic, ruble-less, unwashed and in all
other respect unsuitable prospect — has a peculiar charm. But
the depressing story they act out is as intellectually illogical as
it
is emotionally unsatisfying.
Publicity notes claim that there are subtleties in the language
which may be lost on English-speaking audiences. The
film is heavy on dialogue, but that's not all that is hard to
follow. When Valentine (Zbruyev) responds to Klava's (Kupchenko)
ad by simply showing up on her doorstep — even
though she has a telephone in her neat little apartment, they
are immediately disappointed with each other, but he nonetheless
pursues her until she slowly warms to him in spite of
oiuspoken objections from her friends and employer. When
he tries to return the kindness she has shown him, Klava
chases Valentine away and by the time she repents her
actions, he is nowhere to be found.
Director Viacheslav Krishtofovich aims for wry comedy, but
the only funny scenes are the ones involving a nosy neighbor
who makes off with another man who responded to the ad but
never meets Klava. Communist youth groups become the butt
of ridicule when three children, members of the Young Pioneers,
decide to adopt Klava as one of the sick and lonely
charges. To really appreciate the humor, however, you may
have to defect to Russia.
At least this frugal little production is fully in the spirit of
peristroika, as the poorly scripted and crudely edited movie
does offer a realistic look at contemporary' life in the USSR.
The costumes are drab and some of the appliances shown in
Klava's home are unfamiliar in design, but coupled with shots
of liquor stores and unemployment lines, "Lonely Woman"
does its bit to give American viewers a peek under the old Iron
Curtain.
The film is unrated, but it contains nothing offensive to
family audiences. Karen Kreps
REVIEW DIGEST
Story type key: (Ac) Action: (Ad) Adventure: (An) Animated: (B)
Biography: (C) Comedy: (Cr) Crime: (D) Drama: (DM) Drama with
Music: (Doc) Documentary: (F) Fantasy: (H) Horror: (M) Musical:
(My) Mystery: (OD) Outdoor: (Pol) Political: (R) Romantic: (SF)
Science Fiction: (Sus) Suspense: (W) Western.
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'
SNEAK PREVIEWS
The following liirm are lentatively scheduled
for release during the months ot lune and
luly The distributors, however, cannot stress
strongly enough that these dates and titles are
sub/ect to change
THE ADVENTURES Of FOKU fAIRLANE
Andrew [>ce Clay, the toul-moulhefi. misogynistic
comic, makes his leading man debul
in this hip mystery about a private eye
trying to solve a murder in the L A music
community In perhaps an effort to balance
out Clays abrasiveness. the ultra-sweet duo
of Wayne Newton and Priscilla Presley costar
The film is directed by Renny Harlin, who
also made this summer's "Die Hard 2 " A 20th
Centurv Fox release
DICK TRACY
\nt't >edrs of development, Warren Beatty
linally unveils his colorful adaptation of the
comic book crime-fighter Beatly produces
and directs as well as stars in the film, with
Madonna playing the lovely Breathless Mahcjney
and also providing several songs for
the soundtrack Big name stars like Dustin
Hoffman and Al Pacino appear in cameo roles
as bad guys The film also boasts a new Roger
Rabbit short at the head A Buena Vista
release (fa' 15)
ARACHNIPHOBIA
Long-time sie\.en Spielberg producer Frank
Marshall finally takes a crack at directing with
this thriller about spiders on a rampage (Spielt)erg
IS an executive producer here) The film
stars left Daniels, John Goodman and Harley
Kozak A Buena Vista release. (6/29)
BIRD ON A WIRE
Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn team up in
this romantic action-comedy about a couple
on the run from an evil figure from their
decadent Flower Power days of the '60s
)ohn Badham ("Stakeout ") directs A Universal
release
THE DESPERATE HOURS
Director Michael ( imino, producer DIno
DeLaurentiis and Mickey Rourke - who
teamed up on "Year of the Dragon" — reunite
for this remake of the 1455 thriller which
starred Humphrey Bogart and Frederic
March The film, about a family held hostage
ARTHUR HILLER UNTITLED
by a gang of escaped convicts, also stars
Anthony Hopkins, Mimi Rogers, Lindsay
Grouse and Kelly Lynch An MGM/UA release.
