November 26, 2025 • 37 mins
John Gaspard is an author, filmmaker, and podcaster. His latest book, Held Over:Harold and Maude at The Westgate Theater, documents how Minneapolis’Westgate Theater extended the run of a box-office flop until it became a cultfavorite, drawing celebrity visits, superfans, and neighborhood protests.He writes two mystery series: the ten-book Eli Marks Mystery Series, featuring amagician-turned-detective, and the three-book Como Lake Players Mystery Series, set in a community theater where backstage tensions turn deadly.On Behind the Page: The Eli Marks Podcast, he hosts interviews with entertainers,magicians and others, along with readings from The Eli Marks mystery series of novels. Gaspard is also the author of Fast, Cheap, and Under Control and Fast, Cheap,and Written That Way, best-selling nonfiction guides to low-budget filmmaking. He has directed and produced six feature films. Ironically, the books made more than the movies. John also wrote episodes for the international western-comedy series Lucky Luke,starring Terence Hill, who's as quick to pick up a check in real life as his character is at drawing a six-gun on screen Held Over: Harold and Maude at The Westgate Theater can be found here: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/ - /held-over-harold-and-maude-at-the- westgate-theater/ The Eli Marks Mysteries and The Como Lake Players Mysteries can be found here: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/eli-marks The Filmmaking Books can be found here: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/ James Lott Jr is the host.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
If you go to Wikipedia, if you go to IMDb
and other other sources, you might see as part of
their history of the release of a movie called Harold
and Mad, you might see Westgate Theater in there. That's
very true. And I had just ironically, I had someone
(00:28):
reach out to me who has a book on the
Westgate story, theater story plus Harold and Mad, so I
thought I loved thing like this. There's there's no coincidence, right.
The movie Harold and Maud came out nineteen seventy one
and it wasn't a hit. And for older viewers such
(00:49):
as myself, a lot of jokes about age different relationships.
They say, you're in your held mod phase. There was
always as always saying about that for you guys who
are younger, Harold Mall's moving between an eighty year old
and a twenty year old. Yes, it was really true.
With Gordon and but Court not made for Golden Gloves
(01:10):
the lead actor and actress, but a performance. But there
was a theater and a town known for Prince also
had a theater that has a connection to this movie.
You're like, what, how, what we're gonna talk about him?
He wrote this book. It's called held Over, Harold and
(01:31):
Mad at the West Kate Theory. You'll find out why
he said held over. It's all reason for that to you.
But my author, my author, he is an author. My
author is a filmmaker. Upon am your author, chage my author.
That's like say, lass, I'd love anything like that. I
should come off your arm next. I love that. But
he's written other books. It's not his first book at all.
(01:51):
It's not his first night at the rodeo. But we're
gonna talk about this particular book, held Over, held Mad
the West Kate Theater. John Gaspard, John, how are you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's great to see you.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
You see too, so Harold Maud I grew up. I
saw the movie as an adult. I didn't see it as
a kid. I saw it as an adult. Later my
mom said she went to the theater see it. They
came out with a few who did and saw it,
and it was a trip. She's a a total trip.
When I finally saw I was like, oh, because there's
a there's a whole thing about the young guy kind
(02:22):
of geting up on life. You know, he's all about suicide,
like say, his life and this old woman kind of
discovering life. It's a great metaphor thing. So the movie
itself is kind of strange and stands out on its own,
But to hear is a story that there was a
theater that played it over and over and over and
over and over and over and over again, and it
(02:43):
then become a cult classic later, folks, I think it
made its first prophet like in the eighties, and so
like it, like it told a while to get there
to ask you first talk congratulations on the book. Congratulations.
It's like dream.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
This is the book of my life. Is a book
I've waited, uh by sixty seven years to write.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, how that happened out?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I'll correct one thing, James. It didn't become a cult
film after at the west Gate. It became a cult
film because it had been at the west Gate for
two years. Yes, that's why people started to take notice
in other cities where they other theaters would go. Will
wait a second, This one movie has played at the
same movie theater twice a night, three times on Sunday
for over two years. What is it about this movie?
(03:28):
Minneapolis isn't a huge city. How could they possibly have
enough people to see this movie twice a night and
three times on Sunday for two years. And the answer
was people came back again and again and again. That's
how they did it.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You don't understand. You know, this is before no social media,
no internets. This is when I grew up. You know,
we're a Rocky Horror family. So we used toe Rocky
Horror all the time, late on Saturday nights, at midnights,
had my bread ready, the whole thing. But it's the
same people. That's the whole point. It was about new
people coming every single week like tons. That's why I
(04:05):
can relate to this. It's like it was the same
folks who just saw you saw the movie, or it
doesn't matter. You see it's an experience, right, you're seeing
that at this theater. You're all together. It's that community,
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It wasn't people wanted to bring their friends and share
it with them. It because it was a communal feeling
that you got from seeing it. It worked far better
with a large crowd because there was so much humor
in it that that really boy did along U and
it was It stood out because it was unique. It
(04:36):
had an interesting story, like you say, a young man
who is fascinated by suicide meets an older woman who's
fascinated with life, and it had a great soundtrack, and
it just touched people on an emotional level that a
lot of times movies don't, but this one did, and
that's why it stayed for you know, show after show
after show. The difference with Rocky Horror is rockyhor came
(04:59):
to still a little tiny bit later. Rocky Horror would
play on weekend Friday and Saturday night at midnight, and
the audience, as you demonstrate it, interacted with the movie.
There were shadow casts that eventually developed, and it had
that sort of reputation. Harold and Maud was not like that.
People did not sing along with the music. They did
(05:20):
not say any of the lines in stereo with people
on screen, although when it started to run in New
York a couple of years later, they actually printed ads
in the New York Times it said, audience members, please
stop talking along with Harold and Maud. You stop saying
the lines as they happened. So that happened a little
bit in New York. But it wasn't a feature for
(05:41):
Harold and Maud. Harold and Maud or something you either
went to because it was a feel good comfort movie,
or because you wanted to share it with somebody and
see if they were your people or not, because if
they didn't like Harold and Maud, they probably weren't going
to be your people.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, my point kind of though, just in general, was
that there are films is before VHS, and we will
say this before a lot of stuff. Yeah, a lot
of films that people just fell in love with and
they grew as a cult status at some point usally
through theater, through a theater yep. And I think that
and that's that shows the power of a community and
(06:17):
a theater, and it's and it's theater. That's why I
kind of want to bring out.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, it's true because there was no VHS, there was
no streaming. When a movie went away, it went away,
unless it was a rare instance like a rocky horror
which turned up on weekend nights or in this case,
Harold Wad which was there for you every night. Other
than that, if if you liked a movie, you had
(06:42):
to go see it quickly, because most movies stuck around
for a couple of weeks, uh, and then they were
gone and maybe they'd show up on television. But if
they did, it'd be a while and it'd probably be truncated.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So if if you loved something, uh, the only way
to see it uh. In this case was to go
back to the West Gate. It's the only place that
was showing it. But it was not unlike retrospective theaters
started popping up around the late sixties and early seventies
where people could go see the old movies that they
loved that didn't turn up on TV enough, like Casablanca
(07:16):
or Rouse Devaz or Key Largo or any of the
foreign films. That was an avenue where you could see
something again, but you couldn't see it night after night.
And that's what made Harold and Maud unique.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, we're going about that. We're going about that little
later because I did that. It's a uniqueness of this.
But there's many things unique about the story. So let's
start first, like you do in the Bug, there the
West Gates. So let's talk about Minneapolis. So I have
a connection because my grandmother's from Minneapolis, Okay, and I've
been to Minneapolis, and it's the midwest of sorts, but
it's also the north. It's way up there, and I've
(07:50):
been there in the winter and the summer. Okay, it's there.
