It was late January or early February 1964. I had just completed the first semester of my freshman year at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Final exams were over, it was a cold Saturday night and group of us went to the movies. Back then, first run films newly released could be seen only in downtown theaters; only after several months did they make their way to the suburbs.
Like many cities, D.C. had several large and very elegant movie theaters, with 1500 to 2000 seats, large, wide screens, satin curtains, plush lobbies, tapestried walls, and ushers to help you find a seat. ( Only the Warner Theater still stands today, but it is used mostly as a performance venue and not a movie theater.) The most popular movies were big spectacular wide screen colorful spectacles; My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins were among the box office smash hits of that year.
But our destination that cold winter evening was not one of the large, wide screen movie palaces, and the movie of choice was not a tens of millions of dollars blockbuster cinema spectacular. No – we were headed to the Dupont Theater (also no longer there) on Connecticut Avenue just south of Dupont Circle. The Dupont was a small theater - just a large room really – no balconies or boxes – seating about 300 people and located on the bottom floor of an office building. While the theater did show first run films, they were not the big splash spectacles.
The audience that crowded into the small theater that night was mostly young people – probably college students like me on break. It was a somewhat raucous group. But just a few minutes before the start of the movie I caught sight of something – or I should say someone – unusual. Someone who didn’t belong with this noisy group of kids. In walked an elegantly dressed couple. He was very tall – at least 6’4” and broad shouldered, wearing a very nice cashmere or wool topcoat, in sharp contrast to the dirty jackets and sweatshirts of the rest of us. The woman with him was also well dressed. There were only a few empty seats left and my first reaction was fear that this large man might sit in front of me – there was not much slant to the floor and I was concerned that I would not see the movie so well. But that reaction was quickly replaced by one of awe – because this was not just any tall man – I knew who this was – newspaper columnist and CBS TV newsman Eric Sevareid. The celebrity presence seemed to innervate the crowd even more. And by the way, fortunately he sat behind me.
The movie showing was Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. While Stangelove does have an all-star cast (more on that in a moment), it is not a wide screen glamour film; in fact it is a black and white movie and is only 95 minutes long! It is a comedy satire on the cold war, the arms race (how many of you remember the missile gap?), and parodies the government and military of both the U.S. and the USSR. George C Scott and Sterling Hayden portray over the top parodies of U.S. Generals – one of them hawkish and power mad, the other just basically nuts. Peter Sellers plays three different roles: the U.S. President, a proper British army Captain, and Dr. Strangelove, a geeky German rocket scientist roughly based on Wernher Von Braun. Keenan Wynn is a by-the-book army man who disrupts the scheme. Cowboy actor Slim Pickens is the pilot of a bomber armed with the nuclear bomb that will start world war three, and a very very young James Earl Jones is the plane’s engineer and intelligence officer.
The movie is chock full of just the type of anti-establishment satire and sophistry that would have appealed to us college kids. After all, we knew that we were much smarter than any adults, and would never do any of the stupid things that they do – such as in this film. We laughed; we roared; we screamed; we applauded. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. And it was the start of a care-free weekend. I should also point out that at that time, the legal age for beer and wine in the District was 18. After the movie we all bundled up out into the cold and went elsewhere. Eric Sevareid and his wife drove off in their car.
I told everyone I knew – including relatives and friends in Pocomoke – that they just had to see this movie!
1964. I am back in Pocomoke for the summer. In fact, little did I know, it would be the last time that I actually lived in Pocomoke. But anyway, Dr. Strangelove came to the Marva Theater. I made sure as many people as possible went with me to see this movie; my parents, aunts, uncles, whoever I could. It was a very hot night. The Marva Theater is much larger than the Dupont Theater was. On the night we went, there were at most 40 or maybe 50 people total in the theater – so there were hundreds of empty seats. We watched the movie; we chuckled; we giggled a few times. We did not scream; we did not roar with laughter, and we definitely did not applaud (which is bad etiquette at a movie anyway). That hot night, in that near empty theater, I can honestly say that the movie was just not all that funny. Those who went with me told me that they thought it was “clever” or perhaps “cute.”
Since that night, I have seen the movie a dozen times or more; mostly on TV and I do own a DVD of it. I still think that it is a very funny movie, but it has never seemed as funny as that first night. Some of the humor is dated, although perhaps not as dated as it was 20 years ago. I used to think of the dichotomy between those first two viewings of the movie when I would see Johnny Carson deliver his monologue and sometimes would get no reaction. He would stare out at the audience and say “Is anyone alive out there?” I also think about the year or so that I worked part time as an usher at Lisner Auditorium. Observing the same concert or performance two or even three times, the audience reaction was not always consistent. But those are examples of live performances. Performers on any given night may have a chemistry, an interaction with the crowd. But a movie?
Was the D.C. audience right to think this was so funny? Was the Pocomoke audience wrong to think it wasn't? I believe that comedy is about a time, a place and an atmosphere. This is a variant of "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." The first time I saw the movie it really was as funny as we thought because we - as a group - perceived it to be so. The second time it really was not as funny, because that is how we perceived it that night. I was part of both audiences and all these years later I can still remember and feel the perceptions I had at each of those screenings of the movie.
Perception is reality.
You had to be there.
(Reader comment)
Anonymous said...
I was there. It was funny. It's still funny. Especially Slim Pickens.
Your friend,
Slim
tk for PPE says- Slim, you've been conspicuous by your absence here at PPE. Would love for you to chime in more often like back in the "old" days.
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