Ace sidekicks lames Belushi and Charles
Crodin both turn leading man In this comedy
about an executive whose life is "stolen"
from him when an ex-con finds his appointment
calendar and decides to assume his personality.
The film is directed by Arthur Hiller,
who specializes in movies teatunng comic
duos ("Outrageous Fortune, "See No Evil.
Hear No Evil") The film had been known as
"Filofax" and "Pros and Gons." A Buena Vista
release. (6/8)
ROBOCOP 2
I he terrilic (and terrifically violent) action
hit of 1M87 spawns a sequel, with Peter Weller
returning in the role of the reluctant cyborg
law officer Directing this time is Irvin Kershner
("The Empire Strikes Back"), from a script
co-written by "graphic novelist" Frank Miller
("The Dark Knight") The story finds our
metallic hero doing battle with an evil Robo-
Gop. An Orion release.
DIE HARDER
Bruce Willis returns to the role which
established him once and for all as a big
screen presence to be reckoned with Playing
reluctant terrorist fighter lohn McClane, Willis
again finds himself with his hand's full, this
time at an international airport seized by drug
smugglers Bonnie Bedelia also returns as
McClane's wife. A 20th Century Fox release.
(6/29)
DARKMAN
Wnler-director Sam Raimi, whose "Evil
Dead" films took gore to hilarious extremes,
IS responsible for this thriller about a scientist
who reconstructs his own flesh when he is
burned beyond recognition in a lab fire
Unlortunately. his experiment makes the doctor
immune to pain and rather anti-social
Liam Neeson ("The Good Mother. " "Next of
Kin") stars. A Universal release.
FUGHT OF THE INTRUDER
Vietnam is visited yet again, this time in a
fact-based story about a i>omber crew that
flies an unauthorized mission to take out an
enemy target Willem Dafoe. Danny Glover
and Brad lohnson ("Always") star, lohn Milius
("Red Dawn," "Farewell to the King") writes
and directs A Paramount release
JETSONS: THE MOVIE
The space-dgfd 1\ M>ries becomes an animated
feature, as the beluddled George letson
gels a new )ob and relocates his family to
another planet Pop thrush Tiffany provides
some of the voices, as does the late Mel
Blanc A Universal release
lUNGLE BOOK
IJisney s U*f)7 animated hit is rereleased,
telling once again the story of young Mowgli
and his animal pals Based on the Rudyard
Kipling stones, the tilm features some wonderful
songs and the voices of Phil Harris.
Sebastian Cabot and Louis Prima. A Buena
Visia release (7/13)
MERMAIDS
Seemingly inspired by Cher's own life, this
comedy features the flamboyant Oscar-winner
as a free-spirited mother who Is a source
of constant exasperation to her down-toearth
teenaged daughter. Winona Ryder
plays the kid. and Bob Hoskins plays Cher's
boyfriend Richard Benjamin "Downtown")
(
directs. An Orion release.
NAVY S.E.A.L.
Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn ("The
Abyss ") and Rick Rossovich ("Roxanne ") star
in this action drama about an elite group of
soldiers who are ordered to retrieve a batch
of Stinger missiles from a gang of terrorists
Lewis Teague ( "jewel ot the Nile") directs An
Orion release
ANOTHER 4« HOURS
Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte and director
Walter Hill reunite for this sequel to the 1982
hit This time, the grouchy cop and his smarttalking
convict sidekick take on a violent
group of white supremacists. A Paramouni
release.
with "Twins, " Arnold
TOTAL RECALL
Following a successful foray into comedy
Schwarzenegger returns
to the action/science fiction genre
which made him famous This time he plays a
man of the future who travels to Mars in an
attempt to find out why mysterious images
are being beamed into his brain The film is
directed by Paul Verhoeven ("RoboGop,"
"Flesh and Blood "), with a script based on a
novel by Philip K Dick, who also provided
the source for "Blade Runner" A Tri-Star
release. (6/15)
April, 1990 61

«3» FEATURE CHART — APRIL 1990

0)S

Oxford.
\nriL 1990 6?