I wanted to cry, but I was afraid I would
be frozen. It gets really cold. You're right as Minneapolis,
there's Saint Paul, folks. It's like these two are kind
of connective. It's a beautiful city and turns in many ways,
and it isn't heavily populated, but there's people. There's a
(08:12):
nice little population there, especially for the Midwest. It's a
nice population there. So how does how is the Westgate
Theater and doing at this point before your mahld ma
even got into the ether.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Well, I'll go back in time. The theater itself was
built in nineteen thirty five by a sort of a
mad genius named Carl Fust. Carl was a violinist for
the Minneapolis Orchestra found that he couldn't make his living
doing that, so he went into the insurance business and
did quite well and decided, Hey, I love movies, I
(08:46):
love live events. I'm going to create this beautiful little
theater right on the edge of Minneapolis in a neighborhood
called Morningside, and it's going to be a show piece
and I'm going to run first run movies there and
I'm going to have orchestras play and have live events
on stage, because the stage is big enough for that.
I'm going to have a candy store attached to it
(09:06):
that you can get to form me there in the
theater or outside the theater. And I'm going to have
a special party room attached as well, with a catering
kitchen in the basement, so you can have a big
party there, rent out the whole theater, see a live show,
see a movie, whatever you want to do. That was
his vision, and it was a little revolutionary because it
was nineteen thirty five. They were in the middle of
(09:27):
the depression. However, people went to the movies, even if
they were poor. They still found a quarter to go
to the movies once a week, and they would walk
to their neighborhood theater and they would see a double
feature plus a short, plus a newsreel, plus maybe something else.
And so he knew there was an audience there that
neighborhood theaters worth thriving. Even though there was another theater
(09:48):
six blocks away, it didn't matter. Neighborhood theaters were thriving,
and so he launched this beautiful little jewel box of
a theater and then he promptly died about a year later,
unfortunately and tragically, and there was no visionary around to
keep the thing going at that same so a competitor
(10:12):
bought the theater and it became just another neighborhood theater
and sort of chugged along for forty years. They tried
different things that they started calling it an art house.
They eventually got rid of the party room. They eventually
got rid of the candy store and just confined it
to just a little theater with the lobby. And by
the end of the sixties it was because of television
(10:38):
taking over, people weren't going to the movies as much.
It was struggling. Then they put a movie in there
called The Twelve Chairs, which was the mel Brooks's second movie.
First was The Producers, for which he got a lot
of acclaim The second was The Twelve Chairs, and for
some reason it just stuck. It stuck for twelve weeks
at the Westgate after not having done particularly well anywhere else,
(11:03):
and that was an anomaly. Hadn't happened at the Westgate ever.
They had one movie in the fifties it ran for
five weeks, but twelve weeks was unheard of, so they
replaced that with the movie called Where's Papa, which is
directed by Carl Reiner, who happened to be good friends
of mel Brooks, so they each had movie's there and
(11:23):
Where's Papa ran for thirty six weeks. And Where's Papa
was for its time, a very dark, very profane movie
about a guy who wanted to kill his senow mother
because she was getting in the way of his dating.
It also starred Ruth Gordon, ran for thirty six weeks
and was a hit. So now this takes us up
to the beginning of nineteen seventy two. The Westgate has
(11:45):
a reputation as being sort of a nursing home for
comedies that didn't do well elsewhere. Harold and Maud had
come out at the end of nineteen seventy one. It
was the Christmas movie paramount. It's not a very Christmas
Eve movie. It had not been their intention for it
to come out at Christmas, but there was supposed to
release The Godfather. However, The Godfather wasn't done yet, and
(12:06):
they'd booked all these theaters all around the country and
they had to put something in there, so they put
in Harold and Maud, which promptly died. It had no marketing.
It was a weird movie. It was the sort of
movie you should open in New York and LA and
get some reviews and then slowly moved across the country.
But they didn't do it. They put it in a
ton of theaters and it was gone before Christmas. However,
(12:27):
the guy who booked movies at the Westgate recognized that
it was quirky and had gotten good reviews from the
local critics. It just hadn't stuck around, and so he
put it at the west Gate in March of seventy two,
and it stayed there until June of seventy four. It
just built and built and built. There were little dips
here and there. Toward the end they announced, okay, last
(12:51):
five weeks, and all of a sudden there was a
huge resurgence. But eventually they pulled the plug just because
it wasn't making as much money as it used to.
So it was the perfect little theater with the perfect
little movie at the right time.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And that movie kept theater going right, kept it financially
sound right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It was absolutely that. In fact, neighbors would call because
remember it's a neighborhood theater, and they were used to
be able to just walk over to the theater every
week and see a different movie. They couldn't do that
for over two years. They were very upset. They would
call and say, would you change the movie? And the
response was the management company is not going to change
the movie until it stops making money. It's doing very
(13:31):
very well. I mean it would sell out on weekends.
It was doing really really well, particularly for this little
theater in the corner of a first ring suburb that
otherwise probably would have closed earlier than it did. It
made it for another two and a half years after
Harold and Maud left, and then they finally closed it
because they just never were able to achieve that success again.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
What'd their protests for a while to get them to change.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, there were, like I say, occasional phone calls. But
on the occasion of the second year anniversary in March
of nineteen seventy four, celebrating the fact that the movie
had run continuously for two years, the two stars of
the movie, Ruth Gordon and Budcourt, came to town in
a very well publicized event and they hit all the
different media locations. The day before and the day of
(14:19):
the screening, and then they showed up in the theater
and they were pressed there and the TV people were
shooting stuff. And one of the neighbor ladies, a woman
named Betty Owen, who really wanted a different movie in
the theater. She'd never seen Harold and Maud didn't like
the sound of it. She and some other women and
they never got together and wrote made very nice looking
protest signs. On about thirty of them stood in front
(14:42):
of the theater with their kids holding up the signs
that said, we want variety, Harold and Maud Busco, please
change the movie. And it provided a really good photo op,
which is what she knew. It provided a really good
image that not only turned up in the paper the
next day, but is probably the image that if any
and listening goes to Google and just types in Harold
(15:02):
and Maud protest, that's the picture that's going to show up.
And that happened because Betty Owen, with her tongue firmly
planted in her cheek, put together this protest. You we
keep in mind this is nineteen seventy four. The sixties
had had a lot of protests, so the concept of
a protest was still fresh in her mind, and she
(15:23):
knew she would get the attention she wanted if they
staged this, and she was right. Not only did they
get the attention then, but they're still getting it today.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So from the research that you were doing on this,
are there any conclusions you come that have you come
to as to why it was successfully hits this particular
area of the world.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, these are just suppositions. No want to prove this.
Like I said that the theater had developed a reputation
as a place for a quirky comedy to sort of
camp in and live, and so audiences trusted that if
it was at the West Gate, it was probably going
(16:10):
to be interesting. I think the key thing that kicked
it off and made it a success right away because
it was. I mean it opened on a Wednesday night
and nearly sold out and did the same thing the
next night was because in addition to showing Harold and
Maud twice a night forever, they also showed a little
(16:31):
short called De Douva and Deduva had been made I
think in nineteen sixty eight or sixty nine. It was
maybe a fifteen minute parody of Ingmar Bergmann Films. It
was black and white, it was in a fake Swedish
dialect which was actually English that has had a Swedish
sound to it. It was a very funny parody that
(16:54):
was just a great little movie. It was nominated for
an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short, and it
was attached to Harold and MADD's to the degree that
people kind of in at least around here, think of
them as being together. And the reason there was such
a huge crowd that first night was two days before,
on Monday, a local columnist named Will Jones wrote a
(17:16):
very impassioned column in his paper saying, last year I
saw a short called Deduva. It was hysterical. I've been
begging the theater management in the city to bring it
back so I could see it again. As it turns out,
you can see it. It's going to be showing as
a movie called Harold and Maud starting Wednesday. But this
is a very very very funny short. Don't miss it.
(17:38):
And that inspired a lot of people to go and
then it just it mushroomed from there. They went, oh,
this is you know, not only is it short funny,
the movie is funny and it's because it attracted crowds.
