Most people have a memory bank. This guy has a movie theater in his head.
Most people have a memory bank. Scott Cherney has a movie theater inside of his head.
At least the floor isn’t sticky.
IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER is Scott Cherney’s anecdotal history of one of life’s great pastimes-going to the movies. This comical coming of age saga spans over four decades spent in hundreds of cinemas and living life one film at a time.
Cherney grew up watching movies at the same time movies were growing up themselves.
IN THE DARK recalls such Baby Boomer cinematic events as the final days of the Saturday afternoon matinee right up to the rise and fall of the skin flick. The classic period of filmmaking in the 1970s is explored as well as the salad days of American repertory cinema. The chapter entitled SHOTS IN THE DARK is a state of the cinema address that slices, dices and purees today’s audiences, filmmakers, exhibitors and critics in one fell swoop.
Along with the eyewitness accounts and pointed barbs are the personal reminisces of a self-proclaimed movie geek. There are childhood tales of family, friends and the three best babysitters in all the world-James Bond, Clint Eastwood and Count Dracula. The age of discovery coincided with the rites of passage found in the back seat at the drive-in. The dream job of working in a movie theater becomes the subject of night terrors when the Bijou becomes the scene of an armed robbery. Then travel from Hollywood to New York City in the never-ending quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of one great movie after another.
IN THE DARK is a funny, sometimes poignant trip down Memory Lane, potholes and all, chronicling the American movie-going experience through the eyes of someone who Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD referred to as one of “those wonderful people in the dark”.
Excerpt
Most people have a memory bank. Some unfortunate souls, merely a savings and loan. But me, I have something entirely different sitting inside of my skull and that would be a movie theater.
It’s certainly not one of those generic multiplexes that are so prevalent, they have become the standard of how we view film in today’s world. They aren’t theaters so much that they are just screening rooms, stacked together like so many shoeboxes. What kind of nostalgic memories will those conjure up for future generations? You might as well get all warm and fuzzy for a parking garage.
Not for me.
My internal cinema is an ornate structure from an era before my very own, a time when attending the movies was so special, they were shown in a palace. The huge marquee out front, over lighted in all of its bombastic neon glory announces the current attraction in typical Hollywood hyperbolic fashion. The art deco lobby is trimmed all in gold, including the staircase to the fabled and forbidden Loges section where the really
good seats are. The concession stand is not ostentatious, almost a footnote rather than the lobby’s primary focus. It sells treats that can only be purchased in a movie theater like Raisinettes and ice cream Bon Bons.
Inside the slightly darkened auditorium, the air is always cool, no matter what the time of year. Illuminated by black lights on each wall are identical day-glo murals of a wild white stallion in full gallop, ridden by who appears to be the Greek goddess Athena, flying back to Mount Olympus after an all-nighter at Bacchus’ place. The intermission music, set at an appropriately low volume, contains classic motion picture soundtrack music by such composers as Max Steiner, Dmitri Tiomkin and Miklos Rozsa. The
massively wide screen is draped over by a majestic burgundy colored velvet curtain.
While the seating capacity of the auditorium can easily accommodate several hundred, there is always an audience of just one. That would be me, sitting smack dab in the middle with my feet up on the seats in front of me, thank you very much. I’ve got the place all to myself ‘cuz that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.
Now playing in the Cinema of My Mind’s Eye are not only recollections of what I’ve seen on the Silver Screen in my lifetime, but also the life and time I’ve spent doing so. As the years pass, so goes the memory, yet I still retain near-total recall of my tenure as a movie patron. Give me a title. I can tell you if/where/when I saw it, who (if anyone) I was with and how I was feeling at the time. “Going to the show”, as we used to call it, was a very special time for me. It formed the nucleus of this passion I have for an art form that has enriched my spirit and consistently given me great joy over the years.
This passion in question has been manifested into an obsession to be sure. It’s harmless, but not entirely healthy either. Maybe the hermit-like existence I’ve spent at the movies has been instrumental in the creation of the oddball I am today, one whose quirks, phobias and eccentricities can be easily traced back to way too much time spent in a celluloid trance and not nearly enough human interaction.
process.
As far as the theater inside my brainpan, I guess, for lack of a better term, you could call it my Happy Place. (Normally, I would send anyone using that particular phrase to a Sad Place by way of the back of my hand. But, I’m unable to perform that task upon myself. The angle is all wrong.) Safe Haven might be more apropos, but doesn’t that sound more like a halfway house? How about Sanctuary? How about who cares? Whatever name or label you want to slap on it means nothing to me. All I know is that when I am there, I find solace.
I am one of those who Norma Desmond referred to in Sunset Boulevard as “one of the wonderful little people in the dark”. In that darkness, I have found enlightenment. Sure, I know it comes from the lamp of a motion picture projector, but it would be unfair to call it artificial. How is that possible when that light can recreate dreams? My dreams. My past. My present. My future.
As I close my eyes, I open my mind into the theater inside of my head. I sit listening to the final moments of Ernest Gold’s “Theme from Exodus” and I smile at Athena’s ascension to the heavens. The lights begin to fade and the curtain starts to rise. Suddenly, I am basking in the glow of the illuminated screen. It is then that I realize that the world-THIS world-is mine, all mine.
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