Just
got back from seeing Letty
Lynton
on the big screen at Austin's State Theatre!
(State
sits next-door to the more-famous Paramount---which is currently closed for renovations. Paramount was built in 1915 as a 1000-seat vaudeville house; State, which
holds about 350, was built in 1935 specifically as a movie-house.
The two theaters merged as one entity in 2000.)
The
350-seat theater was seemingly completely sold out. (I'd sat in the
back row, hoping to have a seat on either side of me free, but by
the time the show started, people were filling in all the empty
seats.)
Big
Joan dramatic moments were applauded throughout (as were comedic
moments, like the intentionally funny/stunned shipboard look on
Letty's face in the newspaper photo with Jerry, shown twice in the
film). And the audience especially liked the line "This isn't
the early '90s," which a couple of characters said at various
points (referring to the "old-fashioned morality" of the
1890s). Another crowd favorite was Louise Closser Hale as Letty's
maid/assistant Miranda.
And,
while people initially laughed a bit when Letty first opened
a bathroom cabinet and dramatically took out a bottle blatantly
labeled "POISON," they got very quiet during her final
scene with Emil, and during the subsequent interview with the police.
I'd seen the movie on a bootleg disc years ago, but if you hadn't
seen it before, you weren't quite sure what was going to happen
when the police interviewed her at the end (with Jerry and her previously
disdainful mother in attendance). Big round of applause at the end.
The respect for Joan was palpable.
Letty
was on a double-bill with ex-husband Franchot's Phantom Lady
from 1944, but by the time Letty was over, I had to escape!
Claustrophobia (though I knew the theater would clear out a lot
after Letty was over), plus REALLY uncomfortable seats! Oh,
and I'd taken a bus downtown since I didn't want to deal with parking.
From previous experience on Austin buses 10 years ago, I knew there
would be weirdos at 5:30pm and at 9:00pm; didn't want to gamble
on who I'd encounter after 10:30pm!
p.s.
The 5:30pm folks on the way there were mainly mildly agitated, sometimes addressing their verbal grievances toward me and others. The bus-driver knew no English at all: When I asked him which stop to take on the way home, he had no idea what I was asking him.
Among the 9pm folks on the way home:
A shaved-head white guy wearing a "Recovery" T-shirt who had a pit-bull stuck underneath his bus seat. The dog kept HOWLING. The man wasn't being particularly mean to the dog, but he did keep "adjusting" the dog, trying to make him shut up.
A 40-something Hispanic guy who was blasting his "tunes" for all of us to hear.
Bus rules state: No animals, no music. If you want public transportation to catch on with the general public, then you do need to enforce stuff like: No verbal abuse toward fellow riders, no howling animals, no blasting music.
Oh, and perhaps your drivers should know rudimentary English.