The theater kept showing it, and because the theater kept
showing it, it attracted crowds. Now, if it hadn't happened
(17:59):
the Westgate, I'm guessing it would have happened in some
form somewhere else. It's the movie is too good to
have just completely disappeared. Somewhere somehow over the next few years,
college campuses would have picked it up. It would have
built from an underground voice of you gotta see this movie.
(18:20):
You got to see this movie. But what really gave
it that boost was here's the pedigree. It's been at
the same theater for two years. And that's what other
theaters around the country, in fact, around the world looked at.
They looked at the fact that this movie's been running
for months and months and months, we should try it.
And they even use that, particularly in Detroit and New
York as they're advertising in the papers. What does Minneapolis
(18:41):
know that Detroit doesn't know this movie's been running for
over a year, Come Sy Herald.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And maud Well. That's my point is that it's such
a unique That's why I'm saying all people to read
the book, because it's such a unique situation because there
is I mean, just just think about it, just this
weird little movie about an eighty year old or twenty
year old Minneapolis, Minnesota. I just would never. I just like,
there's okay, there's certain places where synergy seems more likely.
(19:08):
The cashre Yes you're gonna show Xanadu, Yes you're gonna
show Mommy dearest, Yes you're gonna show. Like those make
sense on a on a on a broader level or
surface level, and go, well, yeah, all the games, they
love that stuff. They're watching a comedy I'm talking to
the movie to go stink to it, or a black
theater in Harlem showing what's Love got to do with it?
Or or a certain black like it just makes sense.
(19:31):
This is I think it's such a great story. Why
I'm pushing the book to be people to read it
because it's just like, now, these are two things that
do seemly have no you know what I mean, Like
you just have no there's no natural synergy. But it
did synergize and it worked. This theater in Minneapolis and
(19:51):
this movie that was not a hit, that's not a
mainstream type movie, and it worked, like if movies quirky,
but it's like, it's not like it's so out of
as there are movies that are weirder than that is
that so it's not like it's not you know, there
are movies that that are so fantastical that you're like, Okay,
(20:11):
maybe this movie was like a like you said it was.
It was kind of a cute story and about two
worlds they came together, and it just resonated with these
Minneapolis residents.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Well, you know, keep in mind that there's not a
lot else to do here as you do you've been here,
but also keeping keep in mind we didn't evolve eric
at that point. In mind, we have a big university
here with several colleges as part of it. We have
a very strong arts community. We have at the time
and still do have the gu three Theater, which is
(20:46):
a huge repertory theater and was a bigger deal then
than it is now. And it uh, there was a
certain acceptance of the arts as being something important here.
I mean, you know, we talked.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
About Prince Prince took.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Off here partially because he was prince, but also because
he found an audience right away that went, yeah, we
whatever you want to do buddy, We're going to show
up and be part of it. So it helped that
we are to some degree a college town sort of,
and that helped. It also just helped that it it
(21:26):
just sat down and was there in one place, and
you could keep going to it and keep going to it.
It also ran on and off. In Saint Paula it
a theater called the Highland Theater, but that never took
the same It never clawed in the way it did
in Minneapolis because they would show the movies, then come
back to and show them movies and come back. In Minneapolis.
(21:48):
It was just sort of a thing. Have you seen
Harold and Maud yet? Have you seen Harold in Mott?
How many times have you seen Harold and Matt?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I I was always called lightning a bottle. There are
things happened. It's the right timing, you know, and it
just kind of it hits. I remember saw another level.
My mother and I talking the other day the other
day about the show American Family. People think reality TV.
(22:14):
You think, I mean, it's so ubiquitous now, like it's
it's so like you know, you think about it. American
Family was groundbreaking this time. It had a lot of critics,
and my mother said she was glued to TV watching
this thing that was so weird to her those other days,
like we're watching people in their houses and like kind
(22:35):
of like they it was they had no clue like
what this was even going to be. Later it's it's
the great grandfather of like all reality. Uh so TV.
But I'm saying, but it's again, it was right time.
It's the right time. And they they put the family
in Santa barbar or whatever. It wasn't even like some
family that was like it was in Beverley Hills or
New York. So I'm saying, I love these kind of things.
(22:56):
That's why people to read this book and like these
things where it's like when just two things come together,
it's like lightning in a bottle. Yep, kind of ye.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You can't make it happen. You can't make a cult film, no,
you can only help it along.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
That's very true. I mean, cult films are again and
with no help. There's no VHS, no DVD. No, it
was like it was literally a theater ran it. Did
they ever? I mean, so they couldn't say I say
say saying afterwards, they could never really duplicate the success,
they could keep it going, they couldn't.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
They tried right away with a movie called The Tall
Blonde Man with One Red Shoe or Black Showers Forget,
which is a French film that was dubbed it was charming, okay,
And they tried a couple other things. The best hit
they had lasted for about the same long same amount
of time as whereas Papa, was a movie called King
of Hearts, which was a British and French co production
(23:50):
starring Alan Bates about a soldier during the war who
stumbles into this French village where all the villagers have left,
but they've left the door zone open to the insane
asylum and all the inmates are now running the village.
And that had been made I think in sixty seven
or sixty eight, so it was at that point a
five or six year old movie. But that had a
pretty substantial run at the west Gate people. It had
(24:13):
the same it gave you the same warm feeling watching it,
and it benefited from repeat viewings, which was very helpful.
But after that, the last movie they ran was a
movie by the late Robert Benton called The Late Show
with RK. Carney and Lily Tomlin, which was a comic
slightly serial comic detective film present day but had a
(24:37):
kind of noir field to a charming little movie, probably
might have lasted a little bit longer, but there were
so many financial problems and the other theaters they owned
were not doing great, so they finally just shut it
down and the theater sat empty for a while before
being taken over by nearby laundry who used it for storage.
And then everything on that block was torn down and
now it's a condo.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well, you know, And that's the thing, you know, there's
even in my lifetime. I'm ten years old, younger than
you are, so not that far off. But a lot
of these theaters are now not theaters.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yes, as soon as the multiplexes came in, the people
who you know managed movie theaters went, oh, I can
show I can have five six different audiences and at
the same time with about the same number of employees,
So I can make five or six times as much
money in one building with about the same number of
employees as I did showing one movie in one building.
(25:31):
And and and that just that killed the neighborhood theater.
Everyone that I knew, everyone in Minneapolis Saint Paul, growing
up in the sixties, had a neighborhood theater they could
walk to That might have been six blocks away or
ten blocks, but you could walk to it. They weren't
built for parking, they didn't have parking lots. They expected
that their customers were neighbors. And those are almost all gone.
(25:54):
There's only one left that I can think of that
was a neighborhood theater back then, but it's sort of
a multiplex now and it's in a shopping area. It's
not in a shopping mall, but that's what helps keep
it alive. But the neighbor theater is pretty much gone.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
One of my neighborhood theaters was bought by Quentin Tarantino,
the Beverly. It was very lucky.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Then.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's my whole point. I'm saying John is correct. Almost
all the other ones they're gone. One's a medical office,
one happened part of the facade, the restaurant's gone, and
something else. We have one that I did grew up
going to that he had famous was had to come
in and buy it. And that's mostly his films, But
I like some of the stuff. I My mine is that,
but I miss I missed going to a neighborhood theater
(26:39):
and seeing a smaller film just because I feel like
it on a Wednesday afternoon, you know, I mean, I
just said, but then again, I'm old, So I mean
that's kind of you know. The other young kids, they
don't they don't care about that stuff anymore. Not really,
we care about it, and it's I say, I'm old.
