(LOST) BOYS N the 'HOOD

40 years ago, Hollywood came to Santa Cruz

Forty years ago, this month, when Hollywood came to town to shoot a teenage vampire movie, nobody had any idea that The Lost Boys would become a cult phenomenon.

 

Sure, we locals loved it. The production crew was here for a couple of weeks, pouring Hollywood revenue into our hotels and restaurants, and employing hundreds of locals as extras. We loved seeing landmarks like Pogonip, the Boardwalk, and the train trestle over the river mouth up on the big screen.

 

What nobody could have predicted, was (fittingly enough, for a vampire movie) the extensive afterlife the movie would have beyond its original theatrical release — from midnight shows, revivals, and the advent of streaming, with its 24/7 access, all the way to Broadway, where an original stage musical adaptation just won four Tony Awards.

 

Little did we know, back in June 1986, when the movie was shot, what a cultural touchpoint it would become, not only in the annals of both vampire and teen angst movie genres, but as a snapshot of a very particular sort of hip 80s vibe. In which respect, director Joel Schumacher, cinematographer Michael Chapman, and production designer Bo Welch discovered that Santa Cruz was so ready for her close-up.

 

In the story, a recently divorced mom and her two teenage sons move from urban Phoenix to a sleepy California beach town to start a new life. Restless, 17-year-old Michael falls for a girl who runs with a seductive, yet sinister crowd of (literally) drop-dead cool kids who haunt the beachfront Boardwalk at night — and who turn out to be vampires. 14-year-old Sam starts hanging out at the local comic book store, where the owners' two tween sons try to convince him that vampires are running amok in the town, and enlist his aid in stamping out the bloodsucking menace.

 

Although the town is called Santa Carla in the movie, it taps into our early-'70s reputation as the "Murder Capital of the World," and the program of plastering the faces of missing children on milk cartons, to create a sense of real danger beneath the movie's teen comedy overtones. The plot turns on the scheming of glamorous alpha vampire, David, to induct Michael into their biker gang. The tagline — "Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." — references Peter Pan, from which the movie gets its title. 

 

And if David is the Peter Pan figure in the movie, Santa Cruz is the Neverland.

 

From the first montage of Mom and the boys driving into town, with "People Are Strange," on the soundtrack, the fabled weirdness of our little burgh is on full display — drummers, dancers, street musicians, at least one snake-handler, surfers, punks, Goths, spikey Mohawks, and a panorama of jeans, leather, wetsuits, granny dresses, combat boots, and other items of trashy gypsy hipster chic. For a pivotal scene during a nighttime rock concert at the bandstand on the beach, the hundreds of locals hired as extras didn't even have to go through wardrobe and makeup — they already looked perfect!

 

Night scenes on the Boardwalk are shot around rippling tongues of flame, as if  bonfires were lit just out of camera range. Life in Santa Carla is one long, non-stop party, framed in torchlight and neon, and powered by jangly calliope music and scorching rock 'n' roll.

 

One particular thing the filmmakers loved about shooting in Santa Cruz was they didn't have to build a comic bookshop from scratch. Enter Atlantis Fantasyworld, operated by co-owners Joe Ferrara and my Art Boy, James Aschbacher. Their original, pre-quake building on Lower Pacific was cavernous; it had been a grocery store in the 1920s, with solid wood plank floors and a two-story high ceiling. When the crew folded back the giant accordion doors out front, they could roll the klieg lights right inside. The huge, freestanding shelving units in the middle of the room could be rolled aside to accommodate the lights, camera, and action of dozens of crew members loitering around the periphery on any given shot. 

 

The only problem was that Atlantis was not actually located on the Boardwalk, as the store in the movie is supposed to be. The solution was to build a replica section of the Boardwalk on the sidewalk in front of Atlantis, a plywood tunnel painted faded Boardwalk yellow, and complete with green benches, and the uber-eerie Laughing Sal automaton chortling right outside the door. When Schumacher decided there should be some graffiti on the wall outside the shop, he wielded the spray can himself. On the first day of shooting in the shop, production designer Welch marveled, "This is a monumental set to put up. You wouldn't even do this in TV!"

