beforehand, were notable for their wit, drive, and guts, and slowly, she began building a loyal, growing band of listeners.
One of them was Edward Landberg, who operated a revival theater located at 2436 Telegraph Avenue. A physician’s son who had been born in Vienna in 1920, Landberg had come to New York City at the age of nine. He had ambitions to become an author, and after graduating from the University of Iowa’s prestigious writers’ program, he slaved away at scattered teaching jobs at Berkeley, at Ithaca College, and in France. Eventually he wound up in Mexico City, teaching Shakespeare and writing movie reviews for an English-language newspaper, The Mexico City News , a job that ended when his opinions inflamed some of the advertisers. Thinking that he might be better off showing movies than writing about them, Landberg leased a screening room in Mexico City and was soon making a decent amount of money exhibiting films on a weekly basis. He had pleasant memories of his time in Berkeley, so moved back there, found a defunct market on Telegraph Avenue, and rented and renovated it. There were columns dividing about two-thirds of it, so he had the idea of turning the space into two separate theaters. The result was the Berkeley Cinema Guild, which Landberg opened in 1951 and always claimed was the first twin art house in the United States. (At times, he claimed it was the first in the world.)
Most of the time movies were shown simultaneously in the two theaters. The larger one, the Cinema Guild, had two hundred seats and was reasonably long and narrow, with the screen positioned somewhat high, meaning that the best place to sit was in the back. The smaller theater, holding around one hundred seats, was the Studio. It was wider and shorter than the Guild and offered better general seating. Landberg began programming according to his own taste, which mostly ran toward European film.
One evening Ed Landberg heard Pauline broadcasting on KPFA, and after telephoning to compliment her on the program, they arranged to meet. “She was the closest thing to somebody who had my kind of vision about movies,” Landberg recalled. “Not that she did have. But she was more intelligent than most people who had anything to do with movies. One day, when I was over at her place, I happened to graze her breast with my hand, and she kind of looked up at me and said, ‘What have you got to lose?’”
Landberg and Pauline had not been romantically involved for very long when Pauline made it known that she would like to write program notes for the Cinema Guild. “I hadn’t written notes,” said Landberg, “because I wasn’t into audience manipulation. But she wrote some notes, and one thing led to another.” The Cinema Guild was doing well enough, but almost immediately Pauline saw that it could be made into a bigger attraction than it was, and she decided that she was the person to make that happen. Her notes, written on fold-out programs, were available at the theater, mailed out to local moviegoers, and distributed to some of the neighborhood businesses, and they caught on almost immediately. Although the programs were very carefully printed, with thoughtfully selected photographs and Pauline’s incisive descriptions of the movies, plus the monthly calendar running down the center, they were anything but public relations fluff. Pauline didn’t hesitate to poke fun at some of the films being shown at the Guild, but even when she was taking swipes at them, her energetic critical tone seemed only to make people all the more determined to turn up to see them.
Soon enough she was taking an aggressive hand in programming as well, pressing Landberg to show more vintage American movies from the 1930s and ’40s—screwball comedies, gangster dramas, film noir, musicals. “There was a little resistance to the notion that there was something good to be said about American musicals,” recalled Stephen Kresge, who worked on the
One of them was Edward Landberg, who operated a revival theater located at 2436 Telegraph Avenue. A physician’s son who had been born in Vienna in 1920, Landberg had come to New York City at the age of nine. He had ambitions to become an author, and after graduating from the University of Iowa’s prestigious writers’ program, he slaved away at scattered teaching jobs at Berkeley, at Ithaca College, and in France. Eventually he wound up in Mexico City, teaching Shakespeare and writing movie reviews for an English-language newspaper, The Mexico City News , a job that ended when his opinions inflamed some of the advertisers. Thinking that he might be better off showing movies than writing about them, Landberg leased a screening room in Mexico City and was soon making a decent amount of money exhibiting films on a weekly basis. He had pleasant memories of his time in Berkeley, so moved back there, found a defunct market on Telegraph Avenue, and rented and renovated it. There were columns dividing about two-thirds of it, so he had the idea of turning the space into two separate theaters. The result was the Berkeley Cinema Guild, which Landberg opened in 1951 and always claimed was the first twin art house in the United States. (At times, he claimed it was the first in the world.)
Most of the time movies were shown simultaneously in the two theaters. The larger one, the Cinema Guild, had two hundred seats and was reasonably long and narrow, with the screen positioned somewhat high, meaning that the best place to sit was in the back. The smaller theater, holding around one hundred seats, was the Studio. It was wider and shorter than the Guild and offered better general seating. Landberg began programming according to his own taste, which mostly ran toward European film.
One evening Ed Landberg heard Pauline broadcasting on KPFA, and after telephoning to compliment her on the program, they arranged to meet. “She was the closest thing to somebody who had my kind of vision about movies,” Landberg recalled. “Not that she did have. But she was more intelligent than most people who had anything to do with movies. One day, when I was over at her place, I happened to graze her breast with my hand, and she kind of looked up at me and said, ‘What have you got to lose?’”
Landberg and Pauline had not been romantically involved for very long when Pauline made it known that she would like to write program notes for the Cinema Guild. “I hadn’t written notes,” said Landberg, “because I wasn’t into audience manipulation. But she wrote some notes, and one thing led to another.” The Cinema Guild was doing well enough, but almost immediately Pauline saw that it could be made into a bigger attraction than it was, and she decided that she was the person to make that happen. Her notes, written on fold-out programs, were available at the theater, mailed out to local moviegoers, and distributed to some of the neighborhood businesses, and they caught on almost immediately. Although the programs were very carefully printed, with thoughtfully selected photographs and Pauline’s incisive descriptions of the movies, plus the monthly calendar running down the center, they were anything but public relations fluff. Pauline didn’t hesitate to poke fun at some of the films being shown at the Guild, but even when she was taking swipes at them, her energetic critical tone seemed only to make people all the more determined to turn up to see them.
Soon enough she was taking an aggressive hand in programming as well, pressing Landberg to show more vintage American movies from the 1930s and ’40s—screwball comedies, gangster dramas, film noir, musicals. “There was a little resistance to the notion that there was something good to be said about American musicals,” recalled Stephen Kresge, who worked on the
Similar Books