Illlllllllll
Clearing House
RATES: 75c po' f^ia. r.run.^::. i.i,, i? 50
exira (or box number assignmeni Send copy w
check 10 BOXOFFICE. P O Box 25485, Chicago.
ILL 60625, al least 60 days prior 10 publicalion
BOX NO. ADS: Reply lo ads wilh box numbers
by wriling to BOXOFFICE, P O Box 25485
Chicago. ILL 60625, put ad box a on your letter
and in lower led comer ol your envelope Please
use n 10 envelopes or smaller for your replies
HELP WANTED
,
ASC Technical Services is accepting applications lor
theatre sound and protection technician positions II
you have current day technology experience m this
field, send your resume to 5857 Wmthrop Ave Indianapolis,
IN 46220
PROGRESSIVE MIDWEST THEATRE CIRCUIT IS
LOOKING FOR ENERGETIC MULTIPLEX MAN-
AGERS Salary commensurate with experience plus
concession commission, incentive program and Blue
Cross Blue Shield Replies held m strictest confidence
Serxl resume to Boxolfice 04679
POSITIONS WANTED
I WOULD LIKE TO SETTLE IN THE U.S. 20 years
experience as a Chiel Protectionist and audio visual
technician Familiar with most makes of protectors and
sound systems Complete knowledge ol maintenance
For further details wnle to A Patel. 6 Pickering House.
Kinqsmnn Street London Enqland SE 185RU
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
COMPLETE THEATRE EQUIPMENT: (New. Used or
Rebuilt) Century SA R3 RCA 9030. 1040. 1050 Platters
3 and 5 Tier. Xenon Systems 1000-4000 Watt.
Sound Systems mono and stereo, automations, ticket
machines, curiam motors, electric rewinds, lenses,
pans and many more items m stock COMMERCIAL
large screen video protectors Plenty of used chairs
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AND INSTALLATION
AVAILABLE DOLBY CERTIFIED Call Bill Younger
Cinema Equipment Inc , 9372 N W 13 Street, Miami,
Florida 33172 (305) 594-0570 Fax (305) 592-
6970
BURLAP WALL COVERING DRAPES: $1 68 per
yard flame retardanl Ouanlily discounts Nurse S Co ,
Millbury Rd
, MA 01540 (508) 832-4295
NEW YEARS AND ANNIVERSARY SALE WHILE
SUPPLIES LAST. Splicing tape $2 00. Ciro M3 splicer
new $275 00 New Xenons IKW $350. IKW $4(X),
2KW $495. 3KW $550. 4KW $995. sand urns S20.
pizza oven $595. luicer like new $250. late model
Coke 4.5 & 6 post mix $400-1000. Manley Popper RB
$550. three bay Automalicket $500 RB. turnstiles
$250 RC. American Steller chairs $25. Irwm Citations
$30. Hussey s $30. Rockers $35-50 Export specialists
International Cinema 6750 NE 4lh Court Miami
Ra _ ._
RADIO SOUND: FMFM-Stereo Radio Sound Systems
Call or wnle Audio Visual Systems, P O Box
2400. Woonsocket. Rl. 02859 Phone (401) 767-
2080
SPECIALS-NEW A LIKE NEW ISCO Magnacoms
$295. scopes Isco $450. Kowa Kollnxxgen S295.
Sankor $250. B4L $195. Isco Ultra MC tOO-l50MM
new 4 like new $395. other lenses from $85 00 Film
cleaners $250. Ashcralt. Strong, carbon reflectors and
parts 50% off list RCA 26241 bronze gear $55 00
Call now International Cinema 305-756-0699
PROJECTORS, lamphouses. rectifiers, platters, automation,
lenses, stereo sound systems, all rebuilt and all
at great savings Trades accepted, call us now International
Cinema Equip Co 305-756-0699
COMPLETE BUSINESS SYSTEM: Data General
MV 2000 with 6Mb Internal. 160Mb Hard Drive, and
21Mb Cartridge tapes. 13 terminals. 1-600 LPM Line
Printer and extensive exhibition software Still urxjer
maintenance contract Recently installed lor 300
screen multi-state circuit Software includes General
Ledger. Film Booking. Film Rental. Box Office. Accounts
Payable. Concesswns. Polling (^mes Machines.
