From the Old Stone Bank History of R.I., Vol. 4, on the very first presentation of a film in Rhode Island:
“If Mr. [Abe] Spitz’s memory serves him right, and according to the recollections of Mr. Frank Page, life-long associate of Spitz, the first motion picture seen in Rhode Island was exhibited in his Olympic [later named Nickel] Theatre on Westminster Street, probably during the year 1896.
“The title of this first picture was ‘Fireman, Fireman, Save My Child,’ and both the projection machine and the film were procured from Lubin of Philadelphia, a pioneer in the industry. The machine was nearly nine feet long, and with considerable difficulty was placed in the balcony on a series of jacks. A generator was set up on the stage and connected by cable to the projector in the balcony and a small screen was erected on the stage. Strange as it may seem, our first local movie was a sound picture, in a sense, for as the sequence flickered away, from the peaceful family scene around the fireside to the sudden burst of flames, and from then to the fire-house and the wild scramble of hoses and ladders and finally to the daring rescue, none other than the famed song writer, Joe Howard, who with his partner wife, then billed under the name of Emerson, stood in the darkened wings and sang an appropriate ballad. What they sang is not known, except that, for certain, it was not Joe Howard’s immortal ‘I wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,’ for at that time Joe had no good reason to say it in the song as he did later, ‘Good Bye, My Lady Love.’ Emerson was still in the act, and still Mrs. Howard, when the two accompanied with song ‘Fireman, Fireman, Save My Child,’ Rhode Island’s first movie in the now long-forgotten Olympic in Providence.
“For many years thereafter, a motion picture remained on the bill of local theatres as a novelty, a chaser, or trailer, and Edward M. Fay, leading showman in these parts, remembers well how the customers at the old Keith Theatre started putting on their coats when the variety program rang down the final curtain on the acrobats or the trained bears, and the house was darkened for one reel of ‘Old Madrid,’ ‘Plantation Capers’ or ‘How Susie Captured the Burglar.’”
Ten years later in 1906 the former Olympic, now called the Nickel, became the first full-time movie theatre in Providence and in Rhode Island.
At one time Saint John’s Church, almost next to the Majestic Building, used to run the Odeon Theatre, a kind of French-American dramatic society hall, created in 1909 by one Father Bourgeois of the parish. It had been the old Cadets' Hall. It was located about a block away from the church, on Legion Way. It was to be a showcase of French culture, a small performing arts center as well as a concert and lecture hall. It was modeled after the famous Odeon Theatre and opera house of Paris. I don’t know if the wooden structure was every used for movies. Later it became a furniture store and then years later burned down. I remember driving past it many times.
The church this theatre “aroused the ire of,” per my description, was St. John the Baptist, at 20 Washington Street. It is now called Saints John & James, having “merged” with Saint James down at the corner of Main and Washington after that one was closed.
At one time Saint John’s church used to run the Odeon Theatre, a kind of French-American dramatic society hall, created in 1909 by one Father Bourgeois of the parish. It had been the old Cadets' Hall. It was located about a block away from the church, on Legion Way. It was to be a showcase of French culture, a small performing arts center as well as a concert and lecture hall. It was modeled after the famous Odeon Theatre and opera house of Paris. I don’t know if the wooden structure was every used for movies. Later it became a furniture store and then years later burned down. I remember driving past it many times.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic and for this theatre, the Star, listed in 1928.
The building that housed the Star seems still to exist. It is a residence at what is now 614 Providence Street, right next to the Pawtuxet River and the bridge which crosses it. Looking at the residence, you can see that it has an odd shape, more like a former social hall of some kind than a place originally meant to be a home. It is here that the Star Theatre must have been located, though I consider that an educated guess.
