MOVIES : It Won’t Go Away : ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ transformed the midnight movie into performance art, and 15 years later, the show’s still running

It has become the ultimate midnight movie, the most successful cult film ever made, although it bombed in its initial release. Every Friday and Saturday evening, theaters are packed with people dressed as the film’s characters. Talking back to the screen is not only allowed, it is encouraged. Audiences wear newspaper hats, squirt water pistols at each other and throw rice, toast and confetti at the screen.

Obscured by such classics as Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” and Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” when this film was released in 1975, it has outlasted them all. Still playing in more than 175 theaters across the country, it has brought in $150 million--with ticket prices scaled $2 to $3 below regular admission--and boasts more than 20,000 members in its fan club.

“It has become something that’s an institution,” said its producer Lou Adler. “It’s its own person, its own corporation--its own everything.

“It” is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the wacky, weird musical starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite alien with a penchant for sexy underwear, spiked heels and young men. Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick are the nerdish couple, Janet and Brad, who happen upon Dr. Frank’s castle during a rainstorm the very night the annual convention of visitors from the planet Transsexual is being held.

The movie was also a smash internationally in such countries as England, Australia and Germany. There’s even talk that “Rocky Horror” is going to be shown in Budapest, Hungary.

“Rocky Horror” will celebrate its 15th anniversary at a big midnight bash at 20th Century Fox on Oct. 20. And on Nov. 8, CBS/Fox Video will finally release the video of “Rocky Horror.”

“It’s taken on a kind of surreal quality,” said Curry. “It won’t go away.”

What makes the success of “Rocky Horror” even more amazing is the fact that the movie tested so poorly as a mainstream film that Fox was going to shelve it. Had it not been for Adler, a savvy young publicist at Fox named Tim Deegan, and the word-of-mouth of the early fans, “Rocky Horror” probably would be playing on cable in the wee hours of the morning--if at all.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” began its life rather inauspiciously 17 years ago as a rock opera written by English actor Richard O’Brien, who also plays Riff Raff, Dr. Frank’s bizarre butler. Originally titled “They Came From Denton High,” O’Brien changed the name to “The Rocky Horror Show” when it opened at London’s Royal Court 60-seat Theatre Upstairs for a limited five-week engagement.

“It wasn’t like writing a play,” said O’Brien, who is now a game show host and is overseeing the current revival of the musical on the London stage. “It was like working with a collage and putting pieces together, putting sections of life together that I liked and had fun with. I always enjoyed and laughed at rock ‘n’ roll, B movies, horror films, camp ‘40s and ‘50s entertainment.”

Curry thought the play was “pretty terrific” when he read it, he said. “At the audition I sang ‘Tutti Fruitti,’ the Little Richard song, which was prophetic,” he said, laughing. “I read Frank-N-Furter with a German accent.”

“The Rocky Horror Show” proved so popular it moved to the 500-seat King’s Road Theatre, where it played for seven years. “I think it struck a nerve,” said O’Brien, “but nobody realized it when it first started. It was a bit of fun.”

Film producer Lou Adler was in London to visit his son by actress Britt Ekland, and--at her urging--went to see the show. Adler and his partner, Michael White, were looking for something other than music acts to book into the Roxy, the Sunset Strip rock club they owned in Los Angeles. “I hadn’t seen a rock musical since ‘Hair,’ ” Adler said, “and that was the determining factor in bringing it over.”

“Rocky Horror” was a smash hit at the Roxy and ran for 10 months. A film version was inevitable. “It was just sort of a natural extension of (the play),” Adler said. “I wanted to do it from the first moment I saw it. I thought it would be an unusual film. How unusual, I had no idea.”

Adler invited a few executives from Fox to see the show one evening. The next day, Adler signed a deal with the studio to make “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Filmed in England for less than $1 million, “Rocky Horror” featured several cast members from the stage productions--including Curry, O’Brien and rock star Meatloaf. Also cast were Susan Sarandon, who had done several films since launching her career in the 1970 “Joe,” and Barry Bostwick, who had originated the role of Danny in the Broadway production of “Grease.”

The film was made in the dead of winter at a studio outside of London. “It was cold and there were no toilets,” said Bostwick. “I remember walking in mesh stockings and five inch-spike heels through the snow trying to find a bathroom.”

