Ryan ChartrandThe Fremont Theatre downtown creates old movie magic each month through its series “Screening Room Classics,” which brings Hollywood’s greatest films back to the big screen. The Movie Experience, which owns a chain of theaters in Southern California, has been bringing classic films back for special showings for the past 11 years.
The Movie Experience chooses feature films based on votes and requests from the movie-goers, and delivers them in the original 35 millimeter format.
The “Screening Room Classics” movie season runs from October through July; voting ballots for the season’s movies are available in April and May. Each Movie Experience Theatre location has different classic films based on the requests from their particular area.
“We started running one classic movie a month at one of our locations and it just took off. We were getting about 400 to 500 people per picture so we expanded the classics to all of our locations,” said Harold Taylor, director of “Screening Room Classics.”
Two classic films are featured each month at the San Luis Obispo Fremont Theatre location. One of the films is part of the “Icons of the Golden Age” series that The Movie Experience shows at all of its California locations, and the other is part of the “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” series that is specific to the Fremont location.
“Icons of the Golden Age” is all about the essence of classic Hollywood, paying tribute to the directors and actors who were the original greats of tinsel town. “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” is a group of films that is only available in San Luis Obispo and shows the great movies from the 1970s.
For every film in the “Screening Room Classics” series there is a discussion and trivia session that takes place before the show. Movie patrons can learn fun facts about the making of the movie and win T-shirts and DVDs as prizes.
Favorite flicks for the month of April starts off with 1973’s “The Sting,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, on Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. The movie is part of the “Walk on the Wild Side” series. The “Icons of the Golden Age” movie of the month will be the 1941 film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” on Tuesday, April 17 at 7 p.m.
The 2006-07 Movie Experience “Screening Room Classics” will continue through the end of its season in July. “Icons of the Golden Age” series will finish up by showing “The Big Sleep,” “Rear Window” and “Gone with the Wind.”
The “Walk on the Wild Side” series is scheduled to play “China Town,” “American Graffiti” and “Jaws” for the remainder of the throwback to the ’70s season.
“One of the great things about this series is the fact that we show the old movies the old-fashioned way with the 35 millimeter film. There are so many factors involved in getting the film, it’s becoming much harder,” Taylor said. “This season we were scheduled to play ‘The Godfather’ and then last minute Paramount pulled the movie to restore it and it was no longer available to us. In the future, I am not sure if it will be possible to use the older versions.”
To get the old film, The Movie Experience usually has to go through the big Hollywood production companies and battle the licensing fees.
So far this season, the biggest “Screening Room Classics” turnout at the Fremont Theatre was for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in February.
“I definitely enjoy it when movie theatres show the classics. I went to go see ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and everyone was really into it. People are really passionate about the old films, so it creates more interaction between the movie-goers,” said materials engineering senior James Vance.
Times and dates for all movies shown in the “Screening Room Classics” series are available on www.themovieexperience.com.