A Night At The Movies

IT'S A SATURDAY MORNING IN JULY, eight o'clock. The theater staff assembles for its monthly meeting. In among the smartly uniformed ushers and cashiers, a grinning fighter pilot, dressed in a Top Gun jumpsuit, sips contentedly on a soda. A twenty-first-century U.S. Marine, outfitted to fight back the Aliens hordes, gawks at the cherubic blonde concessionaire down the row. Then the crew from Friday night's late show arrives, in bathrobes and furry slippers, teddy bears in hand -- a mock protest at having to come back to the theater just five hours after they left.

These are the troops of the Arbor Cinema Four: 42 teenagers who for the next 18 hours will largely be responsible for the success or failure of this unusual movie house on the outskirts of Austin, Tex. On any day, they have a number of built-in advantages over their competition: an award-winning building and state-of-the-art sound and projection equipment, all of which add 25% to the cost of the typical American movie house. And on this day, they have other advantages: Weaver in Aliens, Redford in Legal Eagles, Cruise in Top Gun, and DeVito in Ruthless People. Even the weather should help draw crowds looking for air-conditioned relief from the expected 100-degree heat.

"You're Hollywood for the people of Austin," Michael Swinney reminds the staff. He has given the pep talk many times before: remember that you are not selling tickets or popcorn -- you're selling entertainment. And remember who you're selling it to: they aren't patrons -- they're guests. That's why it's important to clean that smudge off the bathroom door, or replace the burned-out bulbs on the aisles between each screening. It's that kind of attention to detail that keeps people coming out to the theater, and keeps them coming to the Arbor rather than a theater across town.

Swinney is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt sporting the logo of New York's Hard Rock Cafe. At 36, he is still youthful enough to pass -- almost -- for the movie usher he used to be. Although his title is vice-president and chief operating officer of Presidio Enterprises Inc., he is a familiar presence at the Arbor, not above tearing tickets, cleaning an auditorium between shows -- whatever is needed to maintain the magic of a night at the movies.

These are tough times for movie exhibitors. After years of making easy money showing lots of films in little concrete-block auditoriums, industry revenues have recently begun to plummet. Part of the explanation is demographic: teenagers have always been the movies' prime audience, and there are fewer teenagers around these days. At the same time, video cassette recorders and cable TV are rapidly replacing the movies as a source of entertainment. And for exhibitors, there is the problem of supply: there are just fewer hit movies being made.

The Arbor was a strategic experiment aimed at overcoming these hurdles and bucking the downward trend. It is the brainchild of Charles B. Chick, the 39-year-old founder and president of Presidio, who got into movies at about the time he dropped out of business school. Chick is not the first operator to see the payback in spending generously on his building and equipment to provide a more inviting ambience for his patrons: such publicly traded giants as the 1,117-screen Cineplex-Odeon-Plitt or the 1,163-screen General Cinema Corp. also have "upscaling" programs underway. But few have pulled it off with such panache or such dramatic payoff as Chick. Although the Arbor is only a 1,387-seat theater in the nation's 98th largest market, it has regularly placed in the top 10 grossing theaters in America ever since it opened in June 1985, and with its two new sister complexes, it was largely responsible for a 15% increase in Presidio ticket sales last year, at a time when sales were down 7% nationwide. With only 46% of the movie seats in the Austin area, Presidio now claims over 60% of the box-office revenues.

Presidio's success, however, depends in large part on the youthful band gathered around Swinney this Saturday morning. To many business owners, it would be a frightening prospect, putting the company in the hands of 42 teenagers, most of whom are holding down their first job. But Charlie Chick does it 365 days a year. During this day, his adolescent crew will likely process more than 4,000 people through the ticket lines and concession stand at the Arbor, and oversee seven or eight showings of each of four first-run films. And by the end of it all, they will likely have handled more than $20,000 in cash. The difference between making money and not depends on how well they have been trained and motivated, then retrained and remotivated.

Shelley Harris, the assistant manager in charge of this Saturday's matinees at the Arbor, knows just how demanding it all can be. Even at the start of her eight-hour shift, there are problems. The cashier just had a fight with his girlfriend and feels like sulking. A concessionaire's brother was in a car crash the night before, and she doesn't know if she can concentrate enough to handle cash. Shelley, all of 18 herself, is a veteran now at coping with such crises, having worked her way up through the ranks. With an encouraging word to the sulking cashier and a quick reassignment to the troubled concessionaire, she moves on to her morning inspection.

There are, first of all, the auditoriums. Popcorn on the floor in Number One -- have someone sweep it up. A Junior Mint is squashed in the third row of Number Two -- it must be mopped up. She checks the seats in each auditorium -- they'll do for now, but she notes to herself that they'll need to be steam-cleaned next week.

In the rest room, Shelley runs a light finger over the surfaces, toilet bowls, and sink fixtures, then the doors, the napkin dispensers, and the mirrors. Do the lights work? Are the floors immaculate? Is there enough soap and towels? The rest room card hanging on the wall is tattered -- have it replaced.

The manager's one-page checklist continues, six separate inspections in all. In the lobby, the staff uses about six different polishes and cleaners to make sure that every surface gleams. Three sizes of drink cups and three sizes of popcorn tubs have to be inventoried, along with about eight kinds of candy. The cash has to be counted, yesterday's figures checked, and the projectionist consulted. It is, Shelley admits, "the most nervous part" of her day.

"Please smile, y'all," she tells her ushers as she moves through the lobby, completing her rounds. "And please don't chew gum -- it looks like you don't care." She opens the doors to the Arbor Cinema Four five minutes ahead of schedule, only to find that a crowd has already formed a line that stretches back into the parking lot. It is 9:55 a.m.