Karl B, good to have you back ! I was hoping you would be. I hope you are well. You could certainly help in these Gem and Embassy Theater discussions !
I, too, saw “Serpico” at the Casino, early April 1974. Two months later I saw “Death Wish” with my dad at a midtown theater (59th and Lex, Baronet or Coronet, perhaps, or maybe that’s where we saw “Chinatown”)and thoroughly enjoyed cheering on the Bronson character, though we both agreed, after seeing the rape scene, that it was a good thing my mom had not come with us.
Many of the films I saw in 1974 seemed to have something to do with law enforcement, or the corruption thereof :
“Serpico”, “Death Wish”, “Chinatown”, “The Sting”, “Walking Tall”, “The Conversation”, “The Front Page” (remake).
There was also something called a “walk-a-lator”, a moving inclined ramp, or escalator without steps, that moved people from the lower level to the roof.
“Saying ‘74 in relation to flared pants is totally redundant, yes?”
Not necessarily. It’s better to over-define that to underdefine.
I wore both flared and straight-leg pants back then.
Thanks for posting this anecdote, BrooklynJim. I think the Beatles exploding onto the American scene in early 1964 did much to lift the nation from the doldrums of JFK’s assassination.
As for learning Beatles songs fast enough to impress the coed womenfolk : I’m reminded of the film “Il Postino”, in which the fisherman turned postman wants to become a poet, to woo and win the local beauty, and the fact that you may have been inspired to impress pretty coeds with Beatles songs by all the screaming teenage girls seen in the film
Where were YOU when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, 8-9 p.m. Sunday February 9, 1964 ?
I know what you mean about “A Hard Day’s Night” being a level above “The Quatermass Experiment” (or “The Creeping Unknown”, as I first saw it titled on Chiller Theater, Saturday WPIX Channel 11, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.)
Thanks for the mini history of Robert Hall Village / Metro Mall, Bway. I remember it having both names. I was first there around Thanksgiving 1974. I especiallu enjoyed the panoramic view of Upper Ridgewood to the south, from the parking lot on the roof.
My son came to work with me yesterday. We had lunch in Puglia’s on Hester off Mulberry in Little Italy, and walked by Most Precious Blood Catholic Church on the way back to my office.
Brooklyn Prep school colors were blue and white, right ?
Wasn’t President Street in Crown Heights / Park Slope also heavily Italian ? My home parish of St. Brigid’s in Wyckoff Heights certainly was !
EdSolero, thanks for your feedback. Thanks for the explanation of distributors wanting that PG-13 rating for their films. Last summer, I heard that reasoning expressed in another form, namely, that NC-17 films don’t make money, because they miss the mid-teen audience.
Thanks for the tip on “Humanoids from the Deep” !
BTW : “prurient” means “lustful” : give us more sex !
Thanks for your Bardot-Tablet story, BrooklynJim. I’m ten years younger than you, so it’s a bit hard to relate. I remember Bardot mentioned as a sexpot around 1964-65, but never saw her in any films. I remember an over-scrupulous conversation with my cousin Fran, both of us age nine, in the late fall of 1964, about whether or not the film “Horror Of Party Beach” was indecent or not. It showed scaly monstrosities menacing bikini-clad babes on the beach.
I don’t recall a “hot” movie that all the guys felt they had to see when I finished 8th grade at St. Brigid’s parochial school in the spring of 1969, only that, by the end of that year, film-makers were letting it all hang out with films like “Midnight Cowboy” and “I Am Curious”, both blue and yellow, and later in April 1970 with “Without A Stitch”. I remember being taken aback by the sex and nudity in the film “Joe” when I first saw it in February 1971.
Things seemed to peak in the late spring and early summer of 1975, when I saw a re-release of “Harrad Experiment” and “Harrad Summer” at the RKO Madison, then the first run of “The Incarnation Of Peter Proud” at the Madison in July 1975, showing Margot Kidder masturbating fully frontally nude in her bathtub.
Then DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” at the Madison in May 1976, then the trashy “Lipstick”, with the Hemingway sisters and Chris Sarandon at the Madison in July 1976, which is the last film I ever saw at the Madison.