“We were strapped into our high heels,” said Curry. “I was running up ladders! They used industrial arch supports.”

Just before the film’s official release, Adler decided to bring the stage musical to New York, starring Curry and O’Brien. It bombed. “We had found a great hotel with a ballroom and it was right out of another era,” said Adler. “It would have been perfect for it. But (the owner) had booked two bar mitzvahs during the middle of the run and wouldn’t cancel them. So we brought it to Broadway. We had to deal with the politics of Broadway, the subscription and the critics. It was a total stiff.”

“We were playing mostly to 200 bewildered nurses who got free tickets,” recalled Curry. “Maybe they thought they were seeing ‘General Hospital on Ice.’ ”

The Broadway fiasco foreshadowed the general public’s response to the movie. The completed film had a disastrous preview in Santa Barbara when two-thirds of the audience walked out.

“Tim Deegan was with the project from the beginning,” said Adler. “He sat on the curb with me outside the theater in Santa Barbara. The only glimmer of hope was that there were four or five people who sat through it and came up after the film and thanked us for making that kind of film. We were really happy. It was almost like we made it for someone.”

“Rocky Horror” did open in regular release at the UA in Westwood on Sept. 26, 1975. “It did fairly well because it had a reputation and somewhat of a following,” said Adler. “I don’t recall reading many reviews, but there weren’t many raves, I can tell you that.”

The studio didn’t know what to do with the movie, and Adler didn’t either. “I don’t think anything would have worked in the beginning,” he admitted.

Fox executives decided to test “Rocky Horror” at various college towns, but the results weren’t much different from Santa Barbara. Deegan, currently an independent marketing consultant, was “volunteered” to save the picture. “The bizarre logic was that I was young and Lou Adler was sort of a hippie,” he said. “I saw this guy with long hair and sandals and I reacted to him to better than other people.”

When Adler asked Deegan what he thought of the film, Deegan told him the truth; he didn’t like it--still doesn’t. “It wasn’t my taste,” said Deegan. Surprisingly, Adler was pleased with his response. “He said now I could be objective about the film.”

While Deegan and Adler were trying to save “Rocky Horror,” the Nuart started to show such midnight movies as “El Topo” and “Pink Flamingos.” “The thing about the midnight show was there was an ambience,” said Deegan. “It didn’t matter what I was going to see, I would be with my friends. It’s a whole different world.”

The perfect world for “Rocky Horror.”

Fox didn’t want Deegan to book the film as a midnight movie in Los Angeles or New York just in case it failed. “I think they would have preferred a midnight screening off the beaten path,” he said.

Deegan had two requests for Fox: “I wanted one year without pressure from them to let it develop its own life and find its own level,” he said. “The other thing was a $50,000 budget for marketing and publicity. That was a lot of money in those days, but they said yes.”

Deegan landed a midnight booking at the independently owned Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village in New York. Not exactly off the beaten path, but “in those days, Greenwich Village was its own separate place,” he said, and the owners agreed to book the movie for four weeks.

The Waverly gambit didn’t eat up too much of Deegan’s budget--just $64 worth. “That covered the suppliers of the theater and a small ad in the Village Voice. The whole idea was anti-hype. If you put a picture in a theater and you don’t hype it and let people discover it, they would promote it by word-of-mouth.”

“Rocky Horror” had its midnight unveiling at the Waverly on April Fool’s Day in 1976; Deegan was across the country in Palm Springs. “I didn’t want to be around the house if someone called,” he said. However, curiosity got the best of him and he called the manager of the Waverly at 1 a.m. and discovered that the first screening had been sold out. “So I came back to town,” he said, with a laugh.

Soon, Deegan booked the film in Austin, Tex., and St. Louis, Mo. “The phones started ringing at the studio. The exhibition world is very small; they all know what was going on.”

It was at the Waverly Theater that the audiences started talking back to the screen, acting out scenes, bringing props and dressing like the characters.

“What is strange about the film,” said Adler, “is that nothing was organized and yet the same things that were happening in New York were happening in Texas. It was just growing and the film was dictating what was happening. It found its own audience.”

