A Night at the Adonis

The Adonis Theatre was originally a legitimate theatre built by Billy Rose for Fanny Brice.

That alone should have made it a landmark on 8th Avenue between 50th and 51st.

In the mid-70's, the Adonis Theatre opened as "The Flagship Male Theatre of the Nation." Such ephimeral folklore of the 70's era pornographic movie houses is unimaginable to most people.

There is no such thing as a porno theater--straight or gay--anymore. Only videotape and DVD is used, never film. The interiority of life comes more quickly to some realms than others.

It was a vast movie house, very grandiose with a large orchestra area and a big balcony with its own "lobby," which had wicker chairs that gradually were broken down.

In 1977, when Jack Wrangler was the top gay male film star, this film was shot inside this thriving den of male furtiveness.

This had a most extraordinary effect to go into a theatre and to see a movie about the theatre that was showing it.

I thought Wrangler very exciting at the time. It was possible to find the exact parts of the theatre while they were showing on the screen. It was possible to become a mimesis of Wrangler in the exact theatre seat he is filmed in in the film.

Later,in 1990, I met Jack when his wife, Margaret Whiting, the great 40's and 50's pop singer and I (a pianist) were both performing in a mutual friend's wedding.

I no longer found him particularly attractive, but he was charming and funny.

I took a cab with them from the wedding at Marble Collegiate Church here in New York to the reception on Sutton Place.

Jack sat in the middle and at some point told me about a drug of some sort that was "used for sex."

I thought that that was hilarious since it seemed so ineluctable once it hit the air. I am always relieved to find people who don't pretend to be completely other than their image.

I suppose I didn't exactly respond well with a mild pause and then saying "Is Bessie Love still alive?" which Margaret would be the only one of the two to be likely able to answer. However, Jack did know about other old Hollywood stories, about Rudy Vallee's museum to himself in the Hollywood Hills for one; and in his 1983 book WHAT'S A NICE BOY LIKE YOU DOING? he details some experience he had directing Betty Hutton and some other legit names in stock companies--Ruth Roman, some others I can't recall just now. It was fun.

He quit the porno business after AIDS became widespread and has done a good bit of directing--including directing the couple who got married in 1990 in comedy routines for Caroline's and Don't Tell Mama.

But the Adonis was interesting. You could do anything there; it was a kind of Dark Paradise.

The Adonis was moved to 44th Street and 8th Avenue in 1990, and that closed also in 1995 (although that was just turned into a peep show sex toy place called The Playpen and is still there), when all the adult theaters began to be closed.

The old Billy Rose-Fanny Brice Adonis Theatre building was razed in the late 90's to make way for another high-rise apartment building in the Worldwide Plaza complex.

A former roommate of mine moved into an apartment with her boyfriend in this new building. I managed to get in there where I helped her with her English--she was Slovenian--in a college paper; I wanted to see what it felt like to be in the building where an old classic had once ruled. Her boyfriend was Korean and my current roommate, her Slovenian best friend was showing him around Slovenia while she had to stay in New York, because she had hit a wealthy woman in the face with a purse in a cab near NYU and could not leave the country, although she only had to do a little community service, during which a black fellow offered her money for a blow job.

My current roommate came back to stay with me another year and the Korean kept the apartment in the building where the Adonis used to be, but my former Slovenian roommate moved out.

She discovered his porno collection and the coconut oil he used for masturbation--which he preferred to actual sex with her.

Nevertheless, with all this paltry new vice, there was was a real sense of loss, that the place had changed.

Very shortly afterward, I had little choice but to go to Hollywood to find a controlled version of what had been thrown away here, bulldozed.

Fortunately, it was there. (These things usually are not.)

I Remember Hanging Out On The Large Wooden Bar With The Blue Velvet Decorations When It Was In The Balcony Lobby (By The "Oval") At The Adonis Theater. The Bar Played A Big Part In The Movie, Where Many Scenes Were Centered Around It. In The Early 90's I Saw A Box Office On The Lower East Side That Was For Sale. Turns Out It Was From The Adonis Theater. I Brought It, Took It Apart & Brought It Home Piece By Piece In My Old Cadillac To Staten Island Where I Rebuilt It In My Art Deco Apartment At The Ambassador. I Also Was Told About This "Bar" That Came Out Of A "Movie Theater". When I Saw It, I Loved The Look Of The Thing & Brought It (Weigh's A TON!) It Wasn't Until Days Later That I Realized It Was THE Bar From The Adonis & The One In That Movie.

PMullins totally confused me with all that. What was all that rambling about? Roommates, Koreans, peanut oil, getting slapped in the face with a handbag, etc. What did all that have to do with this movie?

I have been in that theatre and I saw this movie. It was well-publicized when it came out and some of the actors, I used to see on the streets of New York. I've met Jack Wrangler too, we chatted for a while.

The movie is about the "adult games" that went on at the Adonis Theatre. You can guess what activity I mean. I do agree, it was rather odd to be in the exact theatre that was being depicted on the screen, sort of a movie coming to life all around you. What was happening on the screen was also happening in real life as you were watching the film.

Does anyone know why the original soundtrack from the film that was shown in theaters was not the same soundtrack that was on the VHS tape release in 1983? The song Moonlight Serenade was in the film and now I understand the reference, but it was not on the VHS tape. Nor was any of the other music, that worked so well on the screen in the theater, on the VHS release. It's always a disappointment when you purchase a title of a movie you enjoyed seeing in a theater (in this case, the theater IS the movie) only to find it's been changed (without any warning) when viewing at home. After hearing the version of Moonlight Serenade in the movie, I hunted record stores for this song. I lucked out and was given a demo copy of the album "Tuxedo Junction" at the offices of Butterfly Records, on yellow vinyl. It remains one of my most played records to this day.

There used to be a large wooden bar at the old Adonis.

This was brought to full life in the film.

Drinks were served to the guys and "Moonlight Serenade" was played in the background so they could sashay around in a low-blase and nonchalant-cool low-slung way.

This was indeed a lush treatment and was probably Glenn Miller.

Eventually this bar was removed, although before and after the film it was used as a private relationship-development location.

A number of beautiful organisms could occasionally be found there...

It might have been Benny Goodman, but I think Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day did versions, too. In any case, this was big band sound and Jack and his buddies seemed to luxuriate in the chorus that starts with "Glam-uh..."

The African-American known in the film only as "Bertha" who sold tickets at the "box office" had held the actual job before the film was made.

She continued to work there in the same capacity for several years after the film's release...