Films nowadays seem much more restrained in terms of sex and nudity than the films of the early to mid 1970’s.
Thanks for your input on the Valencia, BrooklynJim. Yes, there was also a Merrick Theatre, not far from the Alden. They, along with the Hillside, all have pages on this site.
There is plenty of material on this page about the Valencia as a church, The Tabernacle Of Prayer For All People.
I remember the “blaxploitation” films very well, including “Shaft” and “Foxy Brown” : “She’s sweet brown sugar and spice, who’ll put your ass on ice !” or some such slogan. Also William Marshall as “Blacula”, 1969’s “Change Of Mind”, about a black-white brain transplant, starring Raymond St. Jacques and Susan Oliver, and November 1974’s “Abby”, the blaxploitation cash-in on “The Exorcist” :
“Abby doesn’t need a man any more … the Devil is her lover now !”
Thanks, Warren and klass, for your input. Yes, klass, those numbered streets used to be all named streets : 104th St. : Oxford Avenue, 111th Street : Greenwood Avenue, names preserved for awhile in the names of the Liberty Avenue (Lefferts A train) el stations.
Thanks for your input, BrooklynJim. I remember well the Legion of Decency’s “Condemned List” in The Tablet. I think the film “Heaven Knows Mr. Alison” starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, is still on it, because the Mitchum character, Alison, undressed a nun (Kerr), albeit to save her life.
‘Tonino, thanks for your input on ENY as a great Italian neighborhood. A Saint Francis Prep classmate of mine, Frank Lombardo, was from St. Rita’s. We both graduated the Prep in 1973.
wally1975, the last time I passed by, April 4, 2006, the Madison Coffee Shop was still there, if you mean that small, triangular, hole-in-the-wall breakfast counter, on the north side of Myrtle Avenue, just west of the bar that used to be on the northwest corner of Myrtle Avenue and Woodbine Street, and just east of what used to be Gottlieb’s Jewish Deli Restaurant, and diagonally across Myrtle Avenue from what used to be the RKO Madison Theater, and what is now a Liberty Dept. Store. The Madison Coffee Shop has a white sign, with, I think, black elongated art deco letters, and a red Coca-Cola sign at either end.
Thanks for posting your memories here, BrooklynJim. “The number 15 train” is a reference to the old BMT route numbering system. I know those William Castle-directed “gimmick” films very well, although I experienced them at Film Forum in lower Manhattan, rather than at the RKO Bushwick, Madison or Ridgewood Theater in their original release.
Stephen King and his kid pals referred to “Macabre” as “McBare”. As a kid, I mispronounced it as “MAC-A-BREE”. “The Tingler”’s gimmick was “spine-tingling Percepto”, “House on Haunted Hill” was “bone-chilling Emergo”, and the glowing plastic skeleton was on the left side of the Film Forum screen.
Did you see “Mr. Sardonicus” with its “punishment poll” ?
I can almost feel your loss of a molar to Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy ! Ouch ! I remember the TV commercials for it in the early ‘60’s.
I, too, am pleased to see the Bushwick survive, albeit as a school instead of a theater.
Karl B, good to have you back ! I was hoping you would be. I hope you are well. You could certainly help in these Gem and Embassy Theater discussions !
That’s a great line from “Serpico” !
Life and art imitate each other all-too-often.
One of my favorite lines of Bissell’s was in “I Was A Teenage Frankenstein” :
“Speak ! You have a civil tongue in your head ! I know ! I sewed it there !”
I, too, saw “Serpico” at the Casino, early April 1974. Two months later I saw “Death Wish” with my dad at a midtown theater (59th and Lex, Baronet or Coronet, perhaps, or maybe that’s where we saw “Chinatown”)and thoroughly enjoyed cheering on the Bronson character, though we both agreed, after seeing the rape scene, that it was a good thing my mom had not come with us.
Many of the films I saw in 1974 seemed to have something to do with law enforcement, or the corruption thereof :
“Serpico”, “Death Wish”, “Chinatown”, “The Sting”, “Walking Tall”, “The Conversation”, “The Front Page” (remake).
