UCLA’s Melnitz Hall

When I was in the graduate film program at UCLA around 1970, I served as the second chairman of the Film Screening Cooperative (FSC). I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was actually a seminal film society. We invited director Budd Boetticher to screen and talk on the subject of his film Arruza about Mexican bullfighter Carlos Arruza. We also had some wild programs, most notably a quintuple feature of Edgar G. Ulmer films.

Among the voting members of the Film Screening Cooperative were:

• Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband-wife team who wrote American Graffiti
• Thom Andersen, a filmmaker, critic, and film teacher who served as the first chairman of the FSC
• Steve Manes from USC, a screenwriter (Mother, Jugs & Speed), author, and magazine columnist
• Alain Silver and James Ursini, who collaborated on numerous books on film, particularly Film Noir
• Charley Lippincott of USC, who was closely associated with George Lucas

The films were screened at the luxurious theater connected to UCLA’s Melnitz Hall.

It was at Melnitz that I was badly spooked on February 9, 1971, the day of the Sylmar earthquake that was ranked at 6.5 on the Richter scale and cause extensive damage and fatalities across Southern California. That evening, I attended a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936) at Melnitz. Just when Hitch showed an anarchist sabotaging the electrical system of London, we all felt an aftershock; and all the lights went out.