I have no idea when it opened or how long it operated. The village of Natick actually straddles the border of two municipalities, Warwick and West Warwick, on opposite sides of Providence Street. The former theatre was on the West Warwick side.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
The Majestic Building, with theatre, opened in 1901, to replace a previous building on the same spot that had burned. A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
No ads seen for 1950 either. Right now I’m guessing the Gem closed in the late 1940s. As a matter of policy the theatre used to close during the summer months.
Here is a 1989 photo I took of the theatre. It appears to have been a two-screener before it closed. In this photo it already is being used as a church, with its name, VIE ET REVEIL, on the marquee.
Yes, the Midway was previously called the Scenic Theatre. A photo of the building that had the Midway address, 830 Oakland Beach Road, appears in the volume Warwick’s 350 Year Heritage – A Pictorial Survey. The building, now housing J.O.N.A.H., is identified as the former Scenic. The building was donated to the Oakland Beach Congregational Church by Joseoph Carrolo (spelling?) and his daughter Alice Rounds. It is now operated by the City of Warwick as a community and senior center.
In the 1960 volume History of East Greenwich, Rhode Island: 1877-1960, Martha R. McPartland wrote:
“The year of 1909 saw the advent of the first movie theatre in town, when P. J. McCahey opened the Star Theatre, near where the Big Star Market now stands. High class entertainment was advertised, including pictures of the Hudson River Celebration and the Pittsburg-Detroit world championship baseball game. Reserved seats were fifteen cents, and regular seats were ten cents. In 1917 the Star Theatre was showing the silent movie version of "Snow White,” starring Marguerite Clarke and featuring a local boy, “Blue” Rice, as one of the seven dwarfs. All seats were then twelve cents. Joe Gorman was the owner of the theatre at the time.
I’m guessing that this is the theatre that actress Hildegard Knef mentions in her autobiography The Gift Horse when she talks about the disastrous premiere of her 1958 film for director Wolfgang Staudte, Madeleine und der Legionär. Someone correct me if I err.
She wrote, “The première took place in the newly-built UFA Palast am Zoo. The publicity and public relations offices had excelled themselves and the evening was launched with colossal pomp and ceremony; when the houselights went up at the end, however, the atmosphere was very similar to Pankow in 1946, at the premiere of Love at First Sight. Gingerly I took my bow and was heaped with UFA flowers by the cinema attendants and then sat in the manager’s office behind the stage listening to the doleful reporters' sporadic efforts to say something conmforting. No other representative of UFA was present at this conference…. Friends called and said how sorry they were that the papers, which, in a fit of self-preservation, I had not read, had placed the blame for the UFA catastrophe on me, surmising that the poor director had not a chance against the headstrong star and that therefore the bad script, amateurish camera work, inferior lighting and sets, could also be held against me.”
Anna starred the luscious Silvana MÃ ngano of Bitter Rice fame, and the two films later played together in some engagements. Here she was a woman with a tainted past who decides to become a nun…for a time. There is a famous song/dance scene in the movie when Mangano sings the catchy “El negro Zumbon,” a bajon sung in Spanish. It became a popular song hit on records even in America. The movie played many drive-ins. I don’t think a subtitled version played widely, if at all, though I have one on video.
I just looked at a program booklet in my files (actually a collection of beautifully printed individual booklets) of the “Salute to Italian Films Week” at the Little Carnegie October 6-12, 1952. This was a series of seven films shown before their regular releases.
The booklet stated it was an I.F.E. (Italian Film Export) Unitalia event. Bosley Crowther of the Times provided a long essay extolling “the great renascence of cinema art and expression in Italy.” On the lengthy list of sponsorship credits were included names like Ralph Bellamy (Pres. Actors Equity), Rudolph Bing (Director Metropolitan Opera), Moss Hart (Pres. Dramatists Guild), Helen Hayes (Pres. American Theatre Wing), Ronald Reagan (Pres. Screen Actors Guild) et. al.
