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The Montreal Gazette posted an excerpt this week from You’re Not Dead until You’re Forgotten: A Memoir by John Dunning and Bill Brownstein, where the late film pioneer recalls working at his family’s movie theatre in Ville Émard.
It was like the Wild West at the Century. The only reason my grandmother wasn’t killed there is because she was a little old lady. And they just took pity on my grandfather, whose advanced age protected him. So here is this teenager trying to keep the peace in the place. It was pure hell, and I was fair game. There were two steel companies in the area, Dosco and Stelco, and there was a tavern kitty-corner to the theatre, much closer to the church than the theatre. Mix up these elements and you’ve got yourself one boiling cauldron to deal with.
I used to absolutely dread every time the bookings came in. If we had a Norma Shearer or Lana Turner social drama or romance, I knew we were in store for big trouble. To show their appreciation for these wrenching women’s films, the customers, many under the influence of drink, would simply cut the seats, then pull out the stuffing and litter the place to show that they were pissed off. They wanted action. They wanted violence on screen. They wanted Bogart, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and Westerns. How I’d breathe a sigh of relief when we’d book even something like the Bowery Boys. I knew that would mean that our seats could at least make it through another night intact.
Tough as it was, I was alone after nine at night, when my usher and doorman would leave. I had to stay until eleven and fulfil my tour of duty. I’d have to check the men’s room downstairs to see if there were any stragglers. Then I had to check the booth upstairs to make sure the operator hadn’t fallen asleep. And then I had to lock all the doors, except for the front one, and sit at the doorman’s chair to make sure no one would sneak in.
There was never a dull moment.
One night, a guy comes up from the bathroom downstairs on his way back to his seat and just hawks a huge gob onto the carpet at the back of the theatre. I was incensed. So I grabbed the guy and tossed him out of the theatre. He was an older teenage punk — not unlike me, actually. Ten minutes later, I’m sitting alone at the doorman’s station. And the guy comes back, with five friends. He’s armed with an ice pick in his hand. He’s livid, waving the ice pick about and yelling that he’s going to kill me. He comes up the stairs of the theatre and I grab the chair I’m sitting in to block the entrance. I feel like Horatio at the bridge. I push the chair at them every time they try to get in. Meanwhile, customers are coming out of the theatre and filing out this entrance. I’m begging them to call the cops, but they seem indifferent. They just walk off. It wasn’t their fight.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Sept 11: Book Launch
Ben McNally Books, Toronto
6:30 PM
More details >
Nov 2: Bill Brownstein Book Reading
Books & Breakfast, Sheraton Hotel, Montreal
10:00 AM (tickets are $32)
Details coming soon
More images available on our Tumblr.
You can also catch Bill Brownstein’s interviews on CTV Montreal here and CBC All in a Weekend here.
To learn more about You’re Not Dead until You’re Forgotten, click here.
For media requests, please contact Jacqui Davis.
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