Soft Core Sucks

The Neptune wasn't doing all that well most of the time. They couldn't get the good movies because they didn't have enough screens so we got the second rate movies and the occasional soft core porn. The ladies hated working when we had the sleazier films, and I can't say that I blamed them. I found the opportunity to watch soft core porn wasn't that thrilling; in fact the crowd made the whole thing kinds of repulsive.

During the intermissions the old guys would come out and stand around the lobby, but rarely if ever buy anything. If there were any women working behind the counter they'd get stared at by the men. If not then the most effeminate male would get stared at. It was definitely creepy.

Nothing ever came of it, other than making coworkers mildly queasy. The occasional issue with a creepy old guy and pedophilia would occur when we had a kids movie. That makes a certain sick sense - the pedophiles try to attend kids films - yuck. We actually caught one creep and got the cops on him before he could get away, but I'm sure there were other times when someone got away with something. We didn't get kids movies a whole lot so it wasn't a frequent issue.

I remember one time during the U District street fair they had a throwback day: .25 admission and a double feature plus animated shorts, a newsreel, a Zoro serial and a documentary - Empire of Light, about glass cutting. There were only 3 of us, so we opened the doors and got swamped. Crowds of kids came piling in, all yelling and having a good time, running up and down the ramps, buying pop and candy and popcorn and running in and out of the auditorium. No need to worry about pedophiles in that crowd, there were no adults at all. It was pretty loud and messy but not particularly violent or destructive. All in all it as pretty fun, except that the crowd was huge and once the movies started we only had 2 employees on concessions so it was intensely busy non-stop for hours.

Once they got the Rocky Horror Picture Show the soft core porn was a thing of the past. The additional resources allowed us to get slightly better films (see Cruising, for example) if we were lucky. It sure was nicer having the reliable business and concessions turnover. It also allowed us to include quite a few more people on staff, even if most of them only worked Friday and Saturday night.