The Horror...The Horror...

My first obsession when I was a wee lad way back in the 20th century was horror films. I'd have to say they were possibly my first movie crush, the genre that led me down the path to geekdom. I watched them whenever, wherever, however I could anytime of the day or night. Once my friend Albert and I made his house as dark as we possibly could as we watched HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon. Back then, there were only a handful of TV stations to choose from and I'd always insist on watching channels from the Bay Area because they showed the best stuff. I'd rush home from school since KGO in San Francisco played some choice morsels at four in the after noon. Late at night, KPIX ran their best of the best way after midnight. Antenna reception was questionable especially in the daytime, but I'd brave a couple of hours of snow and static to get my fix. The Sacramento stations just didn't have the programming I craved until the great Bob Wilkins Show came to my rescue when it premiered Saturday nights on KCRA.

Horror films were more accessible on TV, but I craved the movie-going experience. That was a leap to the major leagues as far as I was concerned. Once I was old enough, off I went and I never looked back.

Stockton's Fox California (now the Bob Hope Theater. Yes, really) was the best place possible to see

scary movies, it being the only true movie palace in town. In fact the Fox was like a giant screening room in an old castle, kind of murky, always cold and actually rather spooky. It's where I was able to finally see films from Hammer Studios, producers of the Christopher Lee Dracula series, Peter Cushing Frankensteins and so many more gloriously gory delights. When I saw John Gillings’ PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, one of the scariest Hammer productions ever, the chilly Fox auditorium was such a perfect atmosphere that I felt like I was right in the picture, a graveyard in gloomy old Cornwall. I spent an entire Saturday-I mean day and night-at a marathon showing of five Edgar Allen Poe adaptations from the Roger Corman days at American International including TALES OF TERROR and TOMB OF LIGEIA. By the middle of the fourth film, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, I was getting a little woozy, but I toughed it out.

I earned my geek merit badge by entering a Halloween costume contest at the Fox in a vampire get-up I created for myself. With makeup I applied at home, I honestly looked a little like Bat Boy. I headed downtown to the Fox by bus, ignoring the bewildered stares of the other passengers because I was too busy convincing myself of my impending first place finish. What I didn’t count on was that the contest was to be judged by applause and I just didn’t have any friends in the audience. You see, I went by myself as I often did and this had turned into a popularity contest. The winner was a kid with a whole bunch o’ buddies who clapped, hooted and hollered like there was no tomorrow. His costume was a hat.

And how did I rank in the contest? Well, there were crickets in the Fox California that day for I didn't receive a single solitary clap. After the walk of shame off the stage, I headed for the restroom to wash the makeup off my face the best I could. I returned to my seat and wondered why I entered at all. I did so on an impulse without informing anyone of my actions. Sure, I would have reveled in the joy of winning, but I didn't and just moved on. I actually wasn't sad. This was something I found that I had to do for myself so I just went ahead and did it. Ultimately, I was rather proud of lil' ol' me so I sat back and enjoyed the show. After all, it was a horror movie and right then and there, life was good.

Such were the origins of a geek like me.

Bambi: The E! True Hollywood Story

I haven't pimped my first book, IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER, in quite a long time. In fact, I've never provided an excerpt in this here blog. So, for the first time, please enjoy this clip entitled:

BAMBI: THE E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

BAMBI was the first movie I never saw.

My mom used to like to tell the story of taking me to see the classic Disney cartoon back when I couldn’t have been more than two years old. I don’t recall this momentous occasion in my life, which, more than likely, was probably my first exposure to the world cinema. Even though she stretched the truth here and there, Ma didn’t lie, so this is the way it supposedly came down.

Apparently, all I kept saying on the way to the movie theater was “I wanna see
Bambi! I wanna see Bambi!” (Awww…Baby’s first mantra…) Once we arrived, we
passed the lobby display for the film, which I would assume to have been the famous shot
of Bambi, turning around and checking out the butterfly on his ass...eh, tail. I was totally
mesmerized by this life-size cartoon image. The size alone dwarfed my lil’ toddler self
so, needless to say, I was pretty darn impressed already. Then again, everything was big
in those days. Even poodles.

Anyway, with me in my mother’s loving arms, into the auditorium we went to
find us a suitable seat for the duration of the picture show. Once that mission had been
accomplished and we were settled, I must have felt it was high time that I start my war
cry once again, this time a little more manic and ten times more repetitious.

“I wanna see Bambi! I wanna see Bambi!”

Mom kept reassuring me that, in just a few minutes, I would be able to do that
very thing.

“So pipe down, will ya?”

Mom often quoted from the Mickey Spillane Book of Childcare.

“I wanna see Bambi! I wanna see Bambi!”

Finally, the lights dimmed and the movie mercifully started. You’d think that
might have appeased me or, at the very least, shut me up a little. Uh-uh. I was even more
incessant and, perhaps, just a little crazed.

“I wanna see Bambi! I wanna see Bambi!”

Mom pointed up to the screen and said, “There! Look up there! There’s Bambi!”

“No!” I argued and pointed toward the lobby. “I wanna see Bambi!”

My mother figured it out and immediately schlepped me back out to the front so I
could once again gaze at the cardboard cutout of Bambi. It did the trick, lulling me into
enough of a tranquilized state that I finally did pipe down once and for all. We never
again ventured inside to see the movie, my mom not wanting to take the chance that I
might snap at any given moment. So, we stayed in the lobby for the rest of the show until
it was safe to go on home.

To this day, I cannot remember if I ever saw BAMBI at all, except in clips, of
course. Therefore, I’ve never had to suffer the childhood trauma of witnessing the
gangland hit on Bambi’s mom, another helpless victim of wilderness genocide. (Disney
did nail me a few years later with a documentary from the True Life Adventure series
called THE LEGEND OF LOBO. I’ve NEVER recovered from that nightmare.)

From the BAMBI experience, I’ve come away with a story that may or may not
have happened as it was told over the years. It has probably been as fabricated as that
cardboard lobby display was, lo, so many years ago. But, since I’ve never seen the movie,
there is one thing I would like to know…

Even if they were deer, just who in the hell names a boy Bambi anyway?

The Kindle edition of IN THE DARK : A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER is now on sale at Amazon.com.


IN THE DARK at AMAZON