4 - Friday, January 10, 1992 — North Shore News Say goodbye to the West Van Odeon I NOTICE, from signs here and there in the Greater Tiddlycove area, that there is a brave and dcomed movement afoot to save the West Van Odeon. I say *‘brave’’ because this Charge of the Light-hearted Brigade is being mustered against all reason. And I say ‘‘doomed’’ because, of course, itis. There are a number of gaps in life. The gap between rich ard poor. The Generation Gap. The gap between David Letterman’s two front teeth. However, no gap is greater than the one between the mawkish sen- timentality of show biz and the guys in the back room Sicking their thumbs and counting the night’s take. Out front, they're lifting hearts and wringing out tears with There's No Business Like Show Business. In back, they’re singing We're in the Money. And if they're not in the money, they’re out of show biz. That’s the hard-eyed reality of closures of movie houses like the West Van Odeon. It’s straight cconomics. The West Van Odeon is a one-sereen theatre. All the new theatres have three, four, halt a dozen screens. Such multiplexes can be handled by the same number of projectionists as the single-screen theatres -— one. This helpfully saves large bags of overhead money. Of course there isn’t the smallest shred of mystique about the multiplexes. They are on the same level of utilitarianism as bat- tery-hen farming. The customer enters, gets his injection of enter- tainment, and leaves. The Bay Hair & Beauty Salon Trevor Lautens GARDEN OF BIASES The big difference is that it’s usually the movie that lays an egg. in between, the customer shells out a grotesque amount of money for one (almost always lousy) film and inendaciously overpriced pop- corn and soft drinks. That's the reality of most movie-going today, with a few honorable exceptions tike Van- couver’s Hollywood and Ridge theatres — run by families or te- nacious film-lovers. For all the sentimental goop about going on with the show, the chain owners pull the plug without a flicker of remorse if the show isn’t paying. There was the futile atiempt by the Save Our Stanley committee. The Stanley, on south Granville, is Vancouver's oldest surviving movie house. Or was. Famous Players, its owners, were about as nostalgic about the Stanley as Roy Thomson was about the news in his newspapers. Thomson, who came to own a jillion newspapers and an English tidle, considered the news to be the staff that kept the ads apart. 37 they could have been kept apart with something else — the filling that goes into vanilla slices, say — it’s doubtful if Thomson would have minded. Not to be holier-than-thou. No private enterprise can be operated as a public charity. If anything, it’s surprising that some entrepreneurs are willing to use some of their profits to sub- sidize other parts of their empire for which they feet public respon- sibility or out of personal fond- ness. A surprising number of maga- zines, books, and even newspapers have been published out of such considerations. But Famous Players doesn’t have the smallest sentimentality about the Stanley. Of course one doesn’t get to talk to its president in Toronto, Ron Emilio. But some months ago I did talk to Gillian Howard, who speaks for him. And — to give her and Famous Players a kind of backhanded credit — there wasn’t so much as a crocodile tear for the Stanley. Famous Players’ public rela- tions arm didn’t grind out a hyprocritical gee-whiz-we-wish- we-didn’t-have-to-do-this facade, one as false as — it must be said — the Stanley’s own, a kind of curious Moorish design. Nope, it was strictly business. When I gently suggested to Ms. Howard that it might be good PR — and, in the long run, good business — for Famous Players to maintain half a dozen of the proud old and interesting theatres across the country, she reacted with about as much interest as if I'd proposed making a heritage site out of an abattoir. And, I'd be the first to admit, some of the grandstanding over saving the Stanley was contempt- ible, Such as the shiny-faced antics of Dr. Tom Perry, the New Dem- PICK YOUR PERM Salton Per m, 547 (reg. $67) Deluxe Perm,*50 ces. s7m INCLUDES CUT & STYLE Long hair priced slightly higher. Available with selected stylists through January 31, 1992. Not valid at ShearValues, Mainstreet or with any other discount. SAVE ON PRODUCTS Regis Perm Care Kit, just $11.95 Maintain your perm with a Regis Perm Care Trio, containing 225 mi bottles of Perm Plus Shampoo, Profusion Plus Conditioner and Perm Rejuvenator, oa $17.50 value. Or take 20% off any other Regis Product. And this is for everyone — you don’t have to have a perm or any other service to get this special price. ee isi HAIR SALON MAIN FLOOR PARK ROYAL 925-2226 ocrat member of the legislature for Point Grey, whose proclama- tion of intense Jove for the Stanley happened to coincide — as did that of two other me-too can- didates in the riding — with last October's provincial general clec- tion. Famous Players responded by abruptly cancelling the theatre’s last film run and boarding the joint up betore there was any fur- ther trouble or negative publicity. And the West Van Odeon, 1’m obliged to say, has absolutely no architectural merit compared with the Stanley, whose facade is sup- posed to be saved if anyone can be found who will pay $4.5 mil- lion for the site. Some lobbyists have proposed turning the West Van Odeon into a little theatre. I will generously offer my views on the need for a North Shore theatre in a forthcoming issne of this noble journal. In the meantime, forget Ethel Merman belting out ‘‘There’s No Business”’ etc., or Judy Garland crooning about being born in a theatre trunk in Pocatello, idaho. The real anthem of the movie theatre chains is the one that goes: **Money money money money money. money ...’” And I wonder if, when the de- velopers coldly knocked down the Globe in 1644, anyone shed a tear — even Shakespeare’s ghost? INTERESTING. Western Canada’s largest motorcycle show. INTRIGUING. Great seminars in the Motorcycle Facts Theatre, and activities for the whole family. IMPRESSIVE. Over $1,000,000 in vintage and custom bikes. PLUS the world's most exotic production bike = the $40,000 BIMOTA TESI. EXCITING. . “Win your Dream Bike Contest”. You could take home a 1992 motorcycle fram BMW, Honda, ° Harley Oavidson, Kawasaki, of Yamaha. THRILLING. The complete line of 1992 motorcycles and ss accessories from BMW. Ducatti, Harley Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha. . EXHILARATING. VANCOUVER