For three consecutive weekends, the faux Boardwalk facade was erected out on the sidewalk while the crew shot interiors inside the store. James and Joe auditioned to play the shop proprietors, but they didn't get the parts; Schumacher wanted a burnt-out hippie couple who slumped in front of the TV all day, instead of, you know, actually running the shop. But the two of them do appear in the movie for about six seconds, playing pinball in the background as Sam walks into the store. And the three of us got to hang out on set all three weekends, to discourage people from standing or walking on, or rolling equipment over the merchandise — and also ring up sales to crew members, who spend most of their time on movie sets waiting around to set up the next shot.

 

Forty years on, watching the movie again, I was surprised at  how short it is (89 minutes), how remarkably uncomplicated by any multiple plot threads, and what a conventional horror-movie finale it has — especially if you buy into the subtext of youth yearning to make community with their found tribe. Still, it captures as  evocative moment when Santa Cruz was (or was pereceived as) a fun and funky little beach town Neverland, with no delusions of metropolitan glamour. Those were the days, all right.

 

 

 

Above, upper right: Lost Boys call sheet

 

Above, left: Joe and James in Atlantis, with faux Boardwalk set visible outside the front door

 

Above: James and Joe at work, you know, running the shop, between takes 

 Right: 2 random onlookers fooling around on the set

SOUVENIR

Looky what I found clearing off some bookshelves the other day. Fat Freddy’s Cat was a spinoff from one of the most fabled underground comix of the ’70s, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

Why am I hanging on to this relic of hippie nostalgia? It's a souvenir of the day I met my future.

One day in the spring of 1977, I walked into a comic book store with a couple of friends and a stack of silk-screened posters we’d made for the recent Spring Fair. I didn’t know from comics, but we wanted to sell our leftover posters on consignment, and the recently-opened Atlantis Fantasyworld had posters on its walls.

I can’t remember what came of that transaction; my friend, the comic collector, was handling the business end of the deal with one of the owners, Joe. But I didn’t want to look like a deadbeat, so I wandered around the shop and picked up this copy of Fat Freddy’s Cat, which I bought from the other owner — Jim.

She sells silk screens at the Spring Fair

We chatted for a few minutes over my big purchase, and that was the end of that — or so I thought.

Little did I know that a couple of months later, the Star Wars juggernaut was about to hit Santa Cruz. My publisher at Good Times told me if I could find a photo, he’d run my review as a cover story.

(Back then, GT was only 12 pages long, so a cover story meant the text of the review was actually printed on the cover! Not buried on page 6 with the ads for The Broken Egg, Cymbaline’s and The Good Fruit Company.)

The photo was the catch. It’s not like we could just dial up iMDB. (This was long before computers were invented; we were practically chiseling the paper onto slate tablets, like The Flintstones.) But I had seen some movie stills on the wall at — you guessed it — Atlantis Fantasyworld.

Comics convert: me & my future

Joe was off at lunch the day I went back. But Jim was happy to stop filing comics for a few minutes to help me out. There was no one else in the store. We talked for an hour.

I never did get that still. (Turns out the only ones he had on the wall were from vintage ’50s monster movies.)

But I did get my cover story — my counterpart at the Sentinel took pity on a newbie and gave me one of his Star Wars stills — which gave me another excuse to visit Atlantis for another chat, the day the story was published, and then — well, you get the idea!

So when I happened upon Fat Freddy’s Cat, the discovery was bittersweet — but mostly sweet.

I notice it’s Book #1, and practically in mint condition (except for some fading on the spine), as it’s been mostly untouched by human hands all these yeas. I wonder if it’s worth anything — I’d have to ask Joe.

But it’s priceless to me.

NATURE CALLING

When you talk about earthquakes — as we all seem to be today, the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Quake of 1989 —  it's all about the downside. Buildings crumble and tumble. Objects plunge to the floor.

But when the dust settles (literally), there might be an unexpected upside — although it may not be so obvious at the time. That's what we found, anyway.

It was Indian Summer, October 17, 1989, hot and still — what we've since come to think of as "earthquake weather." In those pre-Art Boy days, when James was still just Jim, he worked downtown at Atlantis Fantasyworld, the comic book store he owned with Joe Ferrara. I was at home, at the keyboard in my office upstairs; it was just after 5 o'clock, and I was thinking about going down to turn on the World Series (Oakland As at Giants) when I felt the first shake.

