Film Flashback December 18, 1981

There are only 7 days 'til Christmas, but you've got time for a film flashback to December 18, 1981 to see what was playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We'll check out the Marbro Drive In first. 

There's the college exploitation sub-classic H.O.T.S. about the H.O.T.S. college sorority fending off crooks while taking part in nude skydiving, wet t-shirt contests, strip football, and a pie fight from a hot air balloon to mention some of the highlights. Plus you get Danny Bonaduce too. 

When I was younger I used to get Jacqueline Bisset and Adrienne Barbeau mixed up. They were both beautiful ladies and the Marbro features Jacqueline in Together? which has the tagline: "shocking, sensual...without shame!" Maximilian Schell costars and Terence Stamp has two brief scenes. It's sold as an exploitative film, but I'm pretty sure it's a fairly boring drama from what I've read about it. H.O.T.S. and its low brow comedy was probably the better movie in the double feature. 

most intellectually stimulating movie of the year

The Cinema_One has horror thriller Wolfen and a late night showing of Quadrophenia which is billed as The Who in Quadra Phenia. Somebody go back in time and get the Cinema_One folks the correct spelling.   

There was a spate of werewolf movies in the late 70's and early 80's and Wolfen is a good variant on the theme. A New York cop investigates murders which look more like wild animal attacks. The movie involves Native American wolf spirit legends and is bound to get your heart racing in fear. Albert Finney and Edward James Olmos are great along with Gregory Hines and Diane Venora. 

they can sense the rhythm of your blood

Quadrophenia is based on The Who's Quadrophenia album which is about a mod named Jimmy suffering from multiple personality disorder. The movie is absolutely brilliant and would have been awesome to see in the big Cinema_One. Phil Daniels gives a great performance as Jimmy who takes glee in rumbling against rockers in Brighton, but can't stand his parents or his job. Sting, in his first film role,  plays the Ace Face. Leslie Ash is Jimmy's love interest. My favorite bit player is Toyah Willcox as Monkey. This movie is a speed fueled masterpiece about youth.

You've got to be somebody

a motion picture for every generation

Phil Daniels = legend

The Martin Twin has some star power with Burt Reynolds in Sharky's Machine and John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in Neighbors. Burt also directed the action crime drama set in Atlanta. It was a decent hit, but I think by now most people were expecting comic performances from Burt so it wasn't as big a hit as it deserved to be. It's a violent Neo-noir classic. Neighbors is just not that good of a film. An obnoxious couple moves next door and comedic conflict ensues. Belushi plays against type as the buttoned up normal guy while Aykroyd is the weird new neighbor. I do have the blu-ray, but more for nostalgic purposes than any other reason.

I am the police

welcome to the end of the road, I guess

Film Flashback August 21, 1981

Let's journey back to the age of myth when a now empty building once showed movies to people seeking entertainment, and air conditioning during the heat of summer. Clash of the Titans was playing at Cinema_One on August 21, 1981 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I might very well have been in the audience on that day or perhaps I was over at the Martin Twin as I have seen 3 of the films playing there on this week.

Clash of the Titans was a big budget film about Perseus with lots of awesome Ray Harryhausen stop motion animation. He ticks off Thetis and falls in love with Princess Andromeda. There's a mechanical owl named Bubo and a flying horse named Bill.....no wait, it's Pegasus! Sir Laurence Olivier plays Zeus! Harry Hamlin in his pre-law days portrays Perseus. The movie combines myths freely and that's part of the fun. The Greek sea monster was named Cetus while Kraken came from Norwegian myth, but Kraken does sound better. I went to see this one as soon as I could having devoured books of mythology as a child. I loved it then and still do today.

Release the kraken!

Stripes was one of the movies playing at the Martin Twin. Since it was R rated the Bill Murray hit army flick was out of the question for me I saw Honky Tonk Freeway instead. I watched Stripes years later and found it hilarious. One my favorite actors Warren Oates plays the drill sergeant. Murray is John Winger who talks his best friend Russell Ziskey, played by Harold Ramis, into joining the army. John Candy as Dewey "Ox" Oxberger is a bonus treat. P.J. Soles as Stella is super cute as Murray's Winger introduces her to kitchen gadgets. This is a two in one film with its boot camp scenes in the first half and then becoming a military/spy spoof in the second half. 

