![]() ![]() ![]() At that time San Francisco and New York were the gay Mecca's. In California it was easier to advertise to find people, San Francisco and West Hollywood in Los Angeles. "In California it was much easier than it was in Chicago. In California it was a little bit easier so we shot features back then." Here in Chicago we shot on location in the woods where people wouldn't be, and we were shooting 15 minute films, which were called loops at that time. We were doing some in California and then we were shooting some in Chicago. It was around 1981 that I opened up the second floor." "At the Bijou we had a little bit of cruising in the back and the bathrooms, then in '78 I put some booths in and they went over well. Other than that the only other place you could see an adult film was in a gay theater. "At that time the only movies you could buy were the 8 mm films and there was a couple of companies who did those: Brentwood and Falcon. They felt that things were changing and people started making investments of $20-$30,000 to make a movie, which today would be around $110 -$120,000. People started making investments in adult gay films. "During that whole period of time when they passed these laws saying it was discrimination to arrest two men or two women who danced together, a whole bunch of things opened up. Well, of course, you've got to get your dick out when your peeing. The police would go into the bathroom and if somebody went for a pee they would arrest them for exposure. You see, the police would come into bars and because men couldn't have contact, the dancefloor would clear. "Then around 1972 in Illinois and, I think, in New York too, two men were allowed to dance together without being arrested. The reason for that was that nobody wanted to make a large investment into making a movie, they didn't know what was going to happen. Most of them were just sex films to begin with, there wasn't much of a story line. "Within the first two years we showed Boys in the Sand and then other films that were coming out of New York and California. The Stonewall Riots were in 1969 and we opened six months to a year after that, and there wasn't any recognition of gay life except quiet bars where you had to knock on the door or they had certain dress codes." The only gay organization was Mattachine. "There was no other gay life down in the Wells Street area back then. After I got the license they couldn't do anything to stop me. So when they asked me what kind of theater it would be, I said it was going to be an art house, so the first program was Richard Nixon's Checkers speech. "The Bijou was going to go gay in the first place, but I couldn't get a license if I told the city it was going to be an adult theater. ![]() We showed that and the Bijou became a gay theater two weeks later. I opened it with Richard Nixon's Checkers speech, where Pat Nixon was in the back looking like a cardboard cut-out, and Checkers was the name of his dog, and he was telling how no-one was going to kick Richard Nixon around anymore. Actually, now I come to think about it, I opened it with only one program for two weeks and then it became a gay theater. "The Bijou Theater opened in September 1970, but it wasn't an adult theater when it opened. ![]() This article shared 4009 times since Wed May 23, 2001 ![]()
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