Here's Looking At You, Kids

A few decades ago, Harvard students didn't streak through the Yard in the midst of the Primal Scream in order to relieve exam stress.

Instead, they sang the "Marseillaise," the French national anthem.

In unison.

Along with all the customers at Rick's Cafe American when the Nazis came to "Casablanca."

During the reading periods of the 1960s and 1970s, students flocked to the Brattle Theatre to watch "Casablanca" on the big screen and recite the lines along with Bogey and Bergman.

Students didn't just watch the movie--they were part of it. The audience even erupted in applause when the corrupt French official, Louis Renoult, lets Bogart get away with murder at the film's end.

"There was a migration to the theater," says Thomas A. Dingman '67, associate dean of the College, who admits to seeing "Casablanca" at the Brattle at least three times during his undergraduate years at Harvard.

"I don't know whether they thought it was the best way to prepare for exams, but it was fun," Dingman says. "It was something to look forward to. It was a great way to see if you brain cells were still intact--if you could remember the lines from the movie."

But Bogart wasn't the only one who drew crowds at the Brattle and other local theaters, according to one administrator who remembers.

"They used to also have festivals of other people too, like Ingrid Bergman, but the Bogart one was very popular," says L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of the College, "In the earlier days, it was very common for people to go to movies frequently, not only the Brattle but the University Theater that used to face out on Mass. Ave."

Another administrator remembers when not only the Science Center but also Lowell Lecture Hall, Gund Hall and the house dining halls showed movies on the weekends.

"In those days they didn't really close the dining halls," says Virginia. L. Mackay-Smith' 78, secretary to the Ad Board. "You would get coffee and you would get Coke and you would sit down and have a good time."

During the 1960s, even The Crimson jumped into the classic movie fray with its column, "The Theatregoer," which reviewed movies at the Brattle as well as plays in the area.

The only movie shown on campus today that triggers that same audience response as "Casablanca" did in the 60s and 70s is "Love Story." The Crimson Key Society screens the film at the Science Center every Freshman Week.

But the only people in the audience who generally participate are Crimson Key members. That's because they are the only ones who know what comments to yell when.

"We still show the same movie and our comments on it have changed more with the times than because of anything else," says Allison J. Koenig '94, former president of the Crimson Key.

The current co-director of the Brattle Theatre laments the fact that college students are less interested in seeing old movies than their counterparts of 20 and 30 years ago.

"I think college students in general don't come to the classics the way they used to," says Connie A. White, co-director of the Brattle Theatre. "It seems to me college students are more interested in first-run films or your Arnold Schwarzenegger films. But I don't know if Harvard students are."

"I do think that repertory theaters used to count on a really high number of their audience coming from colleges and now I think our core audience is more faculty and staff," White says. "I'm so surprised how many Harvard students don't know the Brattle is here, and then they find it and they say, Where have you been all this time?"

Mackay-Smith also says '90s students seem to have different agendas on the weekends form those of students a few decades ago.

"The Square was nothing like it is now. It wasn't so yuppie. There were a lot more shops and normal neighborhood things," Mackay-Smith says.

"You couldn't go from the Boathouse to the Grille to the Spaghetti Club. When we went out, we went out to do things, so we went out to see movies. We saw movies every Friday night and every Saturday night."