Warehouse arxJ more Call (503) 221-0213
for further information
SPARE PARTS—Century. Westrex. Westar. Monee.
Cinecita. Cinemex. discounts up to 50< oft list Ctieck
with us now International Cinerrw PH 305-756-0699
FAX 758-2036
EQUIPMENT WANTED
TUBE-TYPE EQUIPMENT by Western Electric. West
rex. Langevin. Mcintosh. Marantz. Quad. ARC Early
speaker systems, units by W E Jensen. Altec, JBL,
EV, RCA, Tannoy Telephone (818) 701-5633, Audio
City. P O Box 786. Northridge, CA 91328-0786
THEATRES FOR SALE
NICE TWIN THEATRE on two acres, 400 seats in
each side Parking lot black lopped Sell or lease, will
negotiate In Conroe, Texas Call (409) 856-6495 or
(214) 754-0400
"ONE OF A KINO" twin cinema in Michigan's hottest
market Theatre built in 1978, but same location lor
too years' Includes land and site plans lor slate-ofthe-an
4- or 5-plex Over 1000 cars parking Health
forces sale Call PARTRIDGE & ASSOCIATES, INC
Ask for DON BARTUS (313) 693-7770
DRIVE-IN THEATRE AND SWAP SHOP-S 8 acres
ol prime real estate located in West Palm Beach Flonda
area Profitable operation Call (407) 269-5726
THEATRE— single screen completely equipped with
apartment, 315 seats in small prosperous BC town
For sale or lease Phone (604) 251-3901
TWIN THEATRES located in upstate New York on the
Hudson River This solid brick and stone structure consists
ol 1 5,000 sq ft compnsing twin theatres, 2 luxurious
apis, and a store front lor additional income,
theatre houses dressing rooms for live entenainment
Turn key operation, parking galore, exc investment
opportunity Owner fin possible Asking $450,000
Call JON HOYT REALTY, LTD al (914) 339-4444
WATTS THEATRE-north Iowa's finest—completely
lurnished, modern equipment, two bedroom apartment
above Shown by appointment only Contact Ken
Swenson-MIDWEST REALTORS, 521 Mam Street,
Osage, Iowa 50461 Or call (515) 732-5531
THEATRE SEATING
ALLSTATE SEATING, INC, Specialists in auditorium
and theatre sealing service, installation, covers Phone
(617) 436-3448
"ALL AMERICAN SEATING" by the EXPERTS' Used
seats ol quality Various makes American Boditorm
and Slellars Irom $12 50 to $32 50 Irwins from
$12 50 to $30 00 Heywood S Massey rockers from
$25 00 Full rebuilding available New Hussey chairs
from $70 00 All types theatre protection and sound
equipment New and used We ship and install all
makes Try us! We sell no Junk' TANKERSLEY
ENTERPRISES BOX 36009 DENVER, CO 80236
Phone 303-980-8265
TRI STATE SEATING AND INSTALLATION CO.
Used seats S pans, sales 8 service, preventive maintenance
programs, complete & c>anial renovations lo
accommodate your budget, acoustical wallcoverings
and more Services offered throughout the United
Slates and Canada Free Information (313) 928-
9390
USED THEATRE SEATS-American Boditorm-
Quick sale—$5 00 each Call (405) 842-0122 or eve
(405) 631-8852 Ask for George
THEATRE REMODELING
FOR TWINNING THEATRES call or write Friddel Ckxistruction
Irvc 402 Green River Dnve, Montoomery, TX
77358 (409) 588 2667
MULTIPLEXING THEATRES We can perlomn all (unctions
from consultir>g to complete turnkey package professiorully
arx] efficiently with minimum down time
Write or call Bill Clark, Quadrants Construction, (313)
261-9800, 12425 Stark Road, Livonia, Ml 48150
DRIVE-IN CONSTRUCTION
SCREEN TOWERS INTERNATIONAL New
Used,
Tr,tnspifintf

'
ORC
1
ALPRO Softouch Acoustical
Panels have the Edge in
Sound Control.
