Inside O’Farrell Theatre: Live Shows, Nonstop Films

Inside the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theatre, time stops. It’s always around midnight--a strobe-lit, loud midnight, circa 1975.

For $25, customers check their inhibitions and disbelief at the door. In return they get a ticket to the wonders of the Ultra Room, the Kopenhagen Room, New York Live, the ballyhooed Shower Show and, of course, the 200-seat adult-movie theater where graphic, gymnastic lust is perpetually acted out in living color accented by tight camera angles.

That the theater continues to operate even after the allegedly murderous falling out between proprietors Jim and Artie Mitchell may be testimony to the fact that sex and money can be more powerful than blood relationships.

Whatever the reason, the night manager grudgingly concedes that business has been “normal” in the wake of Artie Mitchell’s death.

One recent, normal night, the theater attracted a small crowd of men, ranging from those in business suits to street-smart-looking guys in leather jackets. A few didn’t look particularly sober.

Some watched the strip show--young, athletic women taking off scanty, diaphanous clothes while going through a workout routine keyed to disco tunes.

Others had dropped by strictly for the Shower Show, which everybody in San Francisco seems to have heard about. The attraction is a line of nude women cavorting on a set designed to resemble a shower room in an athletic club. The seven performers manage to do a conga-like dance and some other stuff that isn’t printable--without getting their hair wet.

After they finish their act, the shower dancers come down off stage and climb onto tables ringed by eager patrons. For $5 “tips” they assume positions that wouldn’t be out of place in a gynecologist’s office.

Meanwhile, women in tiny bikinis wander through the theater and the strip room, offering to sit on customers’ laps. The bills folded and slotted between their fingers are reminders that nothing is free at the O’Farrell.

For patrons who