Here's a great example of why I love the Black and White Overnight reruns on Game Show Network. The other night, they ran a To Tell the Truth from the sixties with John Hampton as one of the contestants. John Hampton was the man who built and ran the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Avenue here in Los Angeles. As I explained in this column, I spent a few years of my childhood, not stealing hub caps or sneaking alcohol but watching old Ben Turpin films within Mr. Hampton's hallowed auditorium. I even helped him out around the place for a few days, watching in awe as he spliced together prints of old films he'd uncovered. I can't give you an exact number but I know that an awful lot of movies only exist today because Hampton, who was not at all a wealthy man, spent his own money to track down, purchase and restore disintegrating prints. His collection now resides in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
If you're going to go read that column, read it now then come back to this page. It was written the day after the second owner of the Silent Movie Theater, Laurence Austin, was shot to death in what looked at first like a clumsy robbery attempt. Soon after, the gunman was apprehended and it turned out he'd been hired by the theater's projectionist, who was Austin's live-in lover. The projectionist and shooter are presently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. The theater was again vacant for some time after the murder but was eventually acquired and reopened by a gent named Charlie Lustman. It is now open intermittently and we hear it's up for sale.
All of that was in the future when John Hampton appeared on the game show I just watched. It was great to see him again and it took me back to the evenings I described in the above-linked column. My friend Steve and I would get dropped off on Fairfax by one parent or another. We'd walk up and down the street talking about old movies and what our advance research had yielded with regard to the films we'd be seeing that evening. Fairfax then (this is the mid-sixties) was taken up by what they called "head shops" (selling posters and light drug paraphernalia) and delicatessens, so it was an odd mix of pedestrians…older Jewish people, some Orthodox, intermingling awkwardly with barefoot hippies. The aroma on the street was also strange…an amalgam of incense and gefilte fish. Steve and I would always stop in a little laundromat that had a coffee machine that dispensed really good hot chocolate and we'd each have one. Then we'd walk to the theater and wait out in front for it to open. As various other patrons lined up, we'd tell them all about Laurel and Hardy or Mabel Normand or Mack Sennett, whether they wanted to hear or not.
We'd sit through that evening's show and if the first few films were good, we might sit through the start of the second show, which reran the same films. When we'd had enough, I'd go out to the pay phone in the lobby and call my father to come pick us up. Then Steve and I would wait out front for him to arrive, and we'd spend that time discussing the films we'd just seen.
At around this time in the evening, Mr. Hampton would usually leave his post as projectionist and hustle outside to sweep up the front of his theater. He was always in a hurry (he had to get back and change reels) but if he saw us, he'd take a minute to chat. Almost every show had at least one truly rare film and we'd tell him how excited we were about it. He'd grin and act like he'd programmed it just to thrill us. Every so often, he'd whip out a free pass and say something like, "Make sure you're here next week. I just found an old Clyde Cook short directed by Stan Laurel." And before he could tell us more about it, he had to run back upstairs and start the next reel. Either that, or my father would pull up out front.
As the column mentions, Hampton died in 1990. I think of him like you'd recall a favorite teacher from your school years…one who you never really knew in a non-professional relationship but who had a big impact on your life. So at first, it gave me a little chill to see him on To Tell the Truth. But as he talked about old movies, it took me back to some very nice memories, including those I've just mentioned. Thank you, Game Show Network. And I really hope you keep these old shows around, just for moments like this.