Remember that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles screening I went to a while back? Well, there’s more — a whole lot more — to the story that I didn’t disclose in my previous review. I was deliberately holding things back because I wanted to save them for today’s rather peculiar entry.
See, I’ve been taking a Creative Nonfiction Writing class for the past few months. The course description promised lessons on reviews, satire, and nature journalism. Instead, I got lessons on memoir, portrait essays and literary journalism. C’est la vie. Anyway, I was tasked with writing a work of literary journalism partway through the month of July, and I chose the Hollywood Theatre for my subject. Partly, this was because my research on the topic was already done, and partly it was because the theater was putting on its first “Arcade-O-Vision” event. I was planning on going to the event anyway, and it was bound to give me more material for my essay.
In the end, the night of “Arcade-O-Vision” yielded two written works: The aforementioned TMNT review, and my literary journalism essay, titled “Nostalgia.” The latter has finally been graded, and I’d like to share it with you now.
***
It’s July 14, 2011. People are lining up around the block to enter the Hollywood Theatre. One by one, they pass by the entrance, and pay $8 each for a ticket to the first-ever “Arcade-O-Vision.” Past the lobby, past the concession stand, and past the auditorium doors, an arcade demo is being played on the theater’s screen.
Eighty-five years ago, nearly to the day, the Hollywood Theatre first opened. It was July 17, 1926. People lined up around the block to get in, all of them admiring the Spanish Colonial towers and elaborate polychrome terra cotta figures decorating the entrance. One by one, they paid 25 cents for a ticket (kids got in for a dime) to the first movie ever screened in this theater.
Because the film was silent, as all movies were at the time, music was provided by an eight-piece orchestra and a $40,000 Wurlitzer pipe organ, all in a pit at the front of the auditorium. The orchestra pit has long since been built over, and the pipe organ was sold away many years ago. There’s now a stage at the front of the screen, where seven musical instruments and four joysticks sit unattended amidst several microphones and dozens of underfoot wires. These were all specially arranged for the event and they’ll all be used eventually, but only after the movie.
Arcade-O-Vision events are held every two months, and each one comes with its own theme. For this inaugural event, the theme is “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” When show time comes, the classic TMNT arcade game disappears from the screen and is replaced by the 1990 live-action movie. It’s a shared trip to the past for those in the audience, as they laugh at the old familiar jokes, and suspend disbelief for the bad screenwriting they never noticed as children.
This auditorium’s first audience was here to see More Pay – Less Work, directed by Albert Ray. The movie was a broad romantic comedy about two lovers born to rivaling family businesses. Though a copy of Ray’s movie survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the picture has long since gone out of print and into obscurity. Then again, those first 1,500 people to visit the Hollywood Theatre weren’t just there for the movie. They came to be surrounded by architectural beauty and to be seated in plush chairs, watching a film on an enormous screen to the sound of an orchestra, all at a time when other moviegoers were content to watch movies projected on retail storefronts.
The chairs have grown creaky, and their padding is noticeably thinner. The balcony has been removed and turned into two other auditoriums where two other movies are being shown. Prohibition was repealed and beer is being served in the lobby. Yet now, as then, the movie ends with applause from the audience.
A local band called the Electric Opera Company takes the stage. They go to the drum set, the bass guitar, the two keyboards, and the three electric guitars that were previously set out for them. Meanwhile, the audience lines up behind the four joysticks in front. The classic TMNT arcade game comes back onto the screen, but it isn’t the demo this time.
The entire audience is now engaged in a four-player co-op game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When one person loses, the next in line is there to instantly take his place. Everyone is playing, everyone is watching, everyone is cheering, and everyone is a complete stranger. This is how the game was meant to be played. The only two differences are that the game is being played on a movie screen and the game’s music is being played by a live band.
The Hollywood Theatre has changed many times over the years. It changed so that it could play talking pictures. It changed to play films in color. It was modified to be the first Cinerama theater in the state, and it was modified once more for tonight. For the first time in its history, the theater has become a place for dozens of strangers to share a common experience not only through watching a movie, but also through beating up virtual ninjas.
The event continues for a few hours until finally, the game ends and the high scores are read off. Everyone leaves this historic place, having satisfied their innate urge to relive old childhood memories. It was an evening of nostalgia.