Friday, December 06, 2019

Film Flashback December 6, 1977



The first movie that I saw by myself at the Martin Twin was Rocky. I was 10 or 11 years old. I wonder how many people would let their 11 year old only child take in a movie by themselves these days? As I've written before, I couldn't ride my bicycle on city streets, but I got to wander for miles on foot and I got to see movies alone. My parents were a bit strange when it came to what I was allowed and not allowed to do. It didn't matter in December of 1977 if I could ride my bike on the street since we had moved out into the country into a 2 story farm house with 5 acres earlier in the year. That house and land has been supplanted by the hospital now. The movie Rocky mesmerized me. It still does. Here it was on a second or maybe even third run in Murfreesboro playing the Martin. It was not uncommon for movies to play at one theatre and then play across town later.  I was happy Apollo defended his title and happy that Rocky went the distance and got his girl in the end. Plus Bill Conti's music is quite stirring. The Last Remake Of Beau Geste is a movie I haven't seen, but the trailer makes me want to see it since they made sure to note that Ann-Margret is in it. 










Cinema One was playing One On One. It's the story of a winner. I haven't seen this movie, but I remember Robby Benson getting pushed like a street drug back in the Seventies. He reminds me of Pete Maravich in the trailers and scenes I've watched on YouTube. Which takes me right back to that farm home out on Manson Pike we lived in during 1977 and some of 1978. It had a small barn in the back and after we moved in I found a cache of old Sports Illustrated magazines stored in it. There was hundreds of issues and many featured Pete Maravich. 




The Marbro Drive-In had a couple of b movies with the common theme this time being hell. Hughes & Harlow is about Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow and the filming of the movie Hell's Angels. It gets a pretty lackluster review on IMDB and the trailer gives us a small taste of what must be a pretty bad film. 

Part Time Wife is really A Woman For All Men with a new title. It has a decent cast with Judith Brown and Keenan Wynn featured in it, but I couldn't find a trailer for it. The whole movie is floating around on YouTube. 





Bonus: The Daily News Journal would feature a family every year going out and shopping for Christmas. It was obvious that the places they visited had paid for these entries and the Martin theatre made sure they were a part of these pieces that ran in November and December for years. Here's the one from 1977 that ran in the November 20th paper. The movie being promoted to the Craig family is Charge Of The Model T's. 


  

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