This week's Friday Movie Flashback goes back 41 years to September 20, 1978. The movies playing in Murfreesboro, TN on what was a Wednesday then were a mixture of rock and roll both real and fake, an Italian sex comedy originally titled "La Professoressa Di Scienze Naturali" which in English is just "The Professor of Natural Sciences", an American sex comedy about a bogus sex clinic, and what I consider to be one of Burt Reynolds's best films.
The fake rock and roll was the blockbuster movie of 1978. Grease was the word that summer. The ad in the paper from the Martin Twin located in Jackson Heights Shopping Center touted the movie was in its 5th week. Sure, it was released way back in March, but as my friend Jimmy has pointed out to me, back in the Seventies Murfreesboro did not always get movies during their first released week. It could be several months later before they played which seems to definitely be the case with Grease.
I did go see Grease in the theater that summer before school began so it would have been earlier in the run when I saw it. I went alone, quite possibly walking from the rental house we had moved into earlier in the year on Murfree Avenue as it was a matinee that I attended. I was hooked from the moment the Barry Gibb penned title song performed by Frankie Valli and cartoon credits played. My parents came of age in the Fifties so I had been raised on Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Sha Na Na had a television show and Happy Days was still a top ten show. I enjoyed being awash in Fifties nostalgia and still do. The oddest thing to me was my parents wouldn't let ride a bicycle on the street until I was in 8th grade, but were fine with me walking up to Jackson Heights alone to either hang out or see a movie.
Hooper was the 6th biggest movie at the box office that year and I saw that one at the Martin Four also. Burt Reynolds was my favorite movie star and I knew I didn't want to miss that one. It's a bit strange how one can remember seeing a film in the theatre when one is 11 years old, but I can. Sonny Hooper is one of Burt's best roles as he really turns in a fine performance as the aging stuntman being challenged by Ski played by Jan-Michael Vincent. It's a perfect mixture of comedy, action, and with just enough drama thrown in also. I highly recommend it.
The Mar-Bro Drive-In had a pair of sex comedies that I have never seen. School Days is the Italian entry which was made in 1976. Seniors was released in 1978 with the premise being 4 dorks open a fake sex clinic. It does have Dennis Quaid and Priscilla Barnes in it so I might have to check it out one of these day.
Cinema_One was featuring the real rock and roll with Martin Scorsese's wonderful documentary of The Band's last performance (at the time) called The Last Waltz. I did not see that in the theater. I was familiar with a few of The Band's songs then, but not enough to make me want to beg my mother to take me across town. We generally lived on the Mitchell-Neilson side of Murfreesboro and didn't get over to the Mercury Plaza area as often. I did see many films there, but it was usually much easier to attend ones playing at the Martin. I do love how if one looks back at the history of movies playing Murfreesboro it was generally the Cinema_One and then later Cinema_Two that played the artsier and more out there movies. I saw The Last Waltz probably in 1985 and enjoyed it. I actually own The Last Waltz on DVD and have Grease and Hooper on Blu-ray. 
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