Be funny, just say that we I've been looking at
an old bang. Okay, now the other who cares? But
I'm like, but us, you're a film student. Most of
(27:02):
the kids today are okay with streaming and watching on
their phones where and now mostly places are hurting to
now because of the whole pandemic. So it's kind of
a full circle thing, isn't it, John. It is.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It's always been a tough business, and they've always been
dealing with some sort of outside force that is dragging
people away from movie theaters and getting them, you know,
And if you are someone like Quentin Tarantino, who can
run a theater at probably a loss, you can do
whatever you want. At that point. There's another local theater
here which isn't quite my neighborhood theater. It's a little
(27:38):
further away called the Parkway, which was a neighborhood theater
for years and went through a lot of hands and
now it is a it's still a movie theater, but
they've also set up the stage for live performances and
they're busy all the time. Because this is Minneapolis, it's
a music city. There's always someone who can perform on
(27:59):
that their stage, and then they can often tie it
into whatever movie is playing, and so they're able to
keep a crowd in there every night because of the
mix of music and movies. Most theaters don't have that advantage,
and they're now long gone.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, and the Cash on Sancisco just has a plethora
the movies they can draw because they know their audience,
their audiences right there they're going to see. So they're
luckily say they're like that, but they had problems. We're
all to They had to work on that. But it's
like these things that you're right, it's not easy to
own and run in theater. The pandemically to kill a
lot of them really just kind of that was Yep.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We got out of the habit We just got out
of the habit of and the studios didn't help themselves
really by putting all the movies on streaming then, and
they did. Then they put them on so quickly now
that most people just go worth going out. I'll wait
to see Superman. That's fine, I'll wait right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I have to ask you this, because you know this
is important. Have you seen Harold and Maud and did
you actually do you? Do you like it? Or do
you not want to answer? I don't know how to
I have no don't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Worry about that. I saw it when I was in
ninth grade in the spring of nineteen seventy two, probably
rode my bike over there to see it. I'd heard
good things about it. I have a brother who's four
years older who probably turned me on too it because
just about anything that I find interesting I can trace
back to him saying, hey, you should look at this.
Went and saw it on a Saturday night, sold out crowd,
(29:26):
and came back the next afternoon on Sunday to see
it again because I had missed so much of it
the first time around, and so I saw it many
times during that two year run, to the point that
a friend of mine's father, who was a writer for
the local newspaper, when he realized that he was going
to be interviewing Blood Court for the second year anniversary
(29:49):
when Bud and Ruth came to town, said John, I'm going
to be having dinner with Bud Court. I know you're
a fan of the film. Do you want to come along?
And fifteen year old me said, yes, Sir Irv, I'd
love to do that, and sat quietly at the table
as Irv and Bud talked about the movie business and
about plays and all kinds of stuff like that. And
I also followed them around with my super camera shooting
(30:11):
footage of Ruth and Bud as they did their different
TV and press appearances throughout the day. And then luckily
he was able to film them when they stepped on
stage at the Westgate that night celebrating the second year anniversary,
and they each gave a little speech, and those speeches exist,
you can find them on YouTube because I was there
(30:32):
and shooting it, and so that moment was captured to Yeah,
this movie was not picked randomly out of a hat.
What should I write a book about? This was picked
because that movie had a big impact on me as
a teenager. It had a huge impact on me as
a filmmaker because the director hal Ashby was a brilliant,
brilliant filmmaker, and I learned. I would say the two
(30:54):
years watching Harold and Out at the Westgate Theater was
as important a film school as anything I could have
gone to elsewhere, because you just learned so much watching
his work.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So side note, folks out there, my godfather is Richard Dreyfus,
and he was considered for the film. He was considered
because he was a young people that back then, they
were a lot of people were considered. Here's why he
didn't get it. Obviously, that was his career apparently. But yes,
he was one and ones considered for the but Court part,
(31:25):
for the Herald part.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
And he might have been just fine.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I talked to John Rubinstein, who was who the part
was written for. After John Rubinstein and he auditioned for
it along with Bud and Bob Ballaban and uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
A bunch of those guys. They were all just kind
of like yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
And he has said, you know, well he you know,
sorry he didn't get the part because it was written
for him by his friend. He said, but Court is perfect.
He's just perfect. He's enough of an open wound that
that's one of the reasons that people resonate with that
film is because of his openness and his pain.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, oh yeah, here's fine. Yeah, I just say that
with most films, a lot of times, the person who
gets it the one who was at first intended for
But there were a lot of folks up for it.
I remember we were up for it, and I saw
the film. I liked it. I saw it. I thought
it was quirky. I liked it. So I've seen it back,
and I saw it back in the I think in
the nineties. If I saw it, I saw it.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
So yeah, you know, I want someone out there with
better AI talents than I to recreate via AI a
classic scene from Harold and Maud, but and sert Richard
Dreyfus into it instead, and see what that scene would
have looked like.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Interesting, right, I mean again, Richards had a career clearly, Yes, you.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Know his His movie The Apprenticeship of Dordy Kravitz was
one of the ones that the Westgate ran after Harold
and Maud in an attempt to again repeat that success.
And that movie is a tragic comedy. He is very
very good in it, but it does not leave you
with aarticularly warm, fuzzy feeling because he is revealed to
(33:03):
be pretty awful person and so in that sense, it's
not a very good choice to replace Harold and Matt,
but it did have that level of quirkiness to it
that people responded to.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, yeah, he's something else. He and my father were really, really,
really good friends. So that's how he edited my family.
My father's even in the business. So they are two young,
struggling people trying to work back in the day, and
now he met That's how he met it, and they
stayed friends the whole time.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Okay, let me ask you this just as a favor, Yes,
if you ever have a moment of quiet with him.
I know he was quoted as saying that in Doody
Kravits that when they edited the movie, they ruined Jack
Warden's performance. Jack Wharton played his father in the movie,
not having seen what was supposed to be there. Just
(33:51):
seeing what Jack Wardon did in the movie. He is
so outstanding. I would love to know what they took
out that made dry this feel that they had ruined
the performance, because Jack Wharton is really good in that movie.
So if you ever have a chance asking that question
and send me an email.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I'll do that. You never know, right, you never, You
just never know what conversations. He's a talker, you know,
you never, you never know. Yeah, he has any great films.
So it was good. But I say, this story, I
want people. This is such an interesting story of just
two things coming together and being very I have a
time where it's successful. Again, lightning in a bottle that happens,
(34:30):
and it's just it's you can't script these things. You
can't plan them, you can't script them. I love what's
like this happens and two things come together and just
make success. And it was a moment in time. You know,
we have a lot of these moments in time that
are very underrated because no one's talking about it. I said,
you can go online and it's kind of mentioned wes
Kate Theaters, it's mentioned in the books and kind of
(34:52):
the history of it. But you gave it life to say,
here's more of the story. Here is the actual story
of it. So congratulations, Josh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It was a really fun journey to dig into that
and find out stuff that I didn't know about the
theater and about the movie.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, very good. So where can they find the book.
They won't get the books.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sure, I'll just say it's it's sort of a coffee
table book. It's like half imagery and half text. So
it's a big book with a lot of colored, black
and white photos in it. It's sort of a pricey
book because it's a coffee table book. You can find
the hardcover and the paperback are available on Amazon, or
you can go directly to my website at Albertsbridgebooks dot com.
(35:33):
That's Albertsbridgebooks dot com and buy it for a little
tiny bit less directly from me as well as there's
a special edition that has Harold and watt end papers
in it as well. So there's three versions you can
get from me, or two versions you can find on
Amazon or go to your local bookstore. They can order
it as well.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Very good kid support books. I always say this at
the end of my shows, and that is you'll support
indie writers. Support indie authors who put together these books.
And I see a nice dogging back there. I love it.
He's not how we're done. Now they're almost done. It's
I can say, get up there, a cute fail.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Somehow they know I don't know how they know.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
They're intuitive animals. No, but support support authors, support history,
historian kind of authors who really are trying to give
us all these different histories. There's so many stories out there,
and that's what we do on these shows. Our show
Forgotten Hollywood with Doug has between the page's ex connections.
