Elliott Gould attended a Long Goodbye screening there and was reluctant to be allowed to cut to the front of the men's room line; perhaps it was not just graciousness on his part.
During non-pandemic periods I am not especially germophobic. It's just that in the New Beverly men's room, there are three places one can stand -- in front of the sink, in front of the urinal, and in the stall. You have to wait until someone steps away from the sink to even step out of the stall. You really might as well have CONTROL's Cone of Silence over the room, it's that claustrophobic. And that's without the fear of potentially fatal illness.
It was definitely cool to see those DeMilles in the theater. I was surprised what a weakling John Wayne played in Reap the Wild Wind; apart from the rare ambivalent role like The Searchers, I didn't know he ever played anyone who wasn't just and noble.
I've become more and more enamored of seeing 30s-50s films in the theater, not just movies from my lifetime (the 70s being of course my favorite period). Getting to see four Marx Brothers films around the end of the year was a big kick. I'm reading Stefan Kanfer's biography "Groucho" right now and it's quite good but frustrating, since I revere Groucho as a performer but it sounds like he was miserable to a lot of people (especially his wife). Harpo seems like a saint, however.
