| The Palo Alto History Project |
| The Paris Theatre 124 University Avenue |
| The Paris Theatre: Prurience or Porno-Chic? University Avenue has changed a great deal over the past 30 years and perhaps nothing illustrates that transformation as much as the one-time existence of the Paris Theatre. The X-rated movie house operated during the 1970s at 124 University Avenue near Alma Street, giving Palo Alto a rather unseemly entry point to the Downtown area. During its time as the city’s only adult theatre, the Paris would become engaged on a local basis in the national debate over obscenity. While the nation’s high court grappled with what constituted “obscene” and what was protected under the First Amendment, Palo Altans struggled with what was permissible according to their own community’s standards. As sexual mores changed throughout the country during the 1960s, X-rated movie houses, increasingly explicit girly magazines and strip clubs challenged the nation’s legal system to define exactly what constituted obscenity in a changing society. But definitions would not come easy. Using phrases like “utterly without redeeming social importance” to define what was obscene, the Supreme Court seemed to only further muddle the issue for the public and law enforcement. And porn producers were quick to circumvent high court definitions with tricks such as slipping in passages of Shakespeare to add a little civility to otherwise carnal proceedings. Term after term, dirty books, movies, and magazines kept ending up back in the lap of the nation’s highest court, which presumably had more important business to attend to. The court wound up making obscenity law even less clear when Justice Potter Stewart famously refused to define hard-core pornography, stating in his 1964 opinion for Jacobellis v. Ohio that “I shall not today attempt further to define [what is obscene] . . . but I know it when I see it.” Without any meaningful all- embracing definition for obscenity, the High Court was in the (arguably) unenviable position of actually ruling on a virtually every obscenity arrest made across the country. This led to the somewhat ridiculous existence of what Supreme Court clerks called the court’s “movie day,” in which the all-male, largely octogenarian body met to eat popcorn and watch the porn movies from the cases awaiting decisions. Eventually, the court essentially gave up on such specific review, giving far more general instructions on obscenity in 1973’s Miller vs. California --- guidelines that have more or less stood until this day. In that case the court said that judges must look at whether the “average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.” But of course, even that mouthful was subject to vastly different interpretations. Perhaps not coincidentally, as obscenity rules loosened, pornography reached its own golden age. The new porn films of the 1970s added a touch of art which allowed them to gain further acceptance in mainstream society. The 61 minute feature film “Deep Throat” was released in 1972 and its stunning popularity helped usher in a new look at pornography from mainstream culture. It was the beginning of what has been called porno-chic. Soon a series of other films tried to blend artistic sophistication with hard-core sex. As 70s porn director Ron Wertheim said, “I approached those films as if I was Luc Godard or somebody." For a time in urban areas, it even became trendy for younger movie-goers, often in mixed company, to attend porn films. Major newspapers like the New York Times and Chicago Sun-Times and magazines like Time and Newsweek began reviewing some soft and even hard-core movies and many in the industry believed that the adult genre would soon blend into mainstream Hollywood. And of course before the age of VCRs, hotel pay-per-view and the all-time heavyweight of porn content --- the Internet --- X-rated movie houses were the only place where those with the aforementioned “prurient interests” could satisfy their curiosities. In the 1970s it seemed that most cities had at least one local theatre showing dirty movies. In Palo Alto, that place was the Paris Theatre and the fact that it was right on University Avenue rankled many in town. Opening in 1961, the Paris Theatre originally showed foreign films and artsy American indies like its opener, Jean Renoir’s “Picnic on the Grass. But as profits began to sink and porn-chique took off, the double-bills at the Paris regularly became adult-only affairs. By 1972 the Paris was showing such X-rated films as “Ginger,” (local ads explained that “her weapon is her body”) and “The School Girls,” which another ad promised to be “an intimate study of the hidden lives of our teen-age girls --- shocking, revealing, true!” But after the high court’s decision in Miller in 1973, the Paris Theatre became a target of the local PAPD. On September 21st of that year, police raided