In a Hollywood time warp

By Jil Rolston

Ah, the balloons, water pistols, sing-alongs, seductions, fishnet stockings and suspenders ...

Memories of wild nights and mockdebauchery will be revived tonight for fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show when TV3 screens the latest in its Coming Home series at 8.30.

Making the trip back from Britain is Richard O'Brien, writer (and sort of supporting star, as Riff Raff the butler) of that cult classic.

To many, the film will be forever be linked with the Hollywood Cinema in Avondale, which O'Brien visits in the documentary for a screening of the film.

Jan Grefstad, manager then and now of the Hollywood, showed The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday and Saturday night for 10 years - making it New Zealand's longest-running movie.

In 1976 the film had flopped on Queen St, but two years later a song from the movie, The Time Warp, was re-released and climbed the charts. Grefstad had an idea.

"We advertised on radio and from the first night we had a full house. We had balloons, banners, song-sheets ... we made an area at the front where people could dance to the Time Warp. It was a real buzz.

"Customers would come in costume every week. They knew all the words of the dialogue and would talk back to the film."

Those heady days are long gone. But despite monopolies and multiplexes, Grefstad and the Hollywood are still there.

Last month the Hollywood celebrated its 75th birthday - it's the country's oldest suburban cinema still being used as it was originally.

Grefstad has been sitting in his cluttered office there almost every night for 33 years, surrounded by pictures of the silver screen's heroes and heroines.

The eldest son of a Norwegian naval officer who was "always on a boat," Grefstad was raised by his New Zealand mother. Fanatical about films, she took him to a matinee of the latest release every week.

"My earliest recollections of childhood are scenes from horror movies," he says. "I remember vividly being very frightened by a scene with a gypsy, a full moon and a wolf howling. I had terrible nightmares."

At 13 he got his first job, selling ice creams at the Plaza in Queen St. In his teens he trained as a projectionist and later worked weekends at the Avondale Grosvenor while teaching primary school in New Lynn. In 1966 he quit teaching to lease the Grosvenor with a friend.

The partnership failed but Grefstad took over the lease, changed the name to Hollywood, gave the building a paint job and has managed it since. He bought the Hollywood from the Auckland City Council in 1995.

Today, nostalgia rather than raunchiness reigns. More interested in preserving cinema history than getting the latest blockbuster, Grefstad screens his personal classic cinema collection on Wednesday nights and at weekend matinees.

A traditionalist at heart, he says that "films needs a story. Modern directors have been brought up on television and their films are very unsatisfying - too many gimmicks and not enough story."

His passion for vintage films led him to establish the Classic, Queen St's first independent cinema. Initially the Government declined his application for a cinema licence. Grefstad appealed to the High Court, which overturned the decision, but he found he couldn't fight the distributors who decided who got which films.

He flirted with porn instead - "I was filling a niche market."

After 24 years his lease expired and the Classic is now a standup comedy venue.

Multiplexes hurt him. "But we survive," he smiles. "I have automated projection equipment and I can run the place on my own. It's a one-man band."

Grefstad just wants to continue living his hobby and has no plans to retire.

"I reckon I could do this until they have to carry me out."