We're talking about all this history that you may not
(36:33):
even know about. That is it is fil it's history,
it's history. It's underrated and should be told. So please
support books like his that are telling stories that that
are fascinating and wonderful and you just and you learn
something new. I'm a big proponent of that. Support that
support that support, and also we don't pan books. This
(36:55):
channel does not support that at all. Anybody's able to
read what they want to read of all of all kinds,
and books aren't going anywhere, folks, whether it's audible or
kindle or actual physical copies. People are reading more than ever,
so only by telling you otherwise they are reading their
devouring books more than ever. And this channel will always
(37:16):
support that, always, always, always, and the pages on Facebook.
I have books too. If you want to reading, my
books are on Amazon who or James Lott Jr. And
we'll see you guys next time. Thank you John, Thanks
James was great.
If you go to Wikipedia, if you go to IMDb
and other other sources, you might see as part of
their history of the release of a movie called Harold
and Mad, you might see Westgate Theater in there. That's
very true. And I had just ironically, I had someone
(00:28):
reach out to me who has a book on the
Westgate story, theater story plus Harold and Mad, so I
thought I loved thing like this. There's there's no coincidence, right.
The movie Harold and Maud came out nineteen seventy one
and it wasn't a hit. And for older viewers such
(00:49):
as myself, a lot of jokes about age different relationships.
They say, you're in your held mod phase. There was
always as always saying about that for you guys who
are younger, Harold Mall's moving between an eighty year old
and a twenty year old. Yes, it was really true.
With Gordon and but Court not made for Golden Gloves
(01:10):
the lead actor and actress, but a performance. But there
was a theater and a town known for Prince also
had a theater that has a connection to this movie.
You're like, what, how, what we're gonna talk about him?
He wrote this book. It's called held Over, Harold and
(01:31):
Mad at the West Kate Theory. You'll find out why
he said held over. It's all reason for that to you.
But my author, my author, he is an author. My
author is a filmmaker. Upon am your author, chage my author.
That's like say, lass, I'd love anything like that. I
should come off your arm next. I love that. But
he's written other books. It's not his first book at all.
(01:51):
It's not his first night at the rodeo. But we're
gonna talk about this particular book, held Over, held Mad
the West Kate Theater. John Gaspard, John, how are you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's great to see you.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
You see too, so Harold Maud I grew up. I
saw the movie as an adult. I didn't see it as
a kid. I saw it as an adult. Later my
mom said she went to the theater see it. They
came out with a few who did and saw it,
and it was a trip. She's a a total trip.
When I finally saw I was like, oh, because there's
a there's a whole thing about the young guy kind
(02:22):
of geting up on life. You know, he's all about suicide,
like say, his life and this old woman kind of
discovering life. It's a great metaphor thing. So the movie
itself is kind of strange and stands out on its own,
But to hear is a story that there was a
theater that played it over and over and over and
over and over and over and over again, and it
(02:43):
then become a cult classic later, folks, I think it
made its first prophet like in the eighties, and so
like it, like it told a while to get there
to ask you first talk congratulations on the book. Congratulations.
It's like dream.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
This is the book of my life. Is a book
I've waited, uh by sixty seven years to write.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, how that happened out?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I'll correct one thing, James. It didn't become a cult
film after at the west Gate. It became a cult
film because it had been at the west Gate for
two years. Yes, that's why people started to take notice
in other cities where they other theaters would go. Will
wait a second, This one movie has played at the
same movie theater twice a night, three times on Sunday
for over two years. What is it about this movie?
(03:28):
Minneapolis isn't a huge city. How could they possibly have
enough people to see this movie twice a night and
three times on Sunday for two years. And the answer
was people came back again and again and again. That's
how they did it.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You don't understand. You know, this is before no social media,
no internets. This is when I grew up. You know,
we're a Rocky Horror family. So we used toe Rocky
Horror all the time, late on Saturday nights, at midnights,
had my bread ready, the whole thing. But it's the
same people. That's the whole point. It was about new
people coming every single week like tons. That's why I
(04:05):
can relate to this. It's like it was the same
folks who just saw you saw the movie, or it
doesn't matter. You see it's an experience, right, you're seeing
that at this theater. You're all together. It's that community,
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It wasn't people wanted to bring their friends and share
it with them. It because it was a communal feeling
that you got from seeing it. It worked far better
with a large crowd because there was so much humor
in it that that really boy did along U and
it was It stood out because it was unique. It
(04:36):
had an interesting story, like you say, a young man
who is fascinated by suicide meets an older woman who's
fascinated with life, and it had a great soundtrack, and
it just touched people on an emotional level that a
lot of times movies don't, but this one did, and
that's why it stayed for you know, show after show
after show. The difference with Rocky Horror is rockyhor came
(04:59):
to still a little tiny bit later. Rocky Horror would
play on weekend Friday and Saturday night at midnight, and
the audience, as you demonstrate it, interacted with the movie.
There were shadow casts that eventually developed, and it had
that sort of reputation. Harold and Maud was not like that.
People did not sing along with the music. They did
(05:20):
not say any of the lines in stereo with people
on screen, although when it started to run in New
York a couple of years later, they actually printed ads
in the New York Times it said, audience members, please
stop talking along with Harold and Maud. You stop saying
the lines as they happened. So that happened a little
bit in New York. But it wasn't a feature for
(05:41):
Harold and Maud. Harold and Maud or something you either
went to because it was a feel good comfort movie,
or because you wanted to share it with somebody and
see if they were your people or not, because if
they didn't like Harold and Maud, they probably weren't going
to be your people.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, my point kind of though, just in general, was
that there are films is before VHS, and we will
say this before a lot of stuff. Yeah, a lot
of films that people just fell in love with and
they grew as a cult status at some point usally
through theater, through a theater yep. And I think that
and that's that shows the power of a community and
(06:17):
a theater, and it's and it's theater. That's why I
kind of want to bring out.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, it's true because there was no VHS, there was
no streaming. When a movie went away, it went away,
unless it was a rare instance like a rocky horror
which turned up on weekend nights or in this case,
Harold Wad which was there for you every night. Other
than that, if if you liked a movie, you had
(06:42):
to go see it quickly, because most movies stuck around
for a couple of weeks, uh, and then they were
gone and maybe they'd show up on television. But if
they did, it'd be a while and it'd probably be truncated.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So if if you loved something, uh, the only way
to see it uh. In this case was to go
back to the West Gate. It's the only place that
was showing it. But it was not unlike retrospective theaters
started popping up around the late sixties and early seventies
where people could go see the old movies that they
loved that didn't turn up on TV enough, like Casablanca
(07:16):
or Rouse Devaz or Key Largo or any of the
foreign films. That was an avenue where you could see
something again, but you couldn't see it night after night.
And that's what made Harold and Maud unique.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, we're going about that. We're going about that little
later because I did that. It's a uniqueness of this.
But there's many things unique about the story. So let's
start first, like you do in the Bug, there the
West Gates. So let's talk about Minneapolis. So I have
a connection because my grandmother's from Minneapolis, Okay, and I've
been to Minneapolis, and it's the midwest of sorts, but
it's also the north. It's way up there, and I've
(07:50):
been there in the winter and the summer. Okay, it's there.
I wanted to cry, but I was afraid I would
be frozen. It gets really cold. You're right as Minneapolis,
there's Saint Paul, folks. It's like these two are kind
of connective. It's a beautiful city and turns in many ways,
and it isn't heavily populated, but there's people. There's a
(08:12):
nice little population there, especially for the Midwest. It's a
nice population there. So how does how is the Westgate
Theater and doing at this point before your mahld ma
even got into the ether.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Well, I'll go back in time. The theater itself was
built in nineteen thirty five by a sort of a
mad genius named Carl Fust. Carl was a violinist for
the Minneapolis Orchestra found that he couldn't make his living
doing that, so he went into the insurance business and
did quite well and decided, Hey, I love movies, I
(08:46):
love live events. I'm going to create this beautiful little
theater right on the edge of Minneapolis in a neighborhood
called Morningside, and it's going to be a show piece
and I'm going to run first run movies there and
I'm going to have orchestras play and have live events
on stage, because the stage is big enough for that.