Honky Tonk Freeway is a strange Altmanesque movie about a small Florida town called Ticlaw being bypassed by a new highway. John Schlesinger (who won an Oscar for directing Midnight Cowboy) helmed this box office bomb which reportedly lost up to 22 million dollars. When their attempt to bribe the highway commission fails to get them the off ramp the town led by their mayor, played by William Devane, paint the town pink and then blow up a bridge so highway travelers have to go through Ticlaw. There is a water skiing elephant too. The enjoyment comes from all of the different people who end up in the town. Lots of B and C level actors feature in it along with an A lister like Terri Garr who I love. I saw this one at the Martin and enjoyed it. I can understand why it bombed. There's lots of action, but with so many characters to keep up with it's a hard film to get engaged with because as soon as you become vested in a set of characters you move on to others. I've seen it recently and it's not a bad movie, but it's not great either.

Dat's dah fact jack!

Son, there ain't no draft no more.

Yep...goin to the Super Bowl.

The first movie about cannonball run races, The Gumball Rally, was in my last film flashback, and here we have the one actually written by Brock Yates called The Cannonball Run starring Burt Reynolds as J.J. McClure  and a plethora of other big stars. Hal Needham directed this romp about an unsanctioned cross country race so you count on awesome car stunts. It had gone through it's original theatre run and was now playing the Marbro. I saw this movie the first week it was out and thought it was pretty good. Farrah Fawcett was gorgeous. Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were fantastic. This was one of Jackie Chan's first US roles. Dom DeLuise got on my nerves though. 

Burt Reynolds's classic W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings was also showing at the Marbro on this night. I could have swore I wrote about this film before, but I can't find it if I have. I love this movie which was shot in and around Nashville. The movie was being shown regularly on television by this date so it's just on the bill in order to have a Burt double feature plus you get the strangeness of both characters going by two initials. This film hasn't come out on DVD as far as I know, but the whole movie is on YouTube. The plot is simple: Burt is a grifter/gas station robber who befriends a country band while trying to avoid the law. He ends up becoming their manager and tries to get them on the Grand Ole Opry. Art Carney plays the detective assigned to catch W.W. and Don Williams and Furry Lewis have roles too. It's one of my favorite Burt Reynolds movies.

What about a black Trans-Am...no that's been done.

I don't give a dog about no Tennessee Vols.

Bonus Film Flashback Force Edition July 15, 1977 (Han Shot First!)

If you lived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and you saw Star Wars in the the theatre before July 15, 1977 you went to a different county to do it because Star Wars didn't arrive at the Cinema_One until this date 43 years ago. It debuted in Nashville on June 17, 1977 at Cinema North and South and was one of the movies which played the Hermitage Four's grand opening. I didn't see Star Wars during the first week or so at the Cinema. It was probably a couple of weeks later when I went with my mother to view it. The theater was packed and we sat in the very last row. It was quite thrilling and really perfect viewing for a 10 year old boy who was already mad for outer space thanks to the Apollo missions and a steady diet of Asimov's science fiction and non-fiction books from the library. I'm not going to write about the film itself as I believe everyone is either familiar with it or will become familiar with it. Pop culture wise the movie was a behemoth dominating mass media and the public imagination that year. You really had to be there to truly understand it. I ended up with a few Star Wars figures later that year, but never snagged one of those sweet Millennium Falcon toys. I played Star Wars with friends, but I actually liked my Micronauts figures more and would often incorporate them into our own imaginary Star Wars saga. Baron Karza fit right in with Darth Vader. One thing I do remember well is that nobody ever wanted to play as Luke. He was much too immature in the movie and he came across as whiney at times (which was the point of course). We all wanted to be Han Solo. After all, he shot first and I will never forgive Lucas for tampering with his own damn movie when it was perfect the way it was originally in 1977.