Now, my room rattles if a UPS truck goes by, but this time, it was swaying like a hammock. All the books, toys, photo albums, and other miscellaneous stuff cluttering up my workspace jumped off their shelves. Then the shelves jumped off after them, wrenching their brackets right out of the walls. It was like The Sorcerers' Apprentice, all those inanimate objects suddenly flying around the room, all landing in a massive heap on the floor.

They claim the first 7.0 shaker only lasted 30 seconds, but it felt like forever, and the aftershocks were coming so fast it was like one continuous rhumba. After picking my way down the shivering staircase, I tried calling Jim at work, but, of course, the phone was dead. Ditto the TV, so I dug out an old battery-powered radio and tuned into KSCO, which would become the lifeline of the county over the next few days. Neighbors outside were calling for their kids and going door-to-door to make sure everyone was okay. My most immediate worry was where my cats had disappeared to.

Around the house, more piles of books and tcotchkes littered the floors, as if swept aside by a petulant hand. Paintings were knocked askew on the walls and cabinet doors yawned open. A substantial Art Deco hutch crowned with a four-foot slab of marble that weighs a ton had taken a little stroll about six inches away from the wall. There was plaster dust all over, some broken glass, and cracks in the drywall, but nothing a broom or a putty knife couldn't fix.

Downtown was a different story. According to the radio, Pacific Avenue was buried under a giant mushroom cloud of red brick dust. Atlantis was on Lower Pacific, south of Laurel, but since there was nothing I could do without more information, I channeled my alarm into sorting out the home front. Sheena, the cat who'd been known to play chicken with a jackhammer for the thrill, was seriously freaked, but she came over the back fence when I called.

But my older cat, Maynard, was nowhere to be found. When they passed out bravery, Maynard was off somewhere taking a nap, so I knew he'd run for cover at the first quiver. I worried he might have fled upstairs in all the commotion and been trapped under the wreckage, but to my great relief I didn't find him flattened like a cat rug when I sifted through the debris.

But by 7 pm, Jim was still not home, and new reports were coming in of downtown engulfed in flames.  I had no way of knowing which buildings were charred rubble and which (if any) had survived. I tried to assure myself that I'd feel a cataclysmic disturbance in the Force if anything  dire had happened to him.

When I finally heard his car in the driveway, I raced outside, Sheena at my feet (make that under my feet). He had been trying to get home for two hours. First, his keys had been buried under an avalanche of comic books. Then he found the car had been so jolted by the rippling street that the door was stuck; he had to pound and kick to get it open. On the road at last, he found that the Murray Street Bridge between Seabright and 7th Avenue was closed, and all traffic to Live Oak rerouted to Soquel Avenue.

With everybody in town trying to get out the same way, and no working streetlights, traffic was barely crawling. Also barely crawling was Maynard, who came tottering down the hallway from his hiding place, deep in the closet, behind my shoes, at the sound of our voices, indignant, but unhurt.
 
One house downtown had indeed burst into flames from a ruptured gas pipe, but Jim said the choking cloud over Pacific Avenue was from the collapsed buildings. As dark and thick as smoke, it looked like the entire town was in flames. He'd driven home expecting to find our neighborhood in ruins. But we were lucky — all we lost were things.

Downtown bore the worst of it: buildings, businesses, and lives were lost. It took decades to rebuild, a process that still goes on. I believe there is still an empty lot behind a chain link fence where Atlantis once stood.

No, the building didn't collapse in the quake; only the back end crumbled a little. Jim and Joe sold comics out in front the next day — by  hand, out of a cash drawer — since everybody was suddenly off work and school and thronging downtown. But when their building was red-tagged, they had to move all their inventory into one of the notorious tents going up in the parking lots along Cedar Street to temporarily house local businesses. It was a long, laborious process. The community rallied to support the merchants' tent city throughout the holiday season, but rebuilding downtown took a long time.

But  here's that unexpected upside: When Jim and Joe had to move Atlantis to yet another tent the next year, Jim was at a crossroads. He could slog through another move, with the prospect of moving the business at least one more time after that into a permanent space. Or, he could sell his half of the business to Joe and dare to follow the siren song of his insistent new muse — art.

He was just about to turn 40. Guess which one he chose?

