I was stunned to discover this board for the “Rugged Rhodes!†That was my nickname for the place when I managed it. I’m Bart Stewart, and I was the next-to-last manager. John Halliday took over when I left.
So many memories come to mind, I will probably have to do more than one post here. It’s funny what I DON’T remember, like the exact time frame I worked there! But it was in the early to mid 1980s when Landmark ran it as an “art house†theater, showing foreign films and art films and old black and white classics. I started out as the assistant to a manager named Sherry. (Forget her last name!) She had some big blow up with Landmark and left, and they informed me that I was the manager.
It was a tough job that obviously didn’t pay much. I recall one of the crazy aspects of it involved barreling down to the bus station or train station every few days to ship and receive these big heavy film cans! Our calendar called for a change of movie sometimes every other day, and it was usually a double feature, and those movies were heavy! (Figuratively and literally!) Sometimes there would be a reel missing from a can, and then it was panic time.
The manager did almost everything. It was generally a coin toss as to whether the people who worked the concession stand were going to show up. Ditto for the lady who cleaned the theater and bathrooms. The projectionist could be counted on because he was union. Stan who posted above was one of our projectionists! How’s it going Stan? Of course Speegee, our ticket seller, was as reliable as the sunrise. She was the heart and soul of the place, having worked there almost since it opened, I believe. Kim Griswell wrote above that she was 97 years old. Speegee never married, and lived in a rooming house one block away from the Rhodes Theater. Almost 100, she walked to and from the theater every evening to sell tickets. She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known, and an entirely unforgettable character. She used to take the dollars out of her cash drawer at the beginning of every shift and meticulously smooth out any folded corners.
We employed some characters, for sure. (Myself included!) I recall one guy who worked the concession stand was an avowed communist who stood there reading Mao’s Little Red Book. He was one grim dude, and he didn’t like being torn away from his reading to get you some popcorn!
The movies were the thing. They were so great. Off the top of my head I recall Mephisto, Koyaanisqatsi, the restored Seven Samurai, Demon Pond, The Magic Flute, Children of the Paradise, “Zâ€, Pink Flamingos, Ciao Manhattan, Eraserhead, Quadrophenia, Beau Pere, My Dinner with Andre, The Harder They Come, animation festivals, and of course Rocky Horror, and any Hollywood classic you can think of. Landmark must have owned a lot of prints of Doctor Strangelove, because we ran that a lot.
My office was next to the projection booth and had a big window that overlooked the seats and opened out like a door. You never knew what you would see looking down from there. During a midnight movie once I opened that door for some reason and a veritable wall of marijuana smoke nearly knocked me down.
Once we were showing a very racy movie called Fruits of Passion. This was the sequel to The Story of O. So, I had Fruits of Passion up there in plastic letters on the marquis, and I get this visit from an old guy who claimed to be the owner of the complex. He says “the board†is uncomfortable with that title being up there, and could I put something else up in its place! I said I would. We had these colossal 24 inch red marquis letters that we never used, so I hauled them out, and spelled out just the one word – FRUITS!
What a trip was the Rugged Rhodes. We had the greatest movies of all time on a huge screen, but Atlanta wouldn’t support us. It was the conservative 1980s, and people only wanted to watch Rambo, or whatever was the most conventional, commercial fare they could find. Also the introduction of the VCR hurt us. Here’s hoping there is an Atlanta historian who will take note of the posts on this site and preserve the memory of that magic spot that used to be.
I was stunned to discover this board for the “Rugged Rhodes!†That was my nickname for the place when I managed it. I’m Bart Stewart, and I was the next-to-last manager. John Halliday took over when I left.
So many memories come to mind, I will probably have to do more than one post here. It’s funny what I DON’T remember, like the exact time frame I worked there! But it was in the early to mid 1980s when Landmark ran it as an “art house†theater, showing foreign films and art films and old black and white classics. I started out as the assistant to a manager named Sherry. (Forget her last name!) She had some big blow up with Landmark and left, and they informed me that I was the manager.
It was a tough job that obviously didn’t pay much. I recall one of the crazy aspects of it involved barreling down to the bus station or train station every few days to ship and receive these big heavy film cans! Our calendar called for a change of movie sometimes every other day, and it was usually a double feature, and those movies were heavy! (Figuratively and literally!) Sometimes there would be a reel missing from a can, and then it was panic time.
The manager did almost everything. It was generally a coin toss as to whether the people who worked the concession stand were going to show up. Ditto for the lady who cleaned the theater and bathrooms. The projectionist could be counted on because he was union. Stan who posted above was one of our projectionists! How’s it going Stan? Of course Speegee, our ticket seller, was as reliable as the sunrise. She was the heart and soul of the place, having worked there almost since it opened, I believe. Kim Griswell wrote above that she was 97 years old. Speegee never married, and lived in a rooming house one block away from the Rhodes Theater. Almost 100, she walked to and from the theater every evening to sell tickets. She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known, and an entirely unforgettable character. She used to take the dollars out of her cash drawer at the beginning of every shift and meticulously smooth out any folded corners.
We employed some characters, for sure. (Myself included!) I recall one guy who worked the concession stand was an avowed communist who stood there reading Mao’s Little Red Book. He was one grim dude, and he didn’t like being torn away from his reading to get you some popcorn!
The movies were the thing. They were so great. Off the top of my head I recall Mephisto, Koyaanisqatsi, the restored Seven Samurai, Demon Pond, The Magic Flute, Children of the Paradise, “Zâ€, Pink Flamingos, Ciao Manhattan, Eraserhead, Quadrophenia, Beau Pere, My Dinner with Andre, The Harder They Come, animation festivals, and of course Rocky Horror, and any Hollywood classic you can think of. Landmark must have owned a lot of prints of Doctor Strangelove, because we ran that a lot.
One regrettable incident involved the change-over between the movies Swept Away (which was a love story set on a tropical island) and the next day’s film, The Atomic Café (a documentary about nuclear weapons.) The projectionist got one of the reels mixed up, and the audience was subjected to a cut from lovers frolicking on a beach to aerial footage of the Bikini Atoll blast. Yes, that happened. I will never forget that moment.
My office was next to the projection booth and had a big window that overlooked the seats and opened out like a door. You never knew what you would see looking down from there. During a midnight movie once I opened that door for some reason and a veritable wall of marijuana smoke nearly knocked me down.
Once we were showing a very racy movie called Fruits of Passion. This was the sequel to The Story of O. So, I had Fruits of Passion up there in plastic letters on the marquis, and I get this visit from an old guy who claimed to be the owner of the complex. He says “the board†is uncomfortable with that title being up there, and could I put something else up in its place! I said I would. We had these colossal 24 inch red marquis letters that we never used, so I hauled them out, and spelled out just the one word – FRUITS!
What a trip was the Rugged Rhodes. We had the greatest movies of all time on a huge screen, but Atlanta wouldn’t support us. It was the conservative 1980s, and people only wanted to watch Rambo, or whatever was the most conventional, commercial fare they could find. Also the introduction of the VCR hurt us. Here’s hoping there is an Atlanta historian who will take note of the posts on this site and preserve the memory of that magic spot that used to be.