Curry didn’t know about its midnight success until he returned to New York in the late ‘70s to cut a record. He called the Waverly about getting into one of the screenings. “The manager said, ‘You’re the fourth Tim Curry who has called today’ and hung up. So I went to the cinema with my passport and got in. We sat in the audience and people started coming up to me and touching me and giggling. I felt like an animal in a zoo. The managerette asked me to leave and said, ‘You are causing a riot and you are an imposter.’ So I left. But I saw it again at the Tiffany (in L.A.).”

“The film started a whole new art form,” said Bostwick, “a global club of kids. I went to a show when it was playing here at the Tiffany on one of the anniversaries. I walked through the lobby and saw 15 guys dressed like Brad in a tuxedo, cummerbund and tie. I had my picture taken with them. The cast had gotten a gold record (of the “Rocky Horror” sound track) and presented it to me. So I presented them with a framed and matted pair of underwear I wore in the film.”

“The picture is so successful because it’s a multimedia art experience,” said Deegan. It’s performance art; this is not going to a movie.”

For the last 14 years, “Rocky Horror” has been Sal Piro’s life and livelihood. The 40-year-old former seminarian and New Jersey Catholic high school teacher, claims to have seen the film nearly 1,400 times. Not only is he president of the fan club, he’s emceed the festivities in New York for more than 13 years--first at the Waverly, then for 11 years at the Eighth Street Playhouse and currently at the East Side Cinema. Piro can be seen in a brief scene in the 1980 movie “Fame,” which takes place at a “Rocky Horror” screening at the Waverly.

“I went with a group of friends and I loved it so much, I just kept going every night,” Piro said. “I had always been a fan of musicals.”

During the first year, Piro and the early regulars started to interact with the film. “It was a wonderful feeling,” recalled Piro. “We felt we were doing something that hadn’t been done before. It became a magnificent obsession.”

Piro has a great time introducing the “Rocky virgins”--women who are seeing the show for the first time--and embarrassing them in front of the crowd. “In every theater we have had a virgin hunt or virgin roast,” he said.

As president of the fan club, which is free to members and has been supported by Fox since 1985, he also travels around the country for special events. He recently published the book, “The Creatures of the Night,” about the “Rocky Horror” experience.

The current fans, said Piro, span all age groups. Basically, though, “it’s a young group. The movie is about the loss of innocence. Brad and Janet are like babes in the woods. It’s a rite of passage for a lot of people.”

There was a sequel, of sorts, to “Rocky Horror” in 1981 called “Shock Treatment,” which featured several of the characters from the original. It never developed the cult of “Rocky Horror.”

Adler said there has always been talk about a true sequel. “The talk has been getting more serious,” he said. “I think everything has caught up with it. There has been such a demand over the years for material. We had the same thing around the 10th anniversary. It reaches a much broader audience because of the media exposure.”

“I would do a sequel any day,” said Bostwick. “It was a blast to make.”

“I don’t know,” said Curry. “Frank died at the end of ‘Rocky Horror.’ It would take an awful lot of money to get back into the gear and arch supports. To hit the button . . . to do it again.”

Nevertheless, O’Brien is working on a script for the “true” “Rocky Horror” sequel. “It’s called ‘Revenge of the Old Queen,’ ” he said. “I quite like the title.”

Adler finally relented this year and gave the green light to the video release of “Rocky Horror.”

(Rhino Records is releasing a boxed set of four CDs or four cassettes, the most comprehensive collection of “Rocky Horror” music available. Included are an unedited version of “The Time Warp” and “Once in a While,” a love song sung by Bostwick that was edited out of the film.)

“It’s sort of unique release,” he said. “There is one day for the stores to order it and that is Oct. 25th. The video will be released to stores on Nov. 8 and then there’s a moratorium. It won’t be sold after that.”

Adler said he had held off releasing the video not just because he thought it would hurt the midnight movie business, but because “I didn’t know how to use it to promote the theaters. So at the beginning of the tape I have made a six-minute prologue which was filmed at different theaters in the country and shows what is going on in the theaters. The theme behind it is you can dream it in your living room, but in order to be it, you have to go to the theater.”

Where You Can Experience the Horror Show The Nuart Theater, Santa Monica Boulevard at the San Diego Freeway (Saturday only). The Rialto, Fair Oaks at Oxley in South Pasadena (Saturday only). The Balboa, 709 E. Balboa on the Balboa Peninsula (Friday and Saturday).