Trivia: The Woody Guthrie biopic Bound For Glory was the movie that played the Cinema_One right before the Star Wars run. The Other Side of Midnight was the movie that played after the first almost 6 week run ended. Star Wars was the Cinema_One's greatest box office hit at this point in time which makes sense. You could see the movie for just a $1 on the last night it ran August 25, 1977 per the ad ran in the Daily News Journal.

Nashville ad from June 12, 1977 Sunday Showcase

Original trailer

August 25, 1977 Ad

Star Wars toy commercial

Across town at Jackson Heights Plaza the Martin Twin was offering Smokey and the Bandit and Greased Lightning. I've written about Smokey and the Bandit before as it played several times in various theaters in 1977 and 1978. When it played on HBO later on I would watch it over and over. I watched the horribly edited version on network television when it premiered. It was and still is one of my favorite movies of all time and, luckily, Hal Needham never went back to tinker with it like Lucas did with Star Wars. 

I didn't see Greased Lightning at the theater. Even though it was rated PG, Richard Pryor was well known to my parents as being a foul mouthed comedian so my parents weren't going to let me see that one. Which is a shame as it would have nice to see on the big screen. It's the story of NASCAR's first black racer Wendell Scott and the film also features Pam Grier. It's no Star Wars or Smokey and the Bandit, but it's pretty good.  

TV spots 1977

Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper: The Ballad of Wendell Scott

Marbro Drive-In has couple of movies. One is the 1975 William Castle production Bug all about mutant cockroaches which can start fires. The tagline's for this bonkers film are great:

They Look Like Rocks...Possess A High Intelligence...Have No Eyes...And Eat Ashes...They Travel In Your Car Exhaust...They Make Fire...They Kill.

You may be their next meal!

They kill...

The Picture You See With Your Eyes Closed.

Out of the worst nightmare!

The other movie playing there is the 1976 remake of King Kong. I wanted to see this one in the theatre, but had to wait to see it on network television years later. My friend K.D. had a poster of Kong standing atop the World Trade Center Twin Towers in his bedroom. I thought that was pretty cool. It's not a bad remake, but the 1933 original is still mind blowing to this day. 

William Castle was something else

Film Flashback July 3, 1980

This film flashback takes us back to a galaxy far, far away when Murfreesboro had a wonderful rocking chair movie theatre named Cinema_One which was featuring Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on Thursday July 3, 1980. It was released nationally on June 20th, but the big ad with the scenes was in the June 18th Daily News Journal which makes me wonder if the Cinema didn't jump the gun a couple of days. The movie had been out in limited release since its premiere in Washington D.C. on May 17th. It would play uninterrupted at Cinema_One all through July finally giving way to the Chevy Chase bomb Oh! Heavenly Dog on August 1, 1980.

I'm not going to say much about a movie that perhaps everybody has seen or will see someday. I think it's the best of the series and I perversely like how it ends with the rebels in disarray, yet still hopeful. It's like a throwback to all of those Seventies movies which ended on bittersweet notes. I remember it was several weeks before I went to see it with my cousin Freddy, probably later in July, but I did not expect the surprise between Darth Vader and Luke so that was great. I doubt I could have avoided such a spoiler situation for too long nowadays. Another thing about that night I remember is simply driving by the Mars gas station that was across from where Maney Avenue terminated at Broad Street. I had moved to Smyrna around the end of March and we rarely ever went to that side of Murfreesboro. I thought the Mars station was futuristic looking and it was a treat to see it at night. 

a galactic odyssey against oppression

It was your last chance to see the Martin Twin and Marbro Drive In offerings as there was even an ad which I've included touting what would begin playing on Friday. The Get Smart movie The Nude Bomb had been playing a week while the Burt Reynolds film Rough Cut was finishing up its second week. 

The Nude Bomb was a bomb at the box office never making back its estimated cost to produce it. The brilliant Don Adams reprises his role of Maxwell Smart from the Get Smart television series, but the absence of Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 hurts the movie. The paper thin plot about an evil fashion designer who blackmails the world with the threat of unleashing a bomb that destroys clothes is too dumb for what was supposed to be a smart comedic parody of spy films. 