the Paris and seized its copy of “The Devil in Miss Jones,” one of the all-time pieces of artsy filth. Police Chief James Zurcher told the press that, “based on recently decided cases, it’s apparent that exhibiting a film such as ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’ is unlawful” and he had a judge’s warrant to verify. Still, no arrests were made and the theatre owners, San Carlos Cinema Inc., didn’ t seem too worried about it. They quickly obtained another copy and continued showing the film for the rest of its duration at the theatre. Three months later the police were back at the Paris to nab the theatre’s copy of “Deep Throat,” which officers said violated Penal Code Section 311.2 --- distributing, exhibiting or advertising obscene material. Police seemed defensive about their association in such morality arrests, however, noting that the force did not have “a detail that worries about pornography” and that “it is very low on our list of priorities.” Strangely, in 1976, the Paris’s owner, Hal Snyder, began to picket his own theatre. He claimed that Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Edward Brady executed the lease with San Carlos Cinema over his strong objections during a divorce action from his wife, Adrienne. Few other details were given, but he showed up with his 14 and 12 year-old sons who Snyder said had been teased at school. They marched with signs saying “The courts put porno in my dad’s show --- then kids drove me from school.” By the summer of 1977, the City Council was looking to relocate the headache that was the Paris Theatre. Councilman Alan Henderson floated the idea of the Paris switching locations with the family-oriented Biograph Theatre on more secluded Ramona Street or the funky Festival Cinema on Hamilton. The move was also supported by San Carlos Cinema who seemed to want to get out of the line of fire coming from increasingly hostile Palo Alto residents. One such resident, Pete Norway of the Concerned Citizens Group, objected to the move saying that “we should not encourage [the Paris] to stay in our city.” Eventually rather than relocate, the theatre owners decided to close the Paris in December of 1977. They cited the deteriorating condition of the theatre, although it seems community pressure was also a major factor. The Paris was eventually sold for $510,000 and was remodeled for retail. Today, the rather sterile E-Trade Financial stands at the former home of Palo Alto smut. These days, adult films in the United States generate some $20 billion in revenues and constitute 2/3 of all hotel movie purchases. But as porn continues to grow in America, it has also gone back underground. Secreted pay-per-view movies and private Internet surfing have replaced the gaudy exhibitionism and flashing lights of the old X-rated theatres. And these days in Palo Alto any chic exhibited on University Avenue is strictly contained to shoes and skirts. -Matt Bowling |
| Justice Potter Stewart who famously said that he knew when he saw it. |
| The Burger court made lasting decisions on obscenity cases. |
| "The Devil in Miss Jones" was seized by Palo Alto police in 1973. |
| "Deep Throat" became perhaps the most famous porn movie ever made, with some assistance from Bob Woodward and the Watergate Scandal. |
| The map below shows the Lower University Avenue area . |
| Justice Hugo Black used to skip movie day at the Supreme Court. A believer that the First Amendment covered just about anything that could be produced, Black liked to say that if he was going to see those kind of movies he should at least pay for it. |
| 2007 |
| 1976 |
| The Paris Theatre in 1976 above left with owner Hal Snyder and his two sons picketing his own theatre. The marquee shows that "Visions of Claire" and "Naked Skin" were on the bill for the Paris that week. After the space was converted for retail it was home for the Rug Palace. Today the location at 124 University Avenue is used by E-Trade Financial. |
| "Across the street was the Paris Theatre. I had a friend who worked there, a friend and his girlfriend. This was before VCRs, so if people wanted to watch pornography, they had to go to a theatre. And there was a theatre in Palo Alto which would show these dirty movies. And it was way at the end of University Avenue on the same side of Walgreens and the Varsity, just before you get to the end. And they closed them down in the '70s, but they were there. My friend was working the projectionist and his girlfriend sold the candies, I believe!" -Mal |
| Memories added by our readers: |
| Palo Alto: Then & Now |
| Sources: Palo Alto Times, Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Historical Association, Time Magazine article, "That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic," 3//29/05. Coollawyer.com, "Movie Day at the Supreme Court," 2003. |
| An ad for "The School Girls" playing at the Paris Theatre. |