Cinema Speculation

*The Lakewood One & Two was a cinema owned by the Pussycat Theatre chain that projected adult entertainment of the Triple XXX variety. However, inconveniently for everybody, the dirty movie house was located directly across the street from an elementary school. So efforts were made by the community to shut them the fuck down. The case came before a judge, who was sympathetic to the community’s concerns. Nevertheless, the Pussycat Theatre chain (owned by a fellow named Vincent Miranda) was a legitimate Los Angeles based company that wisely made many political contributions in Los Angeles County. In every brochure of the Pussycat Theatre chain it included a picture of Vincent Miranda shaking hands with Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. So the judge came up with a compromise that would have made Solomon proud. Since there were two screens, one could keep showing adult entertainment. But the other had to screen non-pornographic material. At first there was an effort on the company’s part to make that second screen work. First they tried showing foreign movies (Wifemistress, Bread and Chocolate, The Divine Nymph, The Immortal Bachelor), and when that didn’t work they tried turning it into a revival house. So right alongside the new porno film starring Jennifer Welles or Seka you could watch either The Maltese Falcon or Citizen Kane. Then when that didn’t work either the company stopped caring what Cinema #2 showed, as long as Cinema #1 was allowed to remain open. And soon it became a dumping ground for distributors to meet their Los Angeles theatrical distribution contractual requirement.