1) “The Thing (from Another World)” :
“An interstellar carrot ! The mind boggles !”
2) “Hud” : I recall my dad’s remark about Paul Newman in 1966’s “Hombre” as “the blue-eyed, Jewish Indian”.
“ … the ubiquitous Whit Bissell!” I know what you mean ! Ditto Ned Glass, Stanley Adams, Richard Deacon, and John Hoyt :
“Oh, no, not HIM again !”
Pam Grier was “Foxy Brown”. And let’s not forget Rosalind Cash in 1971’s “The Omega Man”.
There was also something called a “walk-a-lator”, a moving inclined ramp, or escalator without steps, that moved people from the lower level to the roof.
“Saying ‘74 in relation to flared pants is totally redundant, yes?”
Not necessarily. It’s better to over-define that to underdefine.
I wore both flared and straight-leg pants back then.
Thanks for posting this anecdote, BrooklynJim. I think the Beatles exploding onto the American scene in early 1964 did much to lift the nation from the doldrums of JFK’s assassination.
As for learning Beatles songs fast enough to impress the coed womenfolk : I’m reminded of the film “Il Postino”, in which the fisherman turned postman wants to become a poet, to woo and win the local beauty, and the fact that you may have been inspired to impress pretty coeds with Beatles songs by all the screaming teenage girls seen in the film
Where were YOU when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, 8-9 p.m. Sunday February 9, 1964 ?
I know what you mean about “A Hard Day’s Night” being a level above “The Quatermass Experiment” (or “The Creeping Unknown”, as I first saw it titled on Chiller Theater, Saturday WPIX Channel 11, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.)
Thanks for the mini history of Robert Hall Village / Metro Mall, Bway. I remember it having both names. I was first there around Thanksgiving 1974. I especiallu enjoyed the panoramic view of Upper Ridgewood to the south, from the parking lot on the roof.
The price is right !
Or a pulpit. Sometimes the stage remains, or is refurbished, and is used for live singing (choir) or dance productions.
BrooklynJim, what’s a “pezzonovante” ?
I thought Episcopal was “Catholic – Lite!”
My son came to work with me yesterday. We had lunch in Puglia’s on Hester off Mulberry in Little Italy, and walked by Most Precious Blood Catholic Church on the way back to my office.
Brooklyn Prep school colors were blue and white, right ?
Wasn’t President Street in Crown Heights / Park Slope also heavily Italian ? My home parish of St. Brigid’s in Wyckoff Heights certainly was !
Try looking for “Blacula” on DVD or VHS.
I do not know, either.
EdSolero, thanks for your feedback. Thanks for the explanation of distributors wanting that PG-13 rating for their films. Last summer, I heard that reasoning expressed in another form, namely, that NC-17 films don’t make money, because they miss the mid-teen audience.
Thanks for the tip on “Humanoids from the Deep” !
BTW : “prurient” means “lustful” : give us more sex !
“prudent” : means the opposite.
Thanks for your Bardot-Tablet story, BrooklynJim. I’m ten years younger than you, so it’s a bit hard to relate. I remember Bardot mentioned as a sexpot around 1964-65, but never saw her in any films. I remember an over-scrupulous conversation with my cousin Fran, both of us age nine, in the late fall of 1964, about whether or not the film “Horror Of Party Beach” was indecent or not. It showed scaly monstrosities menacing bikini-clad babes on the beach.
I don’t recall a “hot” movie that all the guys felt they had to see when I finished 8th grade at St. Brigid’s parochial school in the spring of 1969, only that, by the end of that year, film-makers were letting it all hang out with films like “Midnight Cowboy” and “I Am Curious”, both blue and yellow, and later in April 1970 with “Without A Stitch”. I remember being taken aback by the sex and nudity in the film “Joe” when I first saw it in February 1971.
Things seemed to peak in the late spring and early summer of 1975, when I saw a re-release of “Harrad Experiment” and “Harrad Summer” at the RKO Madison, then the first run of “The Incarnation Of Peter Proud” at the Madison in July 1975, showing Margot Kidder masturbating fully frontally nude in her bathtub.
