Capri Theatre: Last of the Independents
Posted on August 30, 2014 by bob in Features
by Tom Ensey; photos by Bob Corley
Capri Theatre Director Martin McCaffery.
Through pickets and protests, the rise of multiplexes, a caved-in ceiling and financial crises great and small, the Capri Theater in the heart of Old Cloverdale has endured. For more than 30 years, it has brought Central Alabama the arty, the offbeat and outrageous in cinema.
Longtime director Martin McCaffery points out that keeping the doors open and the projector humming is a never-ending challenge of fundraising, corner-cutting and, as he says with a hint of pride, “being cheap.”
The city’s only art house and one of only two in the state, the 70-year-old theatre is the economic engine that drives the cluster of funky-cool little restaurants, bars and shops flanking a block of East Fairview Avenue. The area buzzes with activity in a shady corner of town that is otherwise noteworthy for pretty, old oak trees, vintage homes and the Huntingdon College campus.
“Tomatino’s, El Rey, Sinclair’s, Louisa’s – I feel sure all those businesses profit because the Capri has anchored that sleepy district all these years,” said Randall Williams.
Randall Williams helped organize the Society. He holds Membership Card No.#1.
Williams was among three dozen cinephiles who gathered in a meeting room in the basement of the old Normandale Shopping Center in 1983 to organize the Capri Community Film Society, the nonprofit that runs the business. They elected officers, appointed committees and went to work. Williams admits they didn’t know much about show biz, but they were willing to learn – and to paint, repair seats, run the projector, pop popcorn and serve soft drinks. By the time they rented the theatre and started showing stuff like “Gone With the Wind,” “The Sound of Music” and films checked out from the public library, the Capri already had an interesting past.
The house became available after a crusading district attorney busted it for showing soft-core pornography – with the raunchiest stuff edited out on the fly in the projection booth. Long before that ignoble moment, it was called the Clover when it opened in 1941, one of a handful of neighborhood theaters in Montgomery.
Cloverdale was very much in the sticks then. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald a few years earlier lived in a house around the block that is now a museum. The theater was a second-run house whose main draws were cheap tickets – 20 cents for adults and a dime for kids – and cold air-conditioning, a rarity in those days.
The first movie it showed was an obscure comedy called “Love Thy Neighbor,” featuring Jack Benny, Fred Allen and ingenue Mary Martin doing a strip tease in a fur coat singing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”
It survived a fire in the 1960s that required extensive repair. It was owned by Moffett Theatres, a regional chain based in Montgomery. It showed “Lawrence of Arabia,” “James Bond,” and inspired one young resident who went on to be a notable character actor.
Actor and Montgomery native MIchael O’Neill.
Michael O’Neill, who worked alongside Oscar winners Matthew McConnaughey and Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyer’s Club,” spoke to a full house at a screening last winter.
“This theatre was instrumental in opening up the larger world to me,” O’Neill said. “I saw “The Graduate” here, I saw “Joe” here. I saw all the Bond films, which probably ruined our whole generation, because we thought that was how you were supposed to be with women.”
The dawn of the video cassette recorder, new multiscreen theaters opening up around town and fewer people going to movies, took their toll on the theatre, which was falling into disrepair before the infamous porn bust.
The Moffett estate’s representative Harry English was an unsung hero of the early days, Williams said. He did know the business, and wanted to help the well-intentioned members of the Society keep the theatre alive.
“We didn’t know how much ice to put in a cup for a soft drink,” Williams said. “So I asked him. He said, ‘How much ice will the cup hold?”
The original “Clover” theater.
McCaffery was a 28-year-old graduate of the University of Maryland and a projectionist from the Washington, DC, area when he came on the scene in November 1985.
“They were broke,” he said. “They didn’t know they were broke. They hired me and another guy. He quit before I got here. They had a big, raucous meeting about whether to close the theatre or not while I was on my way down here.
“Fortunately, they decided to keep it open. I guess it was fortunate. The first call I took at the theatre was from a bill collector,” McCaffery said.
Righting the financial ship was Job One. It was quite a while before he got paid, he said. He lived off credit cards and savings.
“Montgomery is a cheap place to live,” he deadpanned.
Director McCaffery in the lobby. Plans are to remodel this area.
In addition to knowing how to stretch a dollar, McCaffery knew a lot about independent films, documentaries and foreign films that gave the Capri a cachet it had lacked.
“He’s been so important to the Capri,” Williams said. “It wouldn’t still be here if Martin hadn’t come to manage it.”
The Capri was the only theatre in the state to show Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which drew the ire of organized protesters who made viewers cross a picket line.
“That kind of put us on the map,” said Williams. “We had people who kind of came by and threw money in the window to help, people who didn’t necessarily want to see the film, but who didn’t want to be told what they could and couldn’t watch.
Capri Community Film Society membership card No.#1 belongs to Randall Williams.
“That film is now shown on cable and there’s no outcry. Christianity survived,” he said.
A 20-foot section of the ceiling collapsed in 1991.
“If anybody had been in there, they would have been killed,” McCaffery said. “It happened at night. We thought that would close us down, but the landlord’s insurance covered it.”
“My Big, Fat Greek Wedding,” a 2002 smash-hit film that none of the big theaters in town picked up, was a tremendous boon, he said.
“We did a year’s worth of business in six weeks,” he said.
It provided the financial cushion that enabled the Society to purchase the theatre in 2010. They had about $200,000 in the bank, unheard of for a nonprofit, and were finally able to get a bank to loan them approximately that much more, which they paid off quickly.
“It would have been nice if we could have bought the theatre sooner, “ he said. “It would have been easier to fundraise before the recession.”
Owning the building has been a mixed blessing.
“The saying that it’s cheaper to own than to rent it nonsense,” McCaffery said. “Our insurance payment is more than our rent used to be.”
But the Capri and its supporters are nothing if not resilient, and plans are on the table to expand to two screens – adding a 50 to 100 seat theater in what is now the front lobby, and moving the concession stand and bathrooms to the area under the balcony.
The upgrade to digital equipment has already taken place, but they kept the old 35mm projectors for films that require that. Last year, the Capri showed the Library of Congress print of “Casablanca.” It’s the only theatre in the state authorized to screen Library of Congress films. The expansion will enable more special showings, archival and historical showings, and lecture series.
“And if we ever have another ‘Greek Wedding’ we can show it indefinitely,” McCaffery said.
There’s no detailed construction plan and no money, but that’s never stopped them before.
“Seeing films, reading films and appreciating films are all something people should do,” McCaffery said. “It’s the art form of the 20th century, and will continue to be significant, whatever form it takes.”
He believes in changing for the future, even as technology changes the medium and the way people experience it.
“If you see it on TV, it’s different from the way it was intended,” he said. “It will always be that way, that films should be watched sitting in the dark, quietly, with other people. And your cell phone turned off.”
The Capri is going nowhere and will adapt with the changing times, but not too much.
“Opera still exists, plays still exist, live music still exists,” said McCaffery. “And we plan to still be here 20 years from now.”