The seven films programmed (I cannot speak to any eventual changes) were: The Overcoat, Times Gone By, Umberto D, Anna, The Little World of Don Camillo, Europe ‘51, Two Cents Worth of Hope. All received later distribution, several under I.F.E.’s distribution wing. De Sica’s Umberto D did not get a regular release until three years late in 1955. Rossellini’s Europe '51 was retitled “The Greatest Love.”
Mention should be made of the unconscionable practice of some theatres to pretty much ignore proper ratio on ‘Scope films. They have to use the correct lens, yes, but they crop the right and left sides of the image simply because there is not enough screen space. There is a theatre here in Providence notorious for doing it all the time. In New York, I believe the Little Carnegie, yes the Little Carnegie, used to do that. Death in Venice, when shown there, was cropped on the right and left. It was not shown in proper 'Scope (Panavision.) Then too, some theatres show 'Scope in the correct ratio, but at the same width as 1:1.85 presentations. If there is masking, you can see it drop. This, of course, defeats the purpose of 'Scope, which is meant to increase width, while not sacrificing height.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what may have been the Roxy. I originally posted this on the Radio City Music Hall page, thinking it was RCMH, but I’ve been told that some aspects of her description suggest the Roxy instead. Anyway, it’s an interesting description:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
You could be absolutely right. It was just my first reaction. I wish she had named the place. It’s an evocative description, though, and I may re-post it on the Roxy page.
The Anthology entrance is located on 2nd Street, at the corner of Second Avenue. At Second Avenue and 10th Street is the famed 2nd Avenue Deli, an esteemed kosher eatery.
The RKO Boston advertised its 1949 in-person appearance of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy even in the Providence paper. The program included a “big stage show” and, on the screen, the distinctly-B-movie Strange Bargain.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what must have been Radio City Music Hall:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
Tonight for Sure was a nudie directed by Francis Ford Coppola!!!
Click here.
In this ad from 1963 posted elsewhere by Bill Huelbig, the Queen Anne appears to have been a very decent art house at one time.
From the Old Stone Bank History of R.I., Vol. 4, on the very first presentation of a film in Rhode Island:
“If Mr. [Abe] Spitz’s memory serves him right, and according to the recollections of Mr. Frank Page, life-long associate of Spitz, the first motion picture seen in Rhode Island was exhibited in his Olympic [later named Nickel] Theatre on Westminster Street, probably during the year 1896.
“The title of this first picture was ‘Fireman, Fireman, Save My Child,’ and both the projection machine and the film were procured from Lubin of Philadelphia, a pioneer in the industry. The machine was nearly nine feet long, and with considerable difficulty was placed in the balcony on a series of jacks. A generator was set up on the stage and connected by cable to the projector in the balcony and a small screen was erected on the stage. Strange as it may seem, our first local movie was a sound picture, in a sense, for as the sequence flickered away, from the peaceful family scene around the fireside to the sudden burst of flames, and from then to the fire-house and the wild scramble of hoses and ladders and finally to the daring rescue, none other than the famed song writer, Joe Howard, who with his partner wife, then billed under the name of Emerson, stood in the darkened wings and sang an appropriate ballad. What they sang is not known, except that, for certain, it was not Joe Howard’s immortal ‘I wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,’ for at that time Joe had no good reason to say it in the song as he did later, ‘Good Bye, My Lady Love.’ Emerson was still in the act, and still Mrs. Howard, when the two accompanied with song ‘Fireman, Fireman, Save My Child,’ Rhode Island’s first movie in the now long-forgotten Olympic in Providence.
“For many years thereafter, a motion picture remained on the bill of local theatres as a novelty, a chaser, or trailer, and Edward M. Fay, leading showman in these parts, remembers well how the customers at the old Keith Theatre started putting on their coats when the variety program rang down the final curtain on the acrobats or the trained bears, and the house was darkened for one reel of ‘Old Madrid,’ ‘Plantation Capers’ or ‘How Susie Captured the Burglar.’”