• The Softouch of Fabric
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• 90-100 NRC
• Variety of CLASS A
Decorative Finishes
• Design Flexibility & Easy Installation
FOR SOUND SOLUTIONS
P.O. BOX 50070 . NEW ORLEANS, LA 70150
Tel: (504) 733-3836 • FAX: (504) 733-3851
Ad Index
Alpro Acoustics 66
Ashly Audio, Inc 18
Automaticket 50
Caddy II Cupholder/MTS
Northwest Sound 31
Christie Electric Corp 02
Crest Sales USA 66
Dolby Laboratories 9
Eickhof Projection & Sound 66
C3
Entertainment Data, Inc
Exec-U-Tapes 29
Hadden Theatre Supply Co 39
High Performance Stereo 7
Hurley Screens 50
International Cinema
Equipment Co., Inc 14
International Wildlife
Film Festival 43
JBL Professional 5
Kintek, Inc 13
Navitar AV 6
Omnimount Systems 29
Osram Sales Corp
C4
Pike Productions of Boston 35
QSC Audio Products 27
Smart Theatre Systems 15
Soundfold International 39
The THX Group 19
Tankersley Enterprises 37
Teccon Enterprises Ltd 29
Technikote Corp 66
Ultra-Stereo Labs., Inc 11
Response No. 39
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
& NEVADA
^^^ COMPLETE
& THEATRE
^ SUPPLY
^ & SERVICE
^ COMPANY
John R. Eickhof
Enterprises. Inc.
Projection b Sound
Service
CREST SALES USA—MOTION PICTURE EQUIPMENT
Complete Sales — Service
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTOR FOR MANY MANUFACTURERS
Ed Cernosek
2017 Young Street
Dallas, TX 75201
Response No. 43
Roy Lisenbe
214-748-0531
PRESENTING THE FANTASTIC 4
XR171
ANTISTATIC
nun yellowing
pearlescent surface
Featuring:
• Altec Lansing
• Neumade • Potts
" Ultra • Stereo • Technikote • Speco
Lamps • Film Systems
P.O. Box 1071* Colfax. CA 95713
(916) 346-2094
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Hesponse No 4

1
April 1990
Void alter June 1990
Reader Service
or more information,
tt« •d«*rU**ni*nl and product r««

d
,

EVERYTHING
YOU EVER
WANTED TO
KNOW AROUT FILMS
RUT DIDN'T KNOW
WHO TO Asr
No matter what the question, ask Entertainment Data, Inc.
As the industry's oldest, most experienced data-gathering service and with our
advanced computer network, EDI offers services that everyone can use.
• Want to know how action films perform in the winter?
• Or how many comedies are scheduled for release next summer?
• When the new Eddie Murphy film is due for release?
• Did Paramount outgross Buena Vista last summer?
• Who's directing the latest Star Trek?
• How do the opening grosses on Tom Cruise's films compare?
• How do Academy Award nominations affect grosses?
ENTERTAINMENT DATA, INC. helps you compete in the town that thrives on competition.
No matter what you need to know, ask Entertainment Data, Inc.
*
Entertainment Data, Inc.
331 North Maple Drive • Beverly Hills. CA 90210 • (213) 271-2105
Los Angeles • San Francisco • Dallas • Chicago • Washington. DC. • New York • Atlanta • Toronto

.
MOVIE CLASSIC.
THE OSRAM XENON BULB.
It'soneoftheg reatest sto ries ever told
The story ot an invention so dazzling,
It was honored with an Oscar* for
technical excellence.
The OSRAM Xenon Bulb's reliable,
consistent light played a major role in
the creation of the multiplex theater
It
literally changed the way the world
goes to the movies— and views them.
And our continued dedication to
advanced product development and
support makes sure that OSRAM
Xenon Bulbs remain the standard for
projection lighting.
It's no wonder the bhghtest exhibitors
are saying, 'Hooray for OSRAM!"
For further information, wnte or
callus today OSRAM Corporation,
RO. Box 81 16, Trenton, NJ 08650
[800) 338-2542. In Canada, call
[416)673-1996.
Oscar' IS a registered service mark ol the Academy ot [tbA 1
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences i .|_ „ J
TECHNOLOGY BROUGHT TO LIGHT
Response No. 47
OSRAM
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