O'Farrell Theater

STORIES LEFT OUT

Denise Larson1 Comment

Re: The People’s Nickelodeon

The price of admission to the People’s Nickelodeon was a nickel. It was 1971, and my day job was working as a cashier at The Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater. So, when the midnight after-hours Nickelodeon began, I volunteered my services as a cashier. In lieu of a salary I got to be part of the “in-crowd” and partake in the fun of presenting classic movies, vintage cartoons, and cult shorts under the banner; “uppers and downers” to the young, hip underground film set. One thing the counterculture staff of the theater got a kick out of was punking the deep pocketed porno crowd. I smiled when unsuspecting O’Farrell Theater customers walked in and thought the porn movies were still playing. A guy in a business suit plunked down a twenty-dollar bill for a ticket. I said, “I can’t break a twenty.” He then pulled out a ten. I shook my head. Next, would be a fiver, and I would look him straight in the eye and say, “Mister, do you have a nickel?” With a bewildered look, the guy fished out the coin and plunked it on the counter. As soon as he turned the corner and stumbled into the dark theater, I burst out laughing. 

It’s hard to describe the People’s Nickelodeon to folks who weren’t there. And it’s hard to convey the vibe of the early anarchistic Nickelettes. The best depiction at the time came from David Kleinberg in the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, who characterized the scene as; “The freaks answer to the Mickey Mouse Club.” 

He reported his experience of interviewing the Nickelettes backstage:

“’We’re the kids that were rejected in high school’ a voice shouts as they stand around you like a group of girl scouts with cookies to sell.

‘We’re horny.’

‘We’re the ugly ducklings.’

‘People come to see us. We’re popular.’

‘I make sex movies.’

‘We’re All American girls.’

‘We drink milk and eat granola.’

‘The more out of step the better.’”

Our process was pure improv. We’d meet the day before the performance on Monday afternoon, find out the featured movie for that week, and decide on a theme. On Tuesday, we’d meet at 9:00 pm, get as high as a kite drinking, and smoking dope while putting on costumes and make-up. Then around 11:00 pm we would do a quasi-rehearsal, maybe coordinate a finale song and dance, and at midnight, we would do the show and let whatever happen, happen. The Nickelettes and the creators of the People’s Nickelodeon saw it as a 1970s vaudeville-type revue. But it was more like a free-for-all with permission to do anything we wanted. On the week that Gulliver’s Travels played on the big screen we dressed as cheerleaders and cheered for the little people and then the big people. The audience roared with approval so we took it further and led a cheer for Gulliver, then the Nickelodeon, and lastly, the Nickelettes. Our antics encouraged louder and louder shrieks of laughter and applause: a high point for counterculture cheerleading. And all for just a nickel.

In his article “Midnight at the O’Farrell” for the Los Angeles Free Press’s San Francisco Report, Clay Geerdes described the Nicks:

            “…the Nickelettes have been performing a valuable form of theater. It is always cathartic to see those things which most of us express only in the darkness freely expressed in the light.”

            Unbeknownst to us at the time, the winds of change blew open a new door for women’s lib. Read more about it in Anarchy in High Heels.

At the People’s Nickelodeon

What do you want for a nickel?

Denise LarsonLeave a comment

Recently, there was news that the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater was up for sale. Memories of this being the unlikely birthplace of my feminist theater group Les Nickelettes surfaced. You may ask: feminism in a porno palace, really? Hey, this was San Francisco in 1972. A hip underground counterculture was thumbing its nose at past hang-ups, and at the same time saying, “anything goes.”

O'Farrell sign 1972
A less garish facade of The O’Farrell Theatre in 1972

The O’Farrell Theater gained notoriety for opening the first hardcore porno film venue in the country, but Les Nickelettes didn’t emerge from that Mitchell Brothers’ enterprise. Instead, a different, after-hours counterculture event launched the group . In 1972 I was 24, and to pay the rent, I took a day job as a cashier at The O’Farrell Theater. One of the projectionists, Vince Stanich, came up with the idea for The People’s Nickelodeon. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at midnight, after the moneymaking endless porno loops had ended, the theater was thrown open to the stoned “freaks.” Everything cost a nickel: the popcorn, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and admission to see a forties newsreel, a Betty Boop cartoon, and a kitschy classic movie. Reefer Madness was shown at The People’s Nickelodeon before it became a cult classic.

1972 Nickelodeon Poster

As the popularity of this after-hours event grew, me and my theater friends became the Nickelette cheerleaders for The People’s Nickelodeon. Give us an “N” – give us an “I” – give us a “C” . . . But the hodge-podge troupe quickly evolved into something more meaningful. Maybe it was the times. Maybe it was the underlying second-wave feminist movement, but we came together in a sisterhood of unique and bawdy female satire that surprised us all. The creation of the group may have been accidental but the collective unconscious synergy of this eclectic group of women came together in the right place at the right time, and it took on a life of its own.

The Nickelettes in 1972 in the lobby of The O’Farrell Theatre with the night manager and the famous “moose head.”

To give credit where credit is due, Vince Stanich came up with the idea of Nickelette cheerleaders for The People’s Nickelodeon. He proposed the idea as he and I hung out smoking weed in his “Clubhouse,” an O’Farrell Theater backroom behind the projection booth – his 12-hour shift work station. It was a heady time. After midnight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in a reimagined porno theater, a creative genie was let out of the bottle. There would be no going back, no desire to. It was the beginning of my thrilling thirteen-year adventure in Les Nickelettes. I had the time of my life. 

Me performing at The People’s Nickelodeon in 1972. I was channeling my inner Janis Joplin
November 7, 1972 – the reelection of Richard M. Nixon. The election results were announced before the midnight People’s Nickelodeon show. The counterculture had no illusions about the character of “Tricky Dick.”