ABSTRACT
When Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes opened at Christmastime 1970, no one would give it the time of day-literally. In my city, though a cosy relationship with United Artists forced the local theatre circuit to book the film into one of the few remaining downtown movie palaces, they had no expectation that it would attract an audience. If you called the theatre, asked “When's the next show?” and acted accordingly, you would arrive to find yourself in mid-film. Telephone lines had been juggled so that the staff could handle incoming calls for the sister theatre across the street, where Love Story was doing land-office business. It never occurred to them that anyone might be interested in “the show” on their own screen, so they automatically gave out the Love Story schedule.
