Power Exchange
220 Jones Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
220 Jones Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
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This is no longer the Campus All-Male theatre.
It is the Power Exchange (as noted in bio from 2010)
Website is https://www.powerexchange.com/
Actually, the earliest listing for the Screening Room at 220 Jones is from April 10th, 1967 with a color double bill of Sylvia’s Girls and Girls A-Poppin'. It seems to have operated as such (showcasing double bills of color features) for about two months in 1967. Then, there is a gap. Eventually, it reemerges in 1968 showcasing beavershorts. (btw, Pornography in Denmark was released in 1970, not in 1968, and it premiered at North Beach, not at the Screening Room.)
Reopened as Savages on September 15th, 1982. Tiny ad posted.
The first ad for this cinema as “Screening room” appeared on March 2nd, 1968 in the Chronicle with “The Vampire goes courting” and Selected Beavers. Ad in photo section.
Former owner of this and Market Street Cinema has passed away.
http://hoodline.com/2016/11/rip-habib-carouba-a-san-francisco-porn-pioneer
The information listed above is incorrect. The name progression was Screening Room then Savages (Abdul Droubi owner) and then Campus Theatre ( Steven Downard, owner, later bought by Habib Carouba (Market Street Cinema)who kept the Campus name. After that I am not sure, as I was no longer affiliated with it. I managed the theater for a few years under both Steve Downard and Habib. I would be interested in communicating with DiscoSurvivor to share some information.
“Hello, and thanks for calling the All New Campus Theater, home of the renowned Varsity Strip Squad and featuring the hottest and horniest performers on the West Coast. They are Live on stage and in the audience, all nude, all hard and all for you! The Campus Theater is located at 220 Jones Street in downtown San Francisco. Maybe you’ve tried the rest but isn’t it time you tried the BEST? For the absolute BEST in all male entertainment, the All New Campus Theater! See you here!”
Mid-1982 … the Screening Room Cinema tried to change its image (as pionted out above) and attract a younger patronage. A well publisized gay extravaganza was presented with three popular gay screen stars live on stage. Also for this show five fresh new strippers were brought in for this program. One extremely handsome stripper named Tex stopped the show when he caused more of a sensation than the porn stars, and he really raked in the tips too. Such a large SRO crowd caused the fire dept to raid the theatre midway through the performance for violating fire hazard rules by packing in so many men.
(Shortly thereafter Tex starred in a couple of porn movies under the name Danny DelaRosa, but for one reason or another his stage appeal didn’t translate to film)
>> De Renzy, also a prominant pornographic filmmaker between 1967-early 2000’s, would run the Screening Room until the early 1980’s, when it converted to gay porn and later gay live shows under the name of the Campus All-Male Theater. By 1986, it had been renamed Savages Theatre, still screening all-male XXX films>>
Some of this is inaccurate. It was not called the Campus in the early ‘80s. I was a cashier/projectionist there in 1981-1982. When I began in 1981, the theater was called The Screening Room and had been for some time. It was then a run-down porno theater catering mostly to old men. A few months into my employment, new owners, or at least new managers, from Chicago, came in and did a makeover, trying to transform it into a “hot” club that would attract a younger, trendier crowd. (This only partially happened; who wanted to go down to the dicey Tenderloin, when you could go to Folsom or Castro St. sex clubs, where the fee was also cheaper?) The place was repainted all in black and neon orange and renamed Savages. Live strip shows were held on the smallish stage below the screen. I often worked the lights from the projectionist booth upstairs. At the premiere of Savages, the porn star Richard Locke came and did a live show (and gave a safe sex talk — probably one of the first-ever). The basement was renovated and turned into a sort of sex club, with a maze, a wrestling pit with bleachers (for the “cock fight” wrestling matches), a giant bed, slings, etc. Most of the staff was wacked on meth and/or MDA. I must be the only one who didn’t die from aids or overdose.
Not quite the movie palace.
Yet another controversy going on—The most recent use was as the Pink Diamonds strip club. It was forced to shut down as its operating permit was yanked because of continuing problems with violence & shootings involving some of the patrons. Currently, the Power Exchange, a sex club, wants to move its operations here and the San Francisco City Academy (the religious schol down the street) is trying to block it.
According to one atricle in the SF Weekly newspaper (several months ago), the building is owned by a current San Francisco City Supervisor.
I was a cashier at this theatre, under the management of porn director Alex De Renzy. We got raided one night, the SFPD loaded us in the van, there was nothing to hold on to, and they were turning corners about 30 miles per hour slamming all of us around, they then raided the OFarrell, that’s how i met Jim Mitchell. Then they raided the Roxie (Roxie was porn then) on 16th street, but they left the follies theatre on the same block alone. We were all released the next day. Feinstein was Mayor, and when i saw her walking down market street with her beastly friends, she waved at me and I flipped her off. Feinstein authorized those raids to try to get San Francisco “rid” of porn, but failed.
The Screening Room was a interesting place. You paid your ticket and walked into the lobby with stairs to the left that led to a room with couches. Another staircase, which led to the basement, is where DeRenzy made his movies. The main auditorium which was quite spacious had around a couple of hundred seats with a huge movie screen. The Screening Room then converted to porn, and renamed Savages. It stayed Savages for a few years then turned into the Campus Cinema.