Ten years later in 1906 the former Olympic, now called the Nickel, became the first full-time movie theatre in Providence and in Rhode Island.
At one time Saint John’s Church, almost next to the Majestic Building, used to run the Odeon Theatre, a kind of French-American dramatic society hall, created in 1909 by one Father Bourgeois of the parish. It had been the old Cadets' Hall. It was located about a block away from the church, on Legion Way. It was to be a showcase of French culture, a small performing arts center as well as a concert and lecture hall. It was modeled after the famous Odeon Theatre and opera house of Paris. I don’t know if the wooden structure was every used for movies. Later it became a furniture store and then years later burned down. I remember driving past it many times.
The church this theatre “aroused the ire of,” per my description, was St. John the Baptist, at 20 Washington Street. It is now called Saints John & James, having “merged” with Saint James down at the corner of Main and Washington after that one was closed.
At one time Saint John’s church used to run the Odeon Theatre, a kind of French-American dramatic society hall, created in 1909 by one Father Bourgeois of the parish. It had been the old Cadets' Hall. It was located about a block away from the church, on Legion Way. It was to be a showcase of French culture, a small performing arts center as well as a concert and lecture hall. It was modeled after the famous Odeon Theatre and opera house of Paris. I don’t know if the wooden structure was every used for movies. Later it became a furniture store and then years later burned down. I remember driving past it many times.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic and for this theatre, the Star, listed in 1928.
The building that housed the Star seems still to exist. It is a residence at what is now 614 Providence Street, right next to the Pawtuxet River and the bridge which crosses it. Looking at the residence, you can see that it has an odd shape, more like a former social hall of some kind than a place originally meant to be a home. It is here that the Star Theatre must have been located, though I consider that an educated guess.
I have no idea when it opened or how long it operated. The village of Natick actually straddles the border of two municipalities, Warwick and West Warwick, on opposite sides of Providence Street. The former theatre was on the West Warwick side.
A current photo shall follow in my next post.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
The Majestic Building, with theatre, opened in 1901, to replace a previous building on the same spot that had burned. A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
No ads seen for 1950 either. Right now I’m guessing the Gem closed in the late 1940s. As a matter of policy the theatre used to close during the summer months.
Hard to believe that Black Jesus is actually a 1968 Italian film called Seduto alla sua destra, (“Seated on his Right”), directed by Valerio Zurlini.
According to the 1919 Providence Journal Almanac, the Casino seated 584 persons and its manager was J. E. Bolan.
Here is a 1989 photo I took of the theatre. It appears to have been a two-screener before it closed. In this photo it already is being used as a church, with its name, VIE ET REVEIL, on the marquee.
Yes, the Midway was previously called the Scenic Theatre. A photo of the building that had the Midway address, 830 Oakland Beach Road, appears in the volume Warwick’s 350 Year Heritage – A Pictorial Survey. The building, now housing J.O.N.A.H., is identified as the former Scenic. The building was donated to the Oakland Beach Congregational Church by Joseoph Carrolo (spelling?) and his daughter Alice Rounds. It is now operated by the City of Warwick as a community and senior center.
In the 1960 volume History of East Greenwich, Rhode Island: 1877-1960, Martha R. McPartland wrote:
“The year of 1909 saw the advent of the first movie theatre in town, when P. J. McCahey opened the Star Theatre, near where the Big Star Market now stands. High class entertainment was advertised, including pictures of the Hudson River Celebration and the Pittsburg-Detroit world championship baseball game. Reserved seats were fifteen cents, and regular seats were ten cents. In 1917 the Star Theatre was showing the silent movie version of "Snow White,” starring Marguerite Clarke and featuring a local boy, “Blue” Rice, as one of the seven dwarfs. All seats were then twelve cents. Joe Gorman was the owner of the theatre at the time.
