Down Memory Lane: The Art of New Hollywood

2004 was the year I opened my first brick-and-mortar shop in Hackesche Höfe, a tourist hotspot right in the center of former East-Berlin. The idea arose when I learned that a frame shop was looking for a sub-lease and that the art gallery they hared the place with would move out by the end of 2003.
At the time, I was growing tired from working at home. Also, too many days I found myself in front of a computer, in a bathrobe, with an empty coffee mug, at four in the afternoon. So I figured it was time for a change. I bought the chest of drawers the previous owners had brought in, put a desk, a phone and my computer in, hung some movie posters on the wall, and voilá: Galerie filmposter.net, Berlin‘s (and Germany‘s) first ever vintage movie poster gallery was born!

The opening reception was quite a blast. At the time, an old pal with deep roots in the Berlin club scene worked freelance for Smirnoff Vodka. They called him an ‘ambassador‘, and his job was to deliver free vodka and glasses to club owners by the pallet. Since a vintage poster place was perfectly up his alley, he sponsored the evening. I bought a few cases of cranberry juice, a box of ice and we were set.

Things actually started quite promising, on the second day I sold a japanese movie poster for €500, so I really hung my hopes up high. Unfortunately, I very soon found out that the average Berlin visitor couldn‘t care less about vintage movie posters. Some days, I had over a hundred visitors at the shop and at closing time I had made €20 from the junk box. Even back in 2004, the rent was pretty brutal, so when I found out that my current premises in Kreuzberg were available, I approached the landlord and ‘the rest is history’ as they say.

Most things considered, my year in Berlin-Mitte was quite an ordeal. Way too much time was wasted waiting for buyers, and since there were people at the shop most of the time, I couldn‘t really concentrate on my computer work either.

That said, 2004 was also the year when the Berlin Film Festival focused its retrospective section on New Hollywood. And since I was now a gallery owner, I had the idea to show THE ART OF NEW HOLLYWOOD, an exhibition of original vintage movie posters for some of my favorite films from the 1960s and 70s, including TAXI DRIVER, THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW, POINT BLANK, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, EASY RIDER, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP and numerous others.

The exhibition was very well received, with a good number of visitors and some nice press coverage. What really made this stand out for me was that the Berlin Kinemathek agreed to sponsor the event. There was no money involved of course, but I was mentioned in some of their publications, and by far the best thing for me was that they made me a Guest of Honor for the entire festival. Needless to say, while all Berlinale animals are equal, some animals or more equal than others: While the average visitor had to stand in line out in the cold at eight in the morning for an hour or two for his or her free tickets, I would show up at the ‘more equal animals‘ counter, usually around eleven or so. On the worst days, I had TWO people in front of me, but I always was out on the street again in less than five minutes.
Don‘t get me wrong, I am as much for equality as the next guy, but that WAS fun… Also, they always had 99% of the tickets I wanted, including the top-level premiere screenings at the Berlinale Palast.

I have never before or after seen nearly as many movies in such a short time. I think I saw almost the entire New Hollywood program, plus a few premiere films as well.

As I said, they had tickets for 99% of what I wanted, with only one major letdown: No more tickets for POINT BLANK, still one of my all-time favorite films. In the end, I was lucky again: I knew they would always let a few people in at the last minute, so I just walked up to the cinema to give it a try. Turned out, I knew the guy at the door and (more important) not only did he remember me as well, he also liked my poster exhibition and just waved me in.

The POINT BLANK screening was quite memorable: They had a brand-new, fully restored 35 mm print that was later used for the DVD and looked amazing. Also director John Boorman was there and he had a number of quite hilarious stories to tell about Lee Marvin and the time with him. Apparently, he had a hard time convincing Lee Marvin to do the film, as Marvin outright hated the project. In the end, he said that Lee Marvin agreed to do the movie, but ‘not with this script‘ and he literally threw the script out of the window. Many years later, Mel Gibson came up with PAYBACK, which failed miserably. At the time, John Boorman would tell anyone in Hollywood who would listen that apparently ‘a very young Mel Gibson must have walked by under that window and picked that script up.‘ Boorman said that at some point Mel Gibson actually called him up and asked him to stop telling that story.

I even had a small poster printed for the event, and I was fairly sure I had saved at least a few of them, but if I still have them, I don’t have a clue where they are. I also printed a postcard with the same image, and that I could find. Here it is:

And while I was looking for that poster, I also found an old flyer. I also used this logo for my business cards at the time. More than a tad silly perhaps, but still quite charming I think:

Here’s the backside, without the shop address yet, so I must’ve printed them sometime before 2004: