Facebook Page Exclusive! August, 1977, Young Screen receives a hint in an Adrian, MI paper - Plus, the Toledo and Detroit original runs for Suspiria. Young Screen was already into Horror films, especially thanks to the one and only Sir Graves Ghastly on WKBD, Channel 2 from Detroit, but something caught his eyes one day while looking through the local Adrian paper. Before it had its multi-plex, Adrian had a DI (where Young Screen got a nice peep of some perks in that classic style while his family was driving home...little did they know I was still awake!) and a downtown two-screener which for a week or so showed Dario Argentos classic Suspiria. Knowing that his parents would not let him see the brilliance, he decided to let that issue rest as he looked at the ad and its classic line. And stared...and stared! His brain kept that title like a trap, and the classic advertising image would make sure that it would stay in his memory. It was not until the Late 80s when Screen was starting to rent videos that he would finally see what he was wondering about for years, and loved it. While he also loved a lot of Exploitation ads for films he could not see for being too young, many of which he taped onto his wall much to the parents dismay (along with some attempts at Surreal artwork that no longer exist). Suspiria brought classic Italian Horror cinema to the interest table. As far as the play in Detroit and Toledo went, it was a classic case of a movie that had to grow to get noticed as it was so unlike the Horror of the day. Released by 20th Century Fox under its International Classics banner (still to this day it contains only one film, this one!), this played the Downtown Detroit area at the Madison in the first week of August, 1977 and also at the Norwest with Dont Look in the Basement as the B. It arrived in Toledo on 8/20/77, showing at the Colony, a theater Young Screen sadly never went to, as it showed a lot of the films his parents never wanted to see (they were not big fans of Horror!) and the place in Toledo where films like Halloween and even Let Me Die a Woman appeared with the occasional Hollywood Hit playing from time to time to keep the money flowing until its passing in the Summer of 1981 - the same time when the Pantheon also went away (more on those theaters later!) As Suspiria was making its way through the Glass City, the number of screens in The D also grew...to three, adding the Miracle Mile Drive In, which played it with To the Devil...A Daughter (something that I would have LOVED to see then!) 9-30-77 - Suspiria enters its Detroit DI run at the Bel Air (w/Dont Open the Window) and Ecorse (The Devil Within Her), while the indoor screens included the Northgate (Deranged) and the Cinema City Warren (Burnt Offerings). in a time when there would be WTF mismatches that still provided a good night out, the West Side DI would play it with The Man From Hong Kong! 10-19-77 saw it play the Miracle Mile DI in Toledo with the one and only Flesh for Frankenstein, then better known as Andy Warhols Frankenstein - the same day that future Argento Soundtrack music maker Keith Emerson (Inferno!) planned a concert with Greg Lake and Carl Palmer on the ill-fated ELP Works tour at the Sports Arena (*as this was not on many lists, I wonder if it was cancelled)! ...at that time, music-wise a Punk scene was brewing up in England and selected areas in The US. Young screen would find out about it later. in 1978, it would appear as a B to Damien: Omen 2 and then later in 1979 as part of the Joseph Brenner-released double bill with Eyeball (9-21-79 Toledo)!
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:07:20 +0000
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