By Lee Pfeiffer
Last Saturday, the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, New York offered James Bond fans a big screen presentation of the 1967 007 epic You Only Live Twice. As Cinema Retro readers have probably seen the film countless times, this article is less about the movie's merits than the theater in which it was presented. I've often said that, as a movie fan, it is truly amazing how many theaters in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area show classic and cult movies on the big screen on a regular basis. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to attend even a significant number of these screenings and still maintain anything like a normal personal life. I am constantly being tempted by friends to join them in attending some film festival or another at Lincoln Center, the Film Forum, the Loew's Jersey City Theatre, or any number of other admirable venues.
The Lafayette is not located in New York City proper. It's a charming (relatively) small city located just over the border of Northern New Jersey. Consequently, the theater doesn't have the Manhattan mobs to draw from for their Big Screen Classics series which is shown every Saturday morning before the theater resumes presenting contemporary studio releases. Nonetheless, savvy Manhattanites regularly make the pilgrimage to the theater because owner Nelson Page has long made the effort to provide a personalized presentation of every classic or cult movie. In the case of You Only Live Twice, Page got into Bondian mode by donning a tuxedo and personally greeting each of the hundreds of attendees who came from far and wide for the screening. Try finding that kind of one-on-one engagement with theater managers in any urban metropolis.