I'm going to have a candy store attached to it
(09:06):
that you can get to form me there in the
theater or outside the theater. And I'm going to have
a special party room attached as well, with a catering
kitchen in the basement, so you can have a big
party there, rent out the whole theater, see a live show,
see a movie, whatever you want to do. That was
his vision, and it was a little revolutionary because it
was nineteen thirty five. They were in the middle of
(09:27):
the depression. However, people went to the movies, even if
they were poor. They still found a quarter to go
to the movies once a week, and they would walk
to their neighborhood theater and they would see a double
feature plus a short, plus a newsreel, plus maybe something else.
And so he knew there was an audience there that
neighborhood theaters worth thriving. Even though there was another theater
(09:48):
six blocks away, it didn't matter. Neighborhood theaters were thriving,
and so he launched this beautiful little jewel box of
a theater and then he promptly died about a year later,
unfortunately and tragically, and there was no visionary around to
keep the thing going at that same so a competitor
(10:12):
bought the theater and it became just another neighborhood theater
and sort of chugged along for forty years. They tried
different things that they started calling it an art house.
They eventually got rid of the party room. They eventually
got rid of the candy store and just confined it
to just a little theater with the lobby. And by
the end of the sixties it was because of television
(10:38):
taking over, people weren't going to the movies as much.
It was struggling. Then they put a movie in there
called The Twelve Chairs, which was the mel Brooks's second movie.
First was The Producers, for which he got a lot
of acclaim The second was The Twelve Chairs, and for
some reason it just stuck. It stuck for twelve weeks
at the Westgate after not having done particularly well anywhere else,
(11:03):
and that was an anomaly. Hadn't happened at the Westgate ever.
They had one movie in the fifties it ran for
five weeks, but twelve weeks was unheard of, so they
replaced that with the movie called Where's Papa, which is
directed by Carl Reiner, who happened to be good friends
of mel Brooks, so they each had movie's there and
(11:23):
Where's Papa ran for thirty six weeks. And Where's Papa
was for its time, a very dark, very profane movie
about a guy who wanted to kill his senow mother
because she was getting in the way of his dating.
It also starred Ruth Gordon, ran for thirty six weeks
and was a hit. So now this takes us up
to the beginning of nineteen seventy two. The Westgate has
(11:45):
a reputation as being sort of a nursing home for
comedies that didn't do well elsewhere. Harold and Maud had
come out at the end of nineteen seventy one. It
was the Christmas movie paramount. It's not a very Christmas
Eve movie. It had not been their intention for it
to come out at Christmas, but there was supposed to
release The Godfather. However, The Godfather wasn't done yet, and
(12:06):
they'd booked all these theaters all around the country and
they had to put something in there, so they put
in Harold and Maud, which promptly died. It had no marketing.
It was a weird movie. It was the sort of
movie you should open in New York and LA and
get some reviews and then slowly moved across the country.
But they didn't do it. They put it in a
ton of theaters and it was gone before Christmas. However,
(12:27):
the guy who booked movies at the Westgate recognized that
it was quirky and had gotten good reviews from the
local critics. It just hadn't stuck around, and so he
put it at the west Gate in March of seventy two,
and it stayed there until June of seventy four. It
just built and built and built. There were little dips
here and there. Toward the end they announced, okay, last
(12:51):
five weeks, and all of a sudden there was a
huge resurgence. But eventually they pulled the plug just because
it wasn't making as much money as it used to.
So it was the perfect little theater with the perfect
little movie at the right time.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And that movie kept theater going right, kept it financially
sound right.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It was absolutely that. In fact, neighbors would call because
remember it's a neighborhood theater, and they were used to
be able to just walk over to the theater every
week and see a different movie. They couldn't do that
for over two years. They were very upset. They would
call and say, would you change the movie? And the
response was the management company is not going to change
the movie until it stops making money. It's doing very
(13:31):
very well. I mean it would sell out on weekends.
It was doing really really well, particularly for this little
theater in the corner of a first ring suburb that
otherwise probably would have closed earlier than it did. It
made it for another two and a half years after
Harold and Maud left, and then they finally closed it
because they just never were able to achieve that success again.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
What'd their protests for a while to get them to change.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, there were, like I say, occasional phone calls. But
on the occasion of the second year anniversary in March
of nineteen seventy four, celebrating the fact that the movie
had run continuously for two years, the two stars of
the movie, Ruth Gordon and Budcourt, came to town in
a very well publicized event and they hit all the
different media locations. The day before and the day of
(14:19):
the screening, and then they showed up in the theater
and they were pressed there and the TV people were
shooting stuff. And one of the neighbor ladies, a woman
named Betty Owen, who really wanted a different movie in
the theater. She'd never seen Harold and Maud didn't like
the sound of it. She and some other women and
they never got together and wrote made very nice looking
protest signs. On about thirty of them stood in front
(14:42):
of the theater with their kids holding up the signs
that said, we want variety, Harold and Maud Busco, please
change the movie. And it provided a really good photo op,
which is what she knew. It provided a really good
image that not only turned up in the paper the
next day, but is probably the image that if any
and listening goes to Google and just types in Harold
(15:02):
and Maud protest, that's the picture that's going to show up.
And that happened because Betty Owen, with her tongue firmly
planted in her cheek, put together this protest. You we
keep in mind this is nineteen seventy four. The sixties
had had a lot of protests, so the concept of
a protest was still fresh in her mind, and she
(15:23):
knew she would get the attention she wanted if they
staged this, and she was right. Not only did they
get the attention then, but they're still getting it today.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So from the research that you were doing on this,
are there any conclusions you come that have you come
to as to why it was successfully hits this particular
area of the world.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, these are just suppositions. No want to prove this.
Like I said that the theater had developed a reputation
as a place for a quirky comedy to sort of
camp in and live, and so audiences trusted that if
it was at the West Gate, it was probably going
(16:10):
to be interesting. I think the key thing that kicked
it off and made it a success right away because
it was. I mean it opened on a Wednesday night
and nearly sold out and did the same thing the
next night was because in addition to showing Harold and
Maud twice a night forever, they also showed a little
(16:31):
short called De Douva and Deduva had been made I
think in nineteen sixty eight or sixty nine. It was
maybe a fifteen minute parody of Ingmar Bergmann Films. It
was black and white, it was in a fake Swedish
dialect which was actually English that has had a Swedish
sound to it. It was a very funny parody that
(16:54):
was just a great little movie. It was nominated for
an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short, and it
was attached to Harold and MADD's to the degree that
people kind of in at least around here, think of
them as being together. And the reason there was such
a huge crowd that first night was two days before,
on Monday, a local columnist named Will Jones wrote a
(17:16):
very impassioned column in his paper saying, last year I
saw a short called Deduva. It was hysterical. I've been
begging the theater management in the city to bring it
back so I could see it again. As it turns out,
you can see it. It's going to be showing as
a movie called Harold and Maud starting Wednesday. But this
is a very very very funny short. Don't miss it.
(17:38):
And that inspired a lot of people to go and
then it just it mushroomed from there. They went, oh,
this is you know, not only is it short funny,
the movie is funny and it's because it attracted crowds.
The theater kept showing it, and because the theater kept
showing it, it attracted crowds. Now, if it hadn't happened
(17:59):
the Westgate, I'm guessing it would have happened in some
form somewhere else. It's the movie is too good to
have just completely disappeared. Somewhere somehow over the next few years,
college campuses would have picked it up. It would have
built from an underground voice of you gotta see this movie.
(18:20):
You got to see this movie. But what really gave
it that boost was here's the pedigree. It's been at
the same theater for two years. And that's what other
theaters around the country, in fact, around the world looked at.
They looked at the fact that this movie's been running
for months and months and months, we should try it.