Then DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” at the Madison in May 1976, then the trashy “Lipstick”, with the Hemingway sisters and Chris Sarandon at the Madison in July 1976, which is the last film I ever saw at the Madison.
Films nowadays seem much more restrained in terms of sex and nudity than the films of the early to mid 1970’s.
Or, ERD, as Jay Leno once said, a concrete bunker at the end of the shopping mall !
I know what you mean about movies as an escape from tough times.
Thanks for your input on the Valencia, BrooklynJim. Yes, there was also a Merrick Theatre, not far from the Alden. They, along with the Hillside, all have pages on this site.
There is plenty of material on this page about the Valencia as a church, The Tabernacle Of Prayer For All People.
I remember the “blaxploitation” films very well, including “Shaft” and “Foxy Brown” : “She’s sweet brown sugar and spice, who’ll put your ass on ice !” or some such slogan. Also William Marshall as “Blacula”, 1969’s “Change Of Mind”, about a black-white brain transplant, starring Raymond St. Jacques and Susan Oliver, and November 1974’s “Abby”, the blaxploitation cash-in on “The Exorcist” :
“Abby doesn’t need a man any more … the Devil is her lover now !”
Thanks, Warren and klass, for your input. Yes, klass, those numbered streets used to be all named streets : 104th St. : Oxford Avenue, 111th Street : Greenwood Avenue, names preserved for awhile in the names of the Liberty Avenue (Lefferts A train) el stations.
Thanks for your input, BrooklynJim. I remember well the Legion of Decency’s “Condemned List” in The Tablet. I think the film “Heaven Knows Mr. Alison” starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, is still on it, because the Mitchum character, Alison, undressed a nun (Kerr), albeit to save her life.
‘Tonino, thanks for your input on ENY as a great Italian neighborhood. A Saint Francis Prep classmate of mine, Frank Lombardo, was from St. Rita’s. We both graduated the Prep in 1973.
wally1975, the last time I passed by, April 4, 2006, the Madison Coffee Shop was still there, if you mean that small, triangular, hole-in-the-wall breakfast counter, on the north side of Myrtle Avenue, just west of the bar that used to be on the northwest corner of Myrtle Avenue and Woodbine Street, and just east of what used to be Gottlieb’s Jewish Deli Restaurant, and diagonally across Myrtle Avenue from what used to be the RKO Madison Theater, and what is now a Liberty Dept. Store. The Madison Coffee Shop has a white sign, with, I think, black elongated art deco letters, and a red Coca-Cola sign at either end.
Thanks, Bway, for recounting some of our cyber-interaction history.
Thanks, BrooklynJim. My pleasure !
I, too, attended parochial school : St. Brigid’s in Ridgewood.
Punishment poll ? Let’s see those cards; hold ‘em high !
Thumbs up ? Mercy. Thumbs down ? No mercy.
Castle only ever filmed the “no mercy” ending.
Haven’t seen “Matinee” yet.
The first time I saw a first-run Castle film was summer 1965 at the RKO Madison : “I Saw What You Did”(and I know who you are !)
Thanks for posting your memories here, BrooklynJim. “The number 15 train” is a reference to the old BMT route numbering system. I know those William Castle-directed “gimmick” films very well, although I experienced them at Film Forum in lower Manhattan, rather than at the RKO Bushwick, Madison or Ridgewood Theater in their original release.
Stephen King and his kid pals referred to “Macabre” as “McBare”. As a kid, I mispronounced it as “MAC-A-BREE”. “The Tingler”’s gimmick was “spine-tingling Percepto”, “House on Haunted Hill” was “bone-chilling Emergo”, and the glowing plastic skeleton was on the left side of the Film Forum screen.
Did you see “Mr. Sardonicus” with its “punishment poll” ?
I can almost feel your loss of a molar to Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy ! Ouch ! I remember the TV commercials for it in the early ‘60’s.
I, too, am pleased to see the Bushwick survive, albeit as a school instead of a theater.
Thanks, KenRoe ! That latter thought had not occurred to me.