Rough Cut is a comedy caper with a little rom mixed in with the com starring Burt Reynolds, Lesley-Anne Down, and David Niven. Reynolds and Down are two diamond thieves that join forces and end up romantically involved. Niven is the Chief Inspector out to arrest them. The movie seems to have a troubled history with Blake Edwards originally set to direct before Don Siegel was selected. Siegel gets fired for Peter R. Hunt and when that doesn't work Siegel comes back to the movie. A fourth ending was filmed for the picture by yet another director Robert Ellis Miller. Producer David Merrick got sued by Peter R. Hunt and then David Niven sued him and Paramount Pictures claiming that he was underpaid and not billed correctly (his photo wasn't used on the US movie poster) so Rough Cut was indeed rough. It wasn't a hit, but it didn't flop either. I could not find a trailer for it.

What are these people fighting for...

The Marbro has a couple of movies I covered on previous film flashbacks so if you want to read about them here you go:

Starting Over can be found in October 11, 1979 film flashback and Little Darlings was covered in the April 3, 1980 film flashback. 

The movies would all be changing at the Martin Twin and the Marbro the next day and since it was the 4th of July and a cold blooded Hoth monster of a movie was packing them in across town a little extra publicity in the July 3rd paper was a plus. I'm not going to go into a breakdown of these films (I did cover Coal Miner's Daughter in the original post about Little Darlings) but I will include trailers for the first run Martin Twin entries. I did see Herbie Goes Bananas at the theatre outside Hickory Hollow Mall that summer. It was no Empire Strikes Back. Interesting that both The Shining and Herbie Goes Bananas feature VW Beetles.

Herbie

The Shining

Film Flashback June 19, 1977

June 19, 1977 was a Sunday so it's a perfect afternoon and evening to see some movies. Here is what was playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on that date. The Marbro has a couple of movies that probably wouldn't do much business with the after evening church service crowd....or perhaps they would. 

Girls On The Road from 1972 is about a couple of girls who pick up a Vietnam war veteran on their way to a hippie encounter session. Ralph Waite of The Waltons fame plays the hippie guru. A serial killer begins knocking girls off and it might be the Vietnam veteran played by Michael Ontkean probably most known for Slap Shot and the television show The Rookies. It's quite typical of youth exploitation films of its time. 

The other cinema classic at the Marbro is Satan's Cheerleaders which is about a janitor at a high school kidnapping the cheerleaders to use for a coven's rituals. One thing he didn't count on was one of the girl's is a witch herself and there's this head scratcher too....the coven needs to sacrifice a virgin so I don't know what the janitor was thinking as there were no virginal cheerleaders in Seventies b-movies.  I have never seen this film, but the trailers are definitely enticing. The Munsters Yvonne De Carlo is in the movie. 

Girls On The Road trailer

Satans Cheerleaders trailer for PG version

And another different trailer

Cinema_One's matinee offering The Last Tycoon which is the last movie directed by Elia Kazan. It boasts an all star cast with Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Jeanne Moreau, and Donald Pleasence to name but a few. F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel was about a Hollywood producer working himself to death so it was perfect fodder for a movie. I have not seen this movie, but I have liked most of the film's I've seen directed by Kazan so I may have to view it someday.

The Last Tycoon trailer

I had yet to see Smokey and the Bandit which was in its 4th big week at the Martin Twin, but it would still be playing when I did see it during the 2nd week of July. I've written about this movie before when it played at Cinema_One on January 31, 1978 so you can read my original summary there if you like. Suffice it to say, I love this movie and if not for a little space opera called Star Wars it might have been the top money maker of 1977. 

The Buford Pusser movie franchise's Final Chapter: Walking Tall was also playing and the Walking Tall films always did well at the Martin. Bo Svenson reprises his role as Pusser after taking over in the second film in the series. The real life Buford Pusser used to make personal appearances at car dealerships after the first film was released and was going to play himself in the sequel before dying in a one car accident when his Corvette struck an embankment at high speed in 1974. He was and still is a folk legend here in Tennessee. Final Chapter recounts lots of the events from the first 2 films and then ends with Pusser's death. Somehow it became a television series a few years later. I must admit I enjoyed the TV show and the first movie, but not this one. 