And they even use that, particularly in Detroit and New
York as they're advertising in the papers. What does Minneapolis
(18:41):
know that Detroit doesn't know this movie's been running for
over a year, Come Sy Herald.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And maud Well. That's my point is that it's such
a unique That's why I'm saying all people to read
the book, because it's such a unique situation because there
is I mean, just just think about it, just this
weird little movie about an eighty year old or twenty
year old Minneapolis, Minnesota. I just would never. I just like,
there's okay, there's certain places where synergy seems more likely.
(19:08):
The cashre Yes you're gonna show Xanadu, Yes you're gonna
show Mommy dearest, Yes you're gonna show. Like those make
sense on a on a on a broader level or
surface level, and go, well, yeah, all the games, they
love that stuff. They're watching a comedy I'm talking to
the movie to go stink to it, or a black
theater in Harlem showing what's Love got to do with it?
Or or a certain black like it just makes sense.
(19:31):
This is I think it's such a great story. Why
I'm pushing the book to be people to read it
because it's just like, now, these are two things that
do seemly have no you know what I mean, Like
you just have no there's no natural synergy. But it
did synergize and it worked. This theater in Minneapolis and
(19:51):
this movie that was not a hit, that's not a
mainstream type movie, and it worked, like if movies quirky,
but it's like, it's not like it's so out of
as there are movies that are weirder than that is
that so it's not like it's not you know, there
are movies that that are so fantastical that you're like, Okay,
(20:11):
maybe this movie was like a like you said it was.
It was kind of a cute story and about two
worlds they came together, and it just resonated with these
Minneapolis residents.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Well, you know, keep in mind that there's not a
lot else to do here as you do you've been here,
but also keeping keep in mind we didn't evolve eric
at that point. In mind, we have a big university
here with several colleges as part of it. We have
a very strong arts community. We have at the time
and still do have the gu three Theater, which is
(20:46):
a huge repertory theater and was a bigger deal then
than it is now. And it uh, there was a
certain acceptance of the arts as being something important here.
I mean, you know, we talked.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
About Prince Prince took.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Off here partially because he was prince, but also because
he found an audience right away that went, yeah, we
whatever you want to do buddy, We're going to show
up and be part of it. So it helped that
we are to some degree a college town sort of,
and that helped. It also just helped that it it
(21:26):
just sat down and was there in one place, and
you could keep going to it and keep going to it.
It also ran on and off. In Saint Paula it
a theater called the Highland Theater, but that never took
the same It never clawed in the way it did
in Minneapolis because they would show the movies, then come
back to and show them movies and come back. In Minneapolis.
(21:48):
It was just sort of a thing. Have you seen
Harold and Maud yet? Have you seen Harold in Mott?
How many times have you seen Harold and Matt?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I I was always called lightning a bottle. There are
things happened. It's the right timing, you know, and it
just kind of it hits. I remember saw another level.
My mother and I talking the other day the other
day about the show American Family. People think reality TV.
(22:14):
You think, I mean, it's so ubiquitous now, like it's
it's so like you know, you think about it. American
Family was groundbreaking this time. It had a lot of critics,
and my mother said she was glued to TV watching
this thing that was so weird to her those other days,
like we're watching people in their houses and like kind
(22:35):
of like they it was they had no clue like
what this was even going to be. Later it's it's
the great grandfather of like all reality. Uh so TV.
But I'm saying, but it's again, it was right time.
It's the right time. And they they put the family
in Santa barbar or whatever. It wasn't even like some
family that was like it was in Beverley Hills or
New York. So I'm saying, I love these kind of things.
(22:56):
That's why people to read this book and like these
things where it's like when just two things come together,
it's like lightning in a bottle. Yep, kind of ye.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You can't make it happen. You can't make a cult film, no,
you can only help it along.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
That's very true. I mean, cult films are again and
with no help. There's no VHS, no DVD. No, it
was like it was literally a theater ran it. Did
they ever? I mean, so they couldn't say I say
say saying afterwards, they could never really duplicate the success,
they could keep it going, they couldn't.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
They tried right away with a movie called The Tall
Blonde Man with One Red Shoe or Black Showers Forget,
which is a French film that was dubbed it was charming, okay,
And they tried a couple other things. The best hit
they had lasted for about the same long same amount
of time as whereas Papa, was a movie called King
of Hearts, which was a British and French co production
(23:50):
starring Alan Bates about a soldier during the war who
stumbles into this French village where all the villagers have left,
but they've left the door zone open to the insane
asylum and all the inmates are now running the village.
And that had been made I think in sixty seven
or sixty eight, so it was at that point a
five or six year old movie. But that had a
pretty substantial run at the west Gate people. It had
(24:13):
the same it gave you the same warm feeling watching it,
and it benefited from repeat viewings, which was very helpful.
But after that, the last movie they ran was a
movie by the late Robert Benton called The Late Show
with RK. Carney and Lily Tomlin, which was a comic
slightly serial comic detective film present day but had a
(24:37):
kind of noir field to a charming little movie, probably
might have lasted a little bit longer, but there were
so many financial problems and the other theaters they owned
were not doing great, so they finally just shut it
down and the theater sat empty for a while before
being taken over by nearby laundry who used it for storage.
And then everything on that block was torn down and
now it's a condo.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well, you know, And that's the thing, you know, there's
even in my lifetime. I'm ten years old, younger than
you are, so not that far off. But a lot
of these theaters are now not theaters.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yes, as soon as the multiplexes came in, the people
who you know managed movie theaters went, oh, I can
show I can have five six different audiences and at
the same time with about the same number of employees,
So I can make five or six times as much
money in one building with about the same number of
employees as I did showing one movie in one building.
(25:31):
And and and that just that killed the neighborhood theater.
Everyone that I knew, everyone in Minneapolis Saint Paul, growing
up in the sixties, had a neighborhood theater they could
walk to That might have been six blocks away or
ten blocks, but you could walk to it. They weren't
built for parking, they didn't have parking lots. They expected
that their customers were neighbors. And those are almost all gone.
(25:54):
There's only one left that I can think of that
was a neighborhood theater back then, but it's sort of
a multiplex now and it's in a shopping area. It's
not in a shopping mall, but that's what helps keep
it alive. But the neighbor theater is pretty much gone.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
One of my neighborhood theaters was bought by Quentin Tarantino,
the Beverly. It was very lucky.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Then.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's my whole point. I'm saying John is correct. Almost
all the other ones they're gone. One's a medical office,
one happened part of the facade, the restaurant's gone, and
something else. We have one that I did grew up
going to that he had famous was had to come
in and buy it. And that's mostly his films, But
I like some of the stuff. I My mine is that,
but I miss I missed going to a neighborhood theater
(26:39):
and seeing a smaller film just because I feel like
it on a Wednesday afternoon, you know, I mean, I
just said, but then again, I'm old, So I mean
that's kind of you know. The other young kids, they
don't they don't care about that stuff anymore. Not really,
we care about it, and it's I say, I'm old.