I’m guessing that this is the theatre that actress Hildegard Knef mentions in her autobiography The Gift Horse when she talks about the disastrous premiere of her 1958 film for director Wolfgang Staudte, Madeleine und der Legionär. Someone correct me if I err.
She wrote, “The première took place in the newly-built UFA Palast am Zoo. The publicity and public relations offices had excelled themselves and the evening was launched with colossal pomp and ceremony; when the houselights went up at the end, however, the atmosphere was very similar to Pankow in 1946, at the premiere of Love at First Sight. Gingerly I took my bow and was heaped with UFA flowers by the cinema attendants and then sat in the manager’s office behind the stage listening to the doleful reporters' sporadic efforts to say something conmforting. No other representative of UFA was present at this conference…. Friends called and said how sorry they were that the papers, which, in a fit of self-preservation, I had not read, had placed the blame for the UFA catastrophe on me, surmising that the poor director had not a chance against the headstrong star and that therefore the bad script, amateurish camera work, inferior lighting and sets, could also be held against me.”
Anna starred the luscious Silvana MÃ ngano of Bitter Rice fame, and the two films later played together in some engagements. Here she was a woman with a tainted past who decides to become a nun…for a time. There is a famous song/dance scene in the movie when Mangano sings the catchy “El negro Zumbon,” a bajon sung in Spanish. It became a popular song hit on records even in America. The movie played many drive-ins. I don’t think a subtitled version played widely, if at all, though I have one on video.
I just looked at a program booklet in my files (actually a collection of beautifully printed individual booklets) of the “Salute to Italian Films Week” at the Little Carnegie October 6-12, 1952. This was a series of seven films shown before their regular releases.
The booklet stated it was an I.F.E. (Italian Film Export) Unitalia event. Bosley Crowther of the Times provided a long essay extolling “the great renascence of cinema art and expression in Italy.” On the lengthy list of sponsorship credits were included names like Ralph Bellamy (Pres. Actors Equity), Rudolph Bing (Director Metropolitan Opera), Moss Hart (Pres. Dramatists Guild), Helen Hayes (Pres. American Theatre Wing), Ronald Reagan (Pres. Screen Actors Guild) et. al.
The seven films programmed (I cannot speak to any eventual changes) were: The Overcoat, Times Gone By, Umberto D, Anna, The Little World of Don Camillo, Europe ‘51, Two Cents Worth of Hope. All received later distribution, several under I.F.E.’s distribution wing. De Sica’s Umberto D did not get a regular release until three years late in 1955. Rossellini’s Europe '51 was retitled “The Greatest Love.”
Mention should be made of the unconscionable practice of some theatres to pretty much ignore proper ratio on ‘Scope films. They have to use the correct lens, yes, but they crop the right and left sides of the image simply because there is not enough screen space. There is a theatre here in Providence notorious for doing it all the time. In New York, I believe the Little Carnegie, yes the Little Carnegie, used to do that. Death in Venice, when shown there, was cropped on the right and left. It was not shown in proper 'Scope (Panavision.) Then too, some theatres show 'Scope in the correct ratio, but at the same width as 1:1.85 presentations. If there is masking, you can see it drop. This, of course, defeats the purpose of 'Scope, which is meant to increase width, while not sacrificing height.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what may have been the Roxy. I originally posted this on the Radio City Music Hall page, thinking it was RCMH, but I’ve been told that some aspects of her description suggest the Roxy instead. Anyway, it’s an interesting description:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
You could be absolutely right. It was just my first reaction. I wish she had named the place. It’s an evocative description, though, and I may re-post it on the Roxy page.
The Anthology entrance is located on 2nd Street, at the corner of Second Avenue. At Second Avenue and 10th Street is the famed 2nd Avenue Deli, an esteemed kosher eatery.
The RKO Boston advertised its 1949 in-person appearance of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy even in the Providence paper. The program included a “big stage show” and, on the screen, the distinctly-B-movie Strange Bargain.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what must have been Radio City Music Hall:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”