Cemetery cinema
The past few years, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard (at Gower) has been hosting, of all things, film screenings.
You pay $10 and schlep to a grassy, graveless lawn, set up a picnic blanket or beach chair and watch a movie screened against the wall of a giant mausoleum.
Revival house? More like revival crypt. Friends of mine have gone off-and-on since Cinespia's start. It always seemed a little creepy to me -- not scary but bad taste and disrespectful. But the cemetery could use the money, apparently, and what the heck. Revival houses are few and far between these days.
So when a couple of friends invited me last Saturday, I went along. The movie was Orson Welles' amazing "Touch of Evil" and, you know, the whole thing was kinda fun.
Cinespia has a website if you'd like to know more. Upcoming movies: "Sixteen Candles" (tonight), "Phantasm," (Sunday), "Badlands" and "Rear Window" (next weekend).
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A journalist for more than two decades, David Allen has been writing a column for the Daily Bulletin since 1997 and blogging since 2007.He lives in Claremont.
E-mail David here or read columns here.
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Is that the same cemetery they used in this season's The Last Comic Standing? It looked like they were projecting onto a mausoleum wall.
[No idea, but Hollywood Forever is the most famous cemetery in L.A. -- DA]
I agree with you. It sounds creepy and simply wrong. It's not the thing for someone with an overactive imagination. LOL
KT
I believe that the "movies in the cemetery" actually started some years ago as part of the whole Valentino remembrance. Then there were Halloween screenings, and the thing really took off.
Check out a wonderful HBO documentary titled "The Young and the Dead" that chronicles the history of the cemetery and the interesting group of people who bought it and restored it to its present glory. It was in horrible disrepair for many years.
Did you grab a map and look for some of the more famous residents of Hollywood Forever? Mel Blanc, Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Iron Eyes Cody, Rudolph Valentino, Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, Darla and Alfalfa, to name a few of the famous who are buried there.
[There wasn't time for a tour, but we did see Joey Ramone's grave, marked by a life-sized statue of him playing guitar. -- DA]
GREETINGS:
I could say I've been dying to attend one of the screenings at Hollywood Forever, but that would probably be too grave a statement.
Great choice on your part, David. Touch of Evil is a classic example of film noir. Most probably think of it as microcosm of Welles' battle with the Hollywood studio system (a struggle he lost). But this complex and captivating masterpiece deserves far more public recognition than it's typically received. And what a great setting to view it!
Please tell me they screened the "director's re-cut" version that eliminated the reshoots by Harry Keller. Otherwise, I'm sure Orson was turning over in his ... well, you know what I mean.
[Yes, it was the re-cut version, the one without the titles obscuring that amazingly long single-camera shot in the opening! -- DA]
I've been to the cemetery screenings a few times and yeah, it may seem a little creepy but I actually had a great time...you're not sitting on a gravesite and I even forgot I was at a cemetery. The music was wonderful, met some cool people, brought some wine and food with us...would recommend it for a group of friends for an outing or a date..most definitely!!