Silent Movie Showcase Should Be Living Memorial

Regarding “The Man Died Doing What He Loved: Devotees mourn proprietor of Silent Movie theater, who had kept alive a bygone era of Hollywood” (main news section, Jan. 19):

I first met Laurence W. Austin, the owner and manager of the Silent Movie Showcase, when he called me at the Samuel Goldwyn Co. to rent a print of the 1925 silent version of “Stella Dallas.” His passion for silent movies was infectious as he excitedly described his upcoming Buster Keaton festival, encouraging me to attend.

That was Austin: film booker, theater owner, ticket-taker and PR man rolled into one. I was unable to make it to the festival but several months later was extended another invitation, this time to attend a special benefit screening of “My Best Girl,” starring Mary Pickford and Charles “Buddy” Rogers. It was going to be a “splashy Hollywood evening,” Austin assured me, including a dinner before the film, live organ accompaniment and special guests.

I felt I had to attend, if only to meet the man who until then was just an ancient and gentle voice on the phone who wanted so passionately to share with others an appreciation for the films that had given him so much joy.

The benefit screening wasn’t just a splashy Hollywood evening but an “event,” complete with red carpet, paparazzi and a slew of celebrities that included such luminaries as director Robert Wise, actor Roddy McDowall and Buddy Rogers, the star of the evening’s film and of “Wings,” the first film to receive a best picture Academy Award in 1927.

In the middle of all the activity was Austin, as modest as his theater, standing inside the ticket booth away from the glare of the cameras, checking in guests.

Austin (he referred to himself simply as “Austin”) appeared younger than he sounded over the phone, perhaps infused with the energy of the evening of his own creation. Here, clearly, was a man who was in his element. We exchanged a quick greeting as he encouraged me to grab a plate of food and get a seat since they were filling up quickly.

As I sat in the flickering darkness of the Silent Movie Showcase that evening surrounded by a room full of silent-film celebrities, the forbears of our industry, I realized that I was experiencing a rare opportunity, a mingling of Hollywood present with Hollywood past. It was a historical moment that might never occur again.

That fear grows even more real with the senseless death of Austin, who was gunned town Jan. 17 as he stood inside his box office. (Police on Friday released a composite sketch of the man they believe shot Austin, and city officials have offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the assailant’s arrest.)

In the film business, the auteur theory can apply not only to the director but to the exhibitor as well: The lone theater owner and manager who programs the films, keeps the books, sells the tickets and runs the projector, doing whatever it takes to keep the doors to his theater open. It is a commitment that rises not out of monetary gain but the pure love of movies.

Austin’s desire to educate the public was so strong he literally wrote it on a sign on the front of the theater, which is in the Fairfax area. The Silent Movie Showcase is “Hollywood’s shrine of the old-time silent picture, a shrine of study for the serious students of the film.” People who view silents as silly “melodramas that are purposely burlesqued” are encouraged to patronize other local theaters.

Austin would have been the first to tell you that it was the audience that kept the Silent Movie Showcase going. It was the patrons who paid their $6 to sit in the comforting dark and revel in the adventures of Douglas Fairbanks, indulge in the beauty of Greta Garbo or laugh at Mary Pickford precariously balancing an armful of pots and pans.

And it is the theatergoers, especially fellow members of the film community, who must now turn their touching support as a result of this tragedy into action to assure that the doors to his shrine, the Silent Movie Showcase, open again. I applaud the efforts, announced last week by Michael Friend, director of the film archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to convene a group interested in reopening the Showcase.

Perhaps together we can carry on the work of our teacher of the old-time silent picture and give back the gift of appreciation for our past that Austin so passionately shared with us.