Of course, when you think of all the devastation perpetrated against the planet by humankind over the generations, who can blame Mother Nature for giving us a good whack upside the head once in awhile? But sometimes out of the rubble, a surprising phoenix might arise.

SWASHBUCKLER ALERT

Say you've got a budding young swashbuckler in your life. Maybe she or he has seen too many Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, but when other kids are off at the beach or the skatepark, yours is in the back yard with an old broom handle, shouting, "En garde!" and practicing to thrust, parry and riposte.

Well, here's your chance to earn major brownie points by treating your young pirate-in-training to a live performance of Shakespeare Santa Cruz's rip-snorting new production of The Man in the Iron Mask—for free!

A brand new play penned by SSC stalwart Scott Wentworth, Iron Mask is a sequel to last season's hugely popular production of The Three Musketeers. It's based on a later novel by Alexandre Dumas in which the older Musketeers come out of retirement to join D'Artagnan for one last escapade, replacing the corrupt and heartless King Louis XIV with his compassionate twin brother, who has been imprisoned all his life.

If last season's twin productions of Musketeers and King Henry IV Part 1 are any indication, Iron Mask is sure to kick up some dust in the Festival Glen with plenty of action, clashing swords, and derring-do. And you can and your little swashbuckler can be a part of it when SSC presents Atlantis Fantasyworld Day on Saturday, August 4.

In partnership with the beloved local comic shop, SSC is offering one free child's ticket with the purchase of a full-priced adult ticket for the 2 pm performance of The Man in the Iron Mask on Saturday, August 4, only. Purchase tickets by phone (831 459-2159) or in person at the UCSC Ticket Office. Mention the code word "Atlantis" to get your free child's ticket for this performance; but the offer is only good for tickets purchased in advance before July 29. That's this coming Sunday, so act fast!

But wait, there's more: kids are invited to come in costume as their favorite Musketeer to participate in a pre-show costume contest at 12:30 pm on the 4th. Winner of the costume contest will receive a hardcover graphic novel of The Man in the Iron Mask from Atlantis.

Meanwhile, get in the mood for the new play (it opens this Saturday night), by revisiting my highly subjective history of Three Musketeers adaptations, Dueling Musketeers, which I posted last year at just about this time. En garde!

THE WITCHING SEASON, PART 1

Did you love monster movies as a kid? I know I did. Lucky for me, my mom was a big fan of all kinds of movies. Our family watched all the classics on TV, via The Late Show, Million Dollar Movie, The Fabulous 52. But it was mostly Mom and me who curled up together with a bowl of hot popcorn to watch Saturday afternoon monster movies.

The misunderstood monster heroes of the '30s and '40s were our favorites—The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Bride of Frankenstein. Bela Lugosi's suave, courtly Dracula probably had the all-time greatest single line of monster movie dialogue: invited to join an unsuspecting guest in a toast, the silky old bloodsucker demurs, "No thank you. I never drink … wine." But the one we loved best was dear old Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. No other actor who ever strapped on the bolts and the boots ever brought the same measure of poignant heartbreak to the role.

Not that we only watched the classics, not by any means. Probably our single favorite movie, ever, was The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a no-budget, 1962 sci-fi epic of such resounding idiocy, it's kind of endearing. It's about a rogue scientist who keeps the severed head of his girlfriend alive in the lab while he haunts strip joins and beauty pageants to find her a hot new body. It's just so wrong, on so many levels (the closing-titles credits even misidentify it as The Head That Wouldn't Die), that we could never get enough of it; we had to watch it again every time it was on.

But monster-loving kids not fortunate enough to grow up with my mom had no one else to turn to in their addiction but Forrest J Ackerman. Longtime editor of "Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine," the monster movie bible, "Forry" not only ceaselessly promoted the genre, he amassed a personal collection of some 300,000 items of monster movie memorabilia in his lifetime of fandom.

At this most witching time of year, it's appropriate that Santa Cruzans Al Astrella and James Greene have just published a book about Forry's amazing collection, "A Forbidden Look Inside the House of Ackerman" (Midnight Marquee). Read their story here, and plan to drop by Atlantis Fantasyworld from 2-5 p.m., this Halloween Sunday, where they will be signing copies of their book. Come in costume and receive a special treat!

(Top: Munsters memorabilia from the Al Astrella collection.)