Fox Cinema

During the porno chic era of movie exhibition, Huntsville saw three adult cinemas open in the early-1970’s. The first to open was the Fox Cinema by General Corporation in downtown Huntsville on May 12, 1971. Opening titles were Essy Persson in “I, a Woman” and Uta Levka in “Carmen Baby". Business was brisk enough that two more adult houses opened with Cinema One (southwest of downtown) in August of 1971 and Cinema Royal (northwest of downtown) in November of 1972. Local District Attorney Fred Simpson said he would only come down on the theaters if they presented “skin flicks”.

According to multiple reports, the three cinemas were visited by the DA’s office and undercover detectives constantly before all three were closed on obscenity charges on January 10, 1973. The “skin flick” graded films in question were “The Mermaids” and “The Executive’s Wives” shown at the Fox Cinema. The adult cinema venues were all closed on February 23, 1973 with a padlock order to last up to one year for each enterprise. The Fox Cinema closed with a Jamie Gillis double-feature consisting of “Love Lords" and “Swinging High”.

Finding it hard to operate with a one year lock-out enforced by local police, General Corp. took two actions. First, it moved its Fox Cinema operations less than thirty miles to the northwest and over the border to Ardmore, Tennessee. There, they found a less restrictive law. Second, they sued the D.A. for violating its First Amendment rights. This case would be a test of the State of Alabama’s “Red Light Abatement Act” and the case would be heard in the milieu of the Miller v. California standard that was being released at the U.S. Supreme Court level.

In September of 1975, not surprisingly, the cinemas prevailed as the D.A.’s actions were tantamount to being a nuisance and Simpson’s application of the “Red Light” act was an overreach. But in this case, the nuisance by the D.A. had worked effectively by shutting down the adult cinema industry locally despite the specious and unsupportable charges. With padlocks in place for a year, however, there was no way for the adult cinema operators to generate revenue toward their leasing agreements. So give General Corp. the First Amendment victory but give the D.A. the kill in this Fox (Cinema) hunt as it never reopened in Huntsville.

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