80 thousand dollars

Final Chapter Walking Tall shout factory trailer

Film Flashback May 22, 1976

May 22, 1976 was a Saturday night in Murfreesboro, Tennessee so what better time to go see a movie. You could see a matinee (well, not on a Saturday at the Cinema One), then hop over and see the first showing at another theatre, and still have time to see the late movie even. It's a Burt Reynolds bonanza on this night with your choice of Gator at the Cinema One or The Longest Yard at the Marbro Drive In. Before we go to the movies how about visiting Shoney's since they have a strawberry carnival going on.

Gator is ostensibly the sequel to White Lightning, but it feels more like a reboot to me. Burt plays Gator McKlusky who is back to making moonshine so the Feds pinch him to help in bringing the evil Bama McCall (played superbly by Jerry Reed) down. Lauren Hutton plays Burt's love interest while Jack Weston is the federal agent. There is an awesome boat chase at the beginning of the film and lots of other crazy stunts including one that almost got Hal Needham killed. The movie is really great at times, but it seems to swing wildly in tone like it can't figure out if it's an action drama or action comedy. I do like it enough to own the blu-ray. I didn't get to see it in the theatre, but remember catching it every time it aired on network television. It was the first film that Burt Reynolds directed.

We comin' to getcha Gator

Time to pay some bills here. I promised Frank I would run his Bicentennial ad for the money saving Save-A-Chips. Frank's IGA was one of my father's favorite grocery stores along with A & P which was later changed to Giant Foods, and Darwin's Shop-Rite. 

The Martin Twin has a couple of future drive-in movie staples with The Pom Pom Girls and the Roger Corman produced Eat My Dust. Eat My Dust would play the Marbro in November 1976, February 1977, and May 1978 while The Pom Pom Girls would play at the drive-in March 1979, January 1980, February and August 1981, and February 1982 paired with The Cheerleaders. I know such arcane information since I am compiling a list of every film that played Marbro Drive-In which I plan on sharing here beginning in July. Both films may have played additional times, but I'm just up to March 1982 and still have a few years to go. But for now the movies get their first run at Jackson Heights Center.

The Pom Pom Girls is your typical teen sex comedy of the era with a preoccupation with cheerleaders, football, and R rated hijinks. The movie would actually be re-released later with the nudity removed so the film could get a PG rating. The movie has future Revenge Of The Nerds star Robert Carradine in his first lead role. I've never seen this movie, but I do have this DVD set with it on it so I guess I need to give it a chance. I dig the Seventies cars and fashions in the trailer.

Their last chance to raise hell

Let's pause for another commercial. This time it is for the anchor store at Memorial Village: the great and wonderful Big K which was my second favorite department store in Murfreesboro.

Ron Howard wanted to get into directing so Roger Corman said sure, I'll let you direct a movie for me as long as you star in Eat My Dust first. So Ron starred in this great car chase film in order to direct and star in another car chase film called Grand Theft Auto the next year. Eat My Dust is about a high school kid stealing a stock car to impress a girl who ends up with riding with him. Many of the film's chase scenes were incorporated into the very similarly plotted Smokey Bites The Dust in 1981. This is a movie I really enjoy with great car chase footage and a certain wistful quality later during a time when the car is hidden away.  It was often matched with Gone In 60 Seconds during its drive-in run.

Ron Howard pops the clutch and tells the world to eat my dust

The Marbro Drive-In has a couple of superstar movies with Diana Ross starring in Mahogany while Burt Reynolds is onscreen for almost every scene in another of my favorite films The Longest Yard which was featured in the January 10, 1975 Film Flashback. You can click that link if you want to hear about that one. As for Mahogany I have never seen this movie, but I like Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams is super cool so I may have to check it out. The movie also features Anthony Perkins and Bruce Vilanch is in it too. If you are unfamiliar with the movie I'm sure you know the massive hit tune from it. The "Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" performed by Diana Ross garnered an Academy Award nomination for best song and hit number one on the Hot 100 Billboard charts. 

