The One That Got Away…
August 1990-
Ken Schacter and I were speeding East across Arizona as fast
as we could. Our 1986 Ford Aerostar van was staying cooler than
we were. I was born and raised in the heat of Texas and was used
to the 100 + degree heat, but Ken was a Canadian and not used to
the scorching air of the desert. The only songs on the radio
(when we could get a station) were “golden oldies”. It appeared
that Arizona hadn’t moved past 1959.
“If you can tell me who recorded this song, I’ll give you my
Bride of Frankenstein insert,” Ken laughed.
My knowledge of music was vastly inferior to my knowledge of
film- but our impromptu trivia sessions helped pass the time.
We had already spent a month in New Mexico scouring the state for
posters. We checked every theatre from Truth or Consequences to
Santa Fe. All we had to show for our work was a whole lot a
nuthin’- zilch, and “Nada”. We had started the trip with a
bankroll of $6,000 and now our pockets were about $3000 lighter.
We had a couple of hundred bucks in quarters for the pay-phones
and even those rolls were running low. We knew if we didn’t find
something soon, our two month odyssey through the southwest was
going to break us. New Mexico was a bust so we decided to move on
to Arizona.
The theory sounded good- “Let’s go look for posters where there
aren’t many collectors, no sign of poster exchanges, not many
antique shops and remote as it gets.” Where else but New Mexico
and Arizona? The two states seemed to fit the bill. Only problem;
it wasn’t exactly a target rich environment. During the 1930’s
and 1940’s the two states combined only had around 193 theatres.
Most of those were in a few large cities and the rest had about
a hundred miles between them.
Our little excursion in the summer of 1990 occurred in the days
before cell phones, GPS’s and laptop computers. We kept notes on
the theatres we checked out on a legal notepad. We started
Arizona in the southern part of the state, heading westbound on
I-10 and I-8 and gradually worked our way north to I-40. Along
the way we had stopped in numerous towns and kept hearing the
same response-
“Yeah, some feller come through here a few years ago and
picked up all the posters.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“Nope.”
“How about what he was planning on doing with them.”
“Nope.”
“Does anyone else around here know where we could find him?”
“Nope.”
The Gary Cooper impressions in every city were getting old until
Ken and I hit “paydirt” in Flagstaff. The manager of the Orpheum
Theatre slipped us a business card and stated that the guy that
had picked up all of their posters was a theatre owner himself.
Apparently, the fellow and his brother had gone all over Arizona
picking up the posters and had taken them back to their theatre
in Snowflake.
118 Miles to Success, Victory and unknown Poster Treasures. Ken
and I both had visions of grandeur. At my driving speed that was
two hours at the most. It was already 8:00 pm but I figured we
could easily make the city by 10:00. Desperation pushed the
peddle of the van past 80. We careened off the Insterstate at
Holbrook and screamed south towards Snowflake. By the time we
pulled into the city and made our way to the town square, it was
already dark. Sure enough, there was the theatre on the business
card- The Snowflake Theatre.
And as luck would have it, there was a payphone in front of the
theatre. I quickly looked at the owners phone number on his
business card and dropped a quarter into the phone. He picked up
after a couple of rings.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I just drove into
Snowflake and wanted to call you as soon as I could. I’m a
collector of old movie posters and understand that you might have
picked up some posters around the state.” I could feel my heart
hammering waiting for the man’s response.
“Yes. My brother and I have picked up several thousand of them
over the years.”
My mind reeled at that as I asked him more about the posters. I
could see Ken waiting anxiously for the result of my question and
I gave him a thumbs up. Then I returned to the conversation,
“Really? Several thousand?”
“Oh yes. We took them all back to our theatre in Snowflake.
Put them in the basement. But the theatre’s gone now.”
I looked behind me at the theatre in the darkness. “The
Snowflake Theatre?” I asked?
“Yes.”
“I’m standing right in front of it.”
“No you’re not,” the man said sadly. “The theatres gone.”
I was quite confused as I stared at the marquee, the brick
exterior and the poster in the theatres display case. For a
moment I thought the man had gone senile.
The owner continued, “It burned to the ground two nights ago.
Go look through the front window.”
I was stunned! Ken and I went to the theatres door and looked
through. All we could see, where the roof of the lobby should
have been, were the Arizona stars in the evening sky.
The next morning the man agreed to meet us at the theatre so we
could take a look for ourselves. We wanted to see if anything
could be salvaged. He unlocked the door and we went inside. Every
time we brushed up against anything we got covered in soot and
ash. As we went down the steps to the basement we held our breath
with anticipation. The basement floor was still covered by about
two or three inches of water- the last amount not picked up by
the pumps after the fire department had used their hoses. Along
the wall ran stacks and stacks of posters. The piles were about
four feet high and ran the full length of the room, about thirty
yards. Ken and I tried to pull some of the piles apart, but the
water had fused them together into one massive block of paper mulch.
“Yep, this whole room was underwater for about twenty-four
hours,” the owner sighed.
Ken and I knew there was no way the posters could be salvaged. We
had looked all over New Mexico and Arizona for two months trying
to find where the posters had been taken. And when we found them,
we “missed” them by two days. Two days… I felt like Walter Huston
at the end of The Treasure of Sierra Madre; laughing at treasures
lost. We had made finds before and knew we’d find more posters in
the future. This was just a slight setback in our quest.
As we left Snowflake in the van’s rearview mirror, Ken tapped his
foot to the tune on the radio and said, “If you can tell me who
recorded this, I’ll give you my whole collection.”
Ron Moore
Cinema Icons
--- On Sat, 7/24/10, Michael Spampinato <[email protected]>
wrote:
From: Michael Spampinato <[email protected]>
Subject: [MOPO] Tales Of Lost Treasure - You Got One?
To: [email protected]
Date: Saturday, July 24, 2010, 10:08 PM
When I was around 12 years old our house was almost 100 years
old and the attic was never really touched. When the time
came to gut it and insulate it, add a floor (you had to walk
between the beams) etc they cleared out a ton of old stuff.
But what I found up there was a rolled up piece of paper.
Upon opening it I was looking at a one-sheet from Lon Chaney
Sr's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. It was a beautiful poster in
beautiful condition. I still remember the colors. I stored it
away rolled in "my cabinet" which, a few years later, my
mother apparently decided to clean. Bye bye PHANTOM.
In later years when I started collecting old film posters I
scoured the place for that poster just in case. No luck.
I was already a huge film buff (as mentioned in the Expanding
Hobby thread) with a tremendous affinity for the old horror
and sci-fi films, and I actually recognized this as something
special. I think this find sank deep in my subconscious and
help steer me to collecting old horror and sci-fi posters.
Anyone else have one that got away?
Pov
May the holes in your collection be filled.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List
Send a message addressed to:
[email protected]
</mc/[email protected]>
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its
content.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List
Send a message addressed to: [email protected]
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
