FREEDOM OF SPEECH January 23, 2009

About twenty five years ago I was in a rapidly declining partnership with one of my brothers. We had a piano and organ store that was falling victim to the rise of video games, computers and video tape players. The business had been purchased by my brother about five years earlier and I had joined him in it after he had completed the first year. It initially showed some promise but never really grew to the point where two families could be sustained with any degree of comfort. So during the years we had the store, actually a couple of stores for a time, we both had other jobs. At the time when the business was going downhill my brother was in the Air Force Reserve and was gone a great deal of the time. My extra job was managing a movie theater.

The last theater I managed was a little neighborhood place right next door to the music store. The theater business at that time was also in a serious slump. The video rental business was new and exciting and was seriously affecting how often folks went out to a picture show. So the big company that owned the theater was trying all sorts of gimmicks to bring in the customers. We had dollar nights, prize drawings, triple features and specials on popcorn and soda. But things weren’t going so well even with all of the promotional efforts.

One evening I was visited by the regional manager who told me that we were going to try a change of programming to go after a different audience. Some neighborhood, legitimate movie houses were running x-rated films and having some success. The old theater in the downtown area had even tried a couple of famous features and done well. Respectable upper income couples had filled the place up for a while. But the adult shows were only sporadic offerings and merely a novelty at that theater. The company executive said that on the next change date we would be running a double feature. There would be some newspaper advertising about the new format and we could have some extra help on hand to take care of the anticipated increase in business. All of my employees were under the age of eighteen so I had to fire them all and very quickly hire and train some replacements.

The days passed and I received phone calls from the local newspapers asking questions about the upcoming change. I also received some calls threatening the theater with protests by a couple of local religious groups who were strongly against pornography. Two days before we were to start with the new type of movies I got a call from the home office telling me I had to go to the State Police offices and get photos and fingerprinting done for the “adult entertainment” license that would be required. It was then that I became a little concerned about where this was all heading.

Now I was no stranger to adult films. When I started as a manager for the group that owned the theater I had run a drive-in out in the country a ways. That particular venue had been running dirty movies for several years. It was a pretty busy little place patronized by every type of person you might think of. I had two older ladies running the concession area and another selling the tickets. Security was tight and we had a couple of guys walking the perimeter making sure that kids didn’t sneak up to the fence for a peek. Several times a week the State Police would send a car in to drive around and check for any problems. Usually the cop would sit in the back row and watch the movie for while before he moved on. I didn’t particularly like the stuff we showed but I needed a job so that I could put food on the table and it was the only thing I could find. But I was glad when I was transferred to the theater up in town that was showing family movies. And since it was closer to the music store it was a lot more economical.

But now I was being told to switch over to an x-rated place once again. The day before the change over I received another phone call from the home office. This time it was the vice president of the company and he wanted to tell me that the District Attorney from our city had called to say that several complaints had been received about the company plans. He said that police would be in attendance and that it was remotely possible that the theater could be forced to close. This was all taking place during a time when court cases about showing x-rated movies and selling Playboy and other men’s magazines were a regular feature in the news. So the vice president wanted me to know that an attorney from the company would be present and that the ACLU was also going to be interested in the reaction by government officials to our new presentation. Free speech was the issue, he said, and we had the Constitution protecting us.

I’ve always been a strong believer in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is one of the most important of our freedoms and should be protected. We may not like what is being said, written or shown as entertainment but the choice of listening or watching is up to the individual and the government should not making those choices for us. But I was still feeling a little uncomfortable about this whole chain of events.

Opening night arrived and I got to the theater quite early. I had to set up the projectors and make sure everything was ready for the anticipated crowd. We were scheduled to start our show at seven but I was set to go an hour earlier. My new snack bar people had just arrived and were getting their area set up. It was then that the regional manager and the company attorney arrived. They hung around the lobby, saying little and acting kind of nervous. Then there was another knock on the door and two uniformed city policemen were there along with a guy in a suit who turned out to be the District Attorney. I let them in. The two lawyer types went off to a corner and had a very civil discussion. Meanwhile it was time to open the doors. I could see a small crowd of people across the parking lot with signs of an anti-porn nature. That wasn’t really a surprise since a Lutheran church was only about five hundred feet from the little strip center that contained our theater. And there were some people from the staff of the elementary school a couple blocks away.

The potential ticket buyers were not upper middle class couples. They were all men who looked vaguely uncomfortable at all the attention they were getting from the protesters. When a TV station news van drove into the parking lot several of the men in line very quickly disappeared. It was at this point that I went to the DA and asked him what would happen when I started the movie. He said that the movie would be observed for a few moments until it could be established that it was allegedly pornographic. Then a warrant that was in his pocket would be served. The theater would be shut down and the film would be seized as evidence. I would be arrested and brought in for booking and arraignment. When I called the regional manager over and asked him why he wouldn’t be the person arrested he said that I was the one on the license since I was a resident of the state. I then told him that I was not going to show the movie and if he wanted to fire me it was okay with me. And I also told him that changing the theater to an x-rated venue was a very stupid thing to do considering the neighborhood we were operating in. If community standards are part of the criteria for deciding the court cases about pornography then the company didn’t have much hope of winning. To further reduce the chance of having a job the next day I told him that his attorney wasn’t too bright if he had been advising the company to go ahead with their plan. The attorney said it was a matter of free speech and all my legal fees and fines would be paid for, as well as any bail that might be required. But I still refused to start the show. The guys lined up to buy tickets left. The police and the DA left. The protesters went home. And finally the regional manager and his lawyer went away with a warning that I hadn’t heard the last of this.

The next morning I got a call from the president of the theater company. He said that we were going to run older popular action movies at a low admission price until things either got better or until we had to close up. So that night we ran the first Star Wars movie which we had played a couple of years earlier. And we followed that type of format for a few more months. Then the theater went dark.

Now I’m not trying to give the impression that I stood up against the evils of dirty movies. And I’m not saying that if we were trying to show a movie about the virtues of communism that I would have given in if the government tried to shut us down. It would be a lot easier to stand up for the right to show a politically incorrect film than an adult epic. And I probably shouldn’t have been a coward on that night. But of the several things that influenced my action, or lack of action, the most important was that the community surrounding the little theater was against the showing of those adult movies. And I was part of that community. Staying out of jail also was a factor because the value of an adult film was less than the value of my reputation in the community and the loss of that reputation if I did get arrested.

Within a few months I was out of the music store business and out of the theater business. My next couple of jobs got a little better and it wasn’t too long before I was in the business I stayed in until I retired. Every once in a while I think back to those troublesome times. Some would say that I was involved in a sinful and evil thing when I worked at the drive-in. And they are probably right. Others might even say that all movies are sinful and the work of the devil. And they may be right as well. I’ll certainly defend their right to say all those things. And I hope they would offer me that same freedom of speech.

Have a fine day.