Diana Ross not only sings, she is a fashion designer

Do you know where you are goin to....well do you?

I think I broke his @*$&!^G neck!

Film Flashback January 31, 1978

It was a Tuesday in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 31, 1978. It got up to 31 degrees that day. You could stay in and watch Happy Days or you could go out and see the Fonz on the big screen. Except he's not the Fonz in Heroes. He's Vietnam War vet Jack Dunne suffering from post traumatic stress disorder who busts out of the mental hospital with a dream of starting a worm farm. Then he meets Carol Bell on a bus. Sally Field plays a woman about to be married having second thoughts. Harrison Ford is in it too. I believe I did talk my mother into letting me see this one alone at the Martin Twin while she went shopping since it had Henry Winkler in it. The Fonz was the absolute apex of pop culture television alpha males back then. Heroes ran often on HBO in 1979 and I definitely saw it several times on television. I wanted to like it, but it's just not that good a movie. Comedy and drama is hard to mix. 

My mother went with me to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot. It's terrible, but it's about Bigfoot so all is forgiven. I was Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster crazed in the 70's as most little boys were. There were sightings of Bigfoot and lake monsters all over the place. This movie was in its 3rd big week at a time when movies didn't usually stick around that long since there were only 5 screens in all of Rutherford County. The outdoor footage is pretty well done, but there's no real story there. The whole movie is on YouTube. 

Smokey and the Bandit was back on the big screen again in Murfreesboro playing at Cinema One. If not for Star Wars, the Burt Reynolds smash would have been the biggest movie of 1977. I had seen it way back in July of '77 at the Martin Twin with my cousins who were visiting from Memphis and Mississippi. I loved it then and I still love it today. I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie more than any other. Sally Field plays another would be bride running off from her wedding in this case. Jackie Gleason shines as Buford T. Justice of Portague County which is not a real county in Texas. Jerry Reed's music and acting chops enliven the proceedings too. The boys over at Redneck Matinee have a podcast dedicated to this classic trucker movie. The movie belongs to the Bandit though. Burt Reynolds's good ol' boy charm is perfected here. It's not his best movie, but it is essential viewing for its CB radio chatter and vision of the new South which was on the rise in the Seventies. I recommend you skip the sequels. 

The Marbro Drive-In has a couple of movies on their last night. Rod Steiger plays Benito Mussolini in The Last 4 Days which is about Mussolini's failed attempt to escape the Italian partisans. It is paired with Girls In Trouble  which is somehow billed as a comedy about ladies various attempts at having abortions. I think I would have to skip that night at the Marbro. There's an Italian language trailer for The Last 4 Days and Rod Steiger is intense as El Duce. I couldn't find one for Girls In Trouble. As Siskel and Ebert liked to say. The balcony is closed. Another Film Flashback will be posted next Friday at 6AM barring some major catastrophe.

Film Flashback January 10, 1975

It's going to be double the fun today here at Soulfish Stew. First up there's this flashback to the movies playing on January 10, 1975 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Check back later this evening for another film flashback to a different January 10th. It's the blog equivalent of a double feature! 

Burt Reynolds was playing on the big screen at Murfreesboro's one and only rocking chair theatre Cinema One. It was a truly marvelous place to see a movie, but sadly I was too young to see The Longest Yard there. The building that housed Cinema One and later Cinema Twin sits empty these days and my dream is to be given the money to reopen it as a single screen revival house. 

While I didn't see The Longest Yard in the theatre I saw it when it ran on television. I think every boy my age saw it on television as we would recite lines from it on the playground. It was actually strange to hear the edited for television "I think I broke his freaking neck" line in its uncensored glory when I finally saw the unedited version on VHS years later. It's a great genre mix up with the sports and prison film smashed into drama and comedy. Burt sparkles as Paul Crew and Eddie Albert is great as the villainous Warden Hazen. 

