Get Out the Garters, ‘Rocky’ Is in Town!

They converged in droves Saturday night at the Art Theater--young women in their black fishnet stockings and young men in their spiked leather boots.

With hair dyed a multitude of colors and faces caked heavy with makeup, an estimated 350 teen-agers and young adults stood in line for up to three hours waiting for what many considered an important artistic event--the opening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show� in Long Beach.

“I think it’s going to be wild,� said an enthusiastic Robin Burchett, 16, adorned in a racy red-and-white cabaret costume. “We’ll be throwing food. I brought my umbrella.�

The occasion was the local debut of what is widely regarded as the most successful cult film ever made. The movie has been shown in Long Beach before, but it has never had an ongoing run in the city.

For the past 10 years “Rocky Horror� had been playing at the Balboa Cinema in Newport Beach, one of a handful of Southern California theaters exhibiting the movie (with its traditional accompanying amateur stage show). Others are in West Los Angeles, Montclair, Redondo Beach and San Diego.

But complaints from Balboa residents about noise and litter, coupled with concerns by municipal officials about the area’s image, had taken a toll on attendance there. Two months ago, a new company took over the theater’s management and sent the “Rocky� fans packing.

Enter Howard Linn, owner of the Art Theater near 4th Street and Cherry Avenue, a somewhat low-rent district just east of downtown Long Beach. For 12 years, Linn has owned the vintage 500-seat theater, a musty cinema house built in 1925 that began its life as a venue for silent movies. Initially Linn offered an eclectic mix of foreign and classic films. Recently, however, he switched to a format featuring more-commercial fare aimed at improving the struggling theater’s narrow profit margin.

Then he decided to add “The Rocky Horror Picture Show� as a midnight attraction. He said the film, at $5 a ticket, is almost a sure moneymaker. And bringing it to Long Beach gives the displaced Balboa stage cast a new home and local youths a new place to go every Saturday night.

“I think of Long Beach as a stodgy sort of town,� he said. “I figure this is a healthy diversion; it’s just good fun.�

That opinion of the film has not always been shared by audiences.

Based on a rock musical that opened in London in 1973, the standard-length film depicts the erotic musical saga of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite from outer space who comes to Earth to create a male lover for himself but in the process murders an Elvis-like biker for some of his body parts. As a result, Frank-N-Furter’s menagerie of weird servants eventually kill him and send him back to the planet of Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania.

In 1975, when the film version previewed in Santa Barbara, two-thirds of the audience walked out. Other audiences reacted similarly in college towns throughout the United States. But during a midnight showing at a theater in New York’s Greenwich Village, a strange thing happened: The audience began talking back to the picture.

Over the years the phenomenon grew. Fans, many of whom had seen the film dozens of times, began showing up for the movie dressed as its characters. In addition to yelling back one-liners, they started acting out certain scenes involving props such as newspapers, matches, slices of bread, rice, confetti and playing cards. Now most screenings of the movie--which traditionally take place at midnight--are accompanied by live performances by costumed volunteer casts who hold regular rehearsals and then act out each scene on a stage as it transpires on the screen.

Saturday’s Long Beach audience got--and gave--the full treatment.

During one scene in which a character in the film walks through a rainstorm holding a newspaper over her head, audience members covered their own heads with newspapers while a volunteer walked up and down the aisles spraying them with water. At other times the audience yelled out obscenities, waved lighted matches, tossed around slices of bread and playing cards, and threw rice during a wedding scene.

“It’s an energy release,� explained Dennis Miller, a professional “fanrep� who has been promoting the film for years. “It’s a place where they can come and mingle and do what they can’t do at school: use dirty words, wear nylons and garter belts, and just act crazy. They learn a little about sex and lust too. It’s an education-oriented medium.�

Because the film is unrated, there are few age restrictions on who may attend.

Among those in Saturday’s audience, in fact, was a church youth group whose adult sponsor argued that attending “The Rocky Horror Picture Show� was a valuable experience for the youngsters, some of whom were just 13.

“I think the value of it is the fact that it exists,� said Louis Skelton, 41, who attended with about 18 young people from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach. “Young people always want to do what adults perceive as inappropriate. It’s a form of rebellion, but I see it as a very safe form.�

The phenomenon has become so established that hawkers walked up and down the line before the performance selling “Rocky Horror survival kits� for $1 apiece. They contained such props as rice, newspapers, confetti, matches and playing cards.

In a concession to the audience’s safety, a cast member frisked the fans before admitting them to the theater, looking for such items as video cameras, weapons, eggs or tortillas.

“Eggs make a mess,� explained Jamie Creel, who was in charge of security, “and tortillas get wet and slippery, (causing) people to slip.�

But the security measures did not seem to interfere with most of the patrons’ fun. Greg Lockie, a 22-year-old toy store stock clerk from Newport Beach who said he had seen the film more than 100 times, came dressed in spiked boots and black leather jacket, with his wife and infant son in tow.

Lockie said 3-month-old Nathanyl has been to the movie three times. “He’s just real quiet,� Lockie said. “He just sits there and smiles.�

Lockie’s 19-year-old wife, Stacy, said: “It’s a good way to get your aggressions out, with all the screaming and yelling.�

Residents and business people in the neighborhood already seem to be accepting the onslaught of oddly dressed theatergoers more readily than did their counterparts in the higher-rent Balboa Peninsula area.

Volunteers at The Center, a gay and lesbian drop-in facility next door, say they do not anticipate any problems. “This is like a melting pot,� said receptionist John Downey. “There will be tolerance.�

Mike Dickerson, 24, a waiter who rents an apartment two doors from the theater, said that although he heard some noise Saturday night he did not find it particularly offensive. “This neighborhood has a reputation for being weird anyway,� he said. “It’s more progressive, more homosexual, more coffeehouse and more beatnik. That’s one of the reasons I moved here.�

Lori Mayer, owner of Lorilou’s Coffeehouse across the street, said the “Rocky� crowd is good for business. She said she kept the coffeehouse open an extra two hours Saturday night to accommodate them. “I never saw so many people on this street,� she said.