Be funny, just say that we I've been looking at
an old bang. Okay, now the other who cares? But
I'm like, but us, you're a film student. Most of
(27:02):
the kids today are okay with streaming and watching on
their phones where and now mostly places are hurting to
now because of the whole pandemic. So it's kind of
a full circle thing, isn't it, John. It is.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It's always been a tough business, and they've always been
dealing with some sort of outside force that is dragging
people away from movie theaters and getting them, you know,
And if you are someone like Quentin Tarantino, who can
run a theater at probably a loss, you can do
whatever you want. At that point. There's another local theater
here which isn't quite my neighborhood theater. It's a little
(27:38):
further away called the Parkway, which was a neighborhood theater
for years and went through a lot of hands and
now it is a it's still a movie theater, but
they've also set up the stage for live performances and
they're busy all the time. Because this is Minneapolis, it's
a music city. There's always someone who can perform on
(27:59):
that their stage, and then they can often tie it
into whatever movie is playing, and so they're able to
keep a crowd in there every night because of the
mix of music and movies. Most theaters don't have that advantage,
and they're now long gone.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, and the Cash on Sancisco just has a plethora
the movies they can draw because they know their audience,
their audiences right there they're going to see. So they're
luckily say they're like that, but they had problems. We're
all to They had to work on that. But it's
like these things that you're right, it's not easy to
own and run in theater. The pandemically to kill a
lot of them really just kind of that was Yep.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We got out of the habit We just got out
of the habit of and the studios didn't help themselves
really by putting all the movies on streaming then, and
they did. Then they put them on so quickly now
that most people just go worth going out. I'll wait
to see Superman. That's fine, I'll wait right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I have to ask you this, because you know this
is important. Have you seen Harold and Maud and did
you actually do you? Do you like it? Or do
you not want to answer? I don't know how to
I have no don't.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Worry about that. I saw it when I was in
ninth grade in the spring of nineteen seventy two, probably
rode my bike over there to see it. I'd heard
good things about it. I have a brother who's four
years older who probably turned me on too it because
just about anything that I find interesting I can trace
back to him saying, hey, you should look at this.
Went and saw it on a Saturday night, sold out crowd,
(29:26):
and came back the next afternoon on Sunday to see
it again because I had missed so much of it
the first time around, and so I saw it many
times during that two year run, to the point that
a friend of mine's father, who was a writer for
the local newspaper, when he realized that he was going
to be interviewing Blood Court for the second year anniversary
(29:49):
when Bud and Ruth came to town, said John, I'm going
to be having dinner with Bud Court. I know you're
a fan of the film. Do you want to come along?
And fifteen year old me said, yes, Sir Irv, I'd
love to do that, and sat quietly at the table
as Irv and Bud talked about the movie business and
about plays and all kinds of stuff like that. And
I also followed them around with my super camera shooting
(30:11):
footage of Ruth and Bud as they did their different
TV and press appearances throughout the day. And then luckily
he was able to film them when they stepped on
stage at the Westgate that night celebrating the second year anniversary,
and they each gave a little speech, and those speeches exist,
you can find them on YouTube because I was there
(30:32):
and shooting it, and so that moment was captured to Yeah,
this movie was not picked randomly out of a hat.
What should I write a book about? This was picked
because that movie had a big impact on me as
a teenager. It had a huge impact on me as
a filmmaker because the director hal Ashby was a brilliant,
brilliant filmmaker, and I learned. I would say the two
(30:54):
years watching Harold and Out at the Westgate Theater was
as important a film school as anything I could have
gone to elsewhere, because you just learned so much watching
his work.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So side note, folks out there, my godfather is Richard Dreyfus,
and he was considered for the film. He was considered
because he was a young people that back then, they
were a lot of people were considered. Here's why he
didn't get it. Obviously, that was his career apparently. But yes,
he was one and ones considered for the but Court part,
(31:25):
for the Herald part.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
And he might have been just fine.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I talked to John Rubinstein, who was who the part
was written for. After John Rubinstein and he auditioned for
it along with Bud and Bob Ballaban and uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
A bunch of those guys. They were all just kind
of like yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
And he has said, you know, well he you know,
sorry he didn't get the part because it was written
for him by his friend. He said, but Court is perfect.
He's just perfect. He's enough of an open wound that
that's one of the reasons that people resonate with that
film is because of his openness and his pain.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, oh yeah, here's fine. Yeah, I just say that
with most films, a lot of times, the person who
gets it the one who was at first intended for
But there were a lot of folks up for it.
I remember we were up for it, and I saw
the film. I liked it. I saw it. I thought
it was quirky. I liked it. So I've seen it back,
and I saw it back in the I think in
the nineties. If I saw it, I saw it.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
So yeah, you know, I want someone out there with
better AI talents than I to recreate via AI a
classic scene from Harold and Maud, but and sert Richard
Dreyfus into it instead, and see what that scene would
have looked like.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Interesting, right, I mean again, Richards had a career clearly, Yes, you.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Know his His movie The Apprenticeship of Dordy Kravitz was
one of the ones that the Westgate ran after Harold
and Maud in an attempt to again repeat that success.
And that movie is a tragic comedy. He is very
very good in it, but it does not leave you
with aarticularly warm, fuzzy feeling because he is revealed to
(33:03):
be pretty awful person and so in that sense, it's
not a very good choice to replace Harold and Matt,
but it did have that level of quirkiness to it
that people responded to.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, yeah, he's something else. He and my father were really, really,
really good friends. So that's how he edited my family.
My father's even in the business. So they are two young,
struggling people trying to work back in the day, and
now he met That's how he met it, and they
stayed friends the whole time.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Okay, let me ask you this just as a favor, Yes,
if you ever have a moment of quiet with him.
I know he was quoted as saying that in Doody
Kravits that when they edited the movie, they ruined Jack
Warden's performance. Jack Wharton played his father in the movie,
not having seen what was supposed to be there. Just
(33:51):
seeing what Jack Wardon did in the movie. He is
so outstanding. I would love to know what they took
out that made dry this feel that they had ruined
the performance, because Jack Wharton is really good in that movie.
So if you ever have a chance asking that question
and send me an email.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I'll do that. You never know, right, you never, You
just never know what conversations. He's a talker, you know,
you never, you never know. Yeah, he has any great films.
So it was good. But I say, this story, I
want people. This is such an interesting story of just
two things coming together and being very I have a
time where it's successful. Again, lightning in a bottle that happens,
(34:30):
and it's just it's you can't script these things. You
can't plan them, you can't script them. I love what's
like this happens and two things come together and just
make success. And it was a moment in time. You know,
we have a lot of these moments in time that
are very underrated because no one's talking about it. I said,
you can go online and it's kind of mentioned wes
Kate Theaters, it's mentioned in the books and kind of
(34:52):
the history of it. But you gave it life to say,
here's more of the story. Here is the actual story
of it. So congratulations, Josh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It was a really fun journey to dig into that
and find out stuff that I didn't know about the
theater and about the movie.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, very good. So where can they find the book.
They won't get the books.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sure, I'll just say it's it's sort of a coffee
table book. It's like half imagery and half text. So
it's a big book with a lot of colored, black
and white photos in it. It's sort of a pricey
book because it's a coffee table book. You can find
the hardcover and the paperback are available on Amazon, or
you can go directly to my website at Albertsbridgebooks dot com.
(35:33):
That's Albertsbridgebooks dot com and buy it for a little
tiny bit less directly from me as well as there's
a special edition that has Harold and watt end papers
in it as well. So there's three versions you can
get from me, or two versions you can find on
Amazon or go to your local bookstore. They can order
it as well.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Very good kid support books. I always say this at
the end of my shows, and that is you'll support
indie writers. Support indie authors who put together these books.
And I see a nice dogging back there. I love it.
He's not how we're done. Now they're almost done. It's
I can say, get up there, a cute fail.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Somehow they know I don't know how they know.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
They're intuitive animals. No, but support support authors, support history,
historian kind of authors who really are trying to give
us all these different histories. There's so many stories out there,
and that's what we do on these shows. Our show
Forgotten Hollywood with Doug has between the page's ex connections.
We're talking about all this history that you may not
(36:33):
even know about. That is it is fil it's history,
it's history. It's underrated and should be told. So please
support books like his that are telling stories that that
are fascinating and wonderful and you just and you learn
something new. I'm a big proponent of that. Support that
support that support, and also we don't pan books. This
(36:55):
channel does not support that at all. Anybody's able to
read what they want to read of all of all kinds,
and books aren't going anywhere, folks, whether it's audible or
kindle or actual physical copies. People are reading more than ever,
so only by telling you otherwise they are reading their
devouring books more than ever. And this channel will always
(37:16):
support that, always, always, always, and the pages on Facebook.
I have books too. If you want to reading, my
books are on Amazon who or James Lott Jr. And
we'll see you guys next time. Thank you John, Thanks
James was great.
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