The Martin Twin has a couple of action flicks both centered around Vietnam war veterans. The Trial of Billy Jack is the 3rd in the series of Billy Jack movies starring and directed by Tom Laughlin. I've seen a few of them on television, but they have never done much for me. They were very successful at the box office and I had friends that would imitate Billy Jack's hapkido fighting moves.  There's not a good trailer of the movie at YouTube, but the hapkido scene makes me want to give the Billy Jack films another chance. The other offering was of The No Mercy Man which was about a Vietnam vet returning home to fight bikers and carnies. It's a couple of years old by the time it plays here under its original title. It seems like a film more suited to the drive-in circuit and had actually been re-titled Trained To Kill, USA by 1975 and re-released to the drive-in and second run theatre's that year. You can find the whole movie at YouTube under that revised name.

I wonder why the ad for Burt Reynolds in Fuzz actually features the same photo from The Longest Yard one? Were they trying to confuse possible Cinema One customers? Fuzz which was released in 1972, really looks like a fun movie and Raquel Welch is certainly stunning. I got the Blu-ray recently and it was a decent movie albeit very much a copy of the Robert Altman style then popular. Pulp starring Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney is a quirky movie about a pulp writer being asked by a reclusive star to write his biography. It might be worth a viewing. The drive-in liked to pair its movies and two one word named crime comedies with major stars would make for a nice night out, but it was only for one more night back in 1975.

If you didn't want to venture out into the possibly frigid January night air you could always make your own popcorn (my mother would put oil in a big pan and I'd love to hear it as it popped knowing what a great treat it would be) and stay home to watch what was on the four stations available then. I know that I watched Stowaway To The Moon on this particular evening. I was obsessed with NASA and space back then and I actually do remember anticipating this TV movie. It's out there on the net so I rewatched it over the Christmas holiday. It wasn't too bad. It's unbelievable that a kid would have been able to stowaway, but NASA loaned footage to the movie so there are some nice space scenes. 

Note: there will be another Film Flashback coming later today at 6:00PM. 

Film Flashback October 11, 1979

What was playing at the movies in Murfreesboro 40 years ago? Sheesh....40 years is a long time ago. I grew up watching Leave It To Beaver and it was closer to the 70's than these films are to the teens of our present day 21st century. Time is just wild. Perhaps Ram Dass had it right: Be here now. And what's happening now is films from yesteryear. It's a total mind melter I know.

Since it was October there had to be a scary movie. Cinema One wouldn't morph into Cinema Two for several more years. The exact date in case you're interested was April 20, 1984 showing The Ice Pirates and Romancing The Stone. Senior citizens would continue to get 40% off their tickets all the time. I wonder how many were scared out of their wits (For God's Sake, Get Out!) while viewing The Amityville Horror on what was a Wednesday in 1979. Since it was rated R there was no way I could get to see this one in the theater since I was only 12 at the time. I wanted to go see it since I loved horror movies, but would have to wait until it played on HBO or Cinemax later. It was okay. Maybe it would have been better on the big screen.

The Martin Twin across town couldn't let the Cinema One steal all of the spooky movie dollars during October so The Legacy was one of the two films playing there. I have never seen this one. Starting Over was also playing which was disappointing to me at the time even though I didn't see it. The disappointment came from it being a Burt Reynolds movie without cars, action, or Dom DeLuise (not that I was allowed to see The End in the theater, but at least it looked as crazy as its plot.) Starting Over was a romantic comedy also starring Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen. I have still not seen it, but I will get around to it. Burt Reynolds movies are, for the most part, all worth watching at least once.

Finally we come to the "Now equipped with radio sound" Marbro Drive-In  What movies were trunk loads of people going to see? Nothing scary going on at the place I used to call Marlboro Drive-In. The Kirk Douglas and Ann Margaret movie The Villain, which also featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ruth Buzzi, Mel Tillis, and Paul Lynde, and Peter Falk's Neil Simon written The Cheap Detective also starring Ann Margaret were what you'd see there. I didn't see these in the theatre either, but saw them often on HBO as they seemed to play in high rotation on it during the early 80's. I really need to catch The Cheap Detective again as Peter Falk's appeal just grows as one ages, but The Villain was a really terrible flick.

Hope you have enjoyed this trip into the past. If you like it tell your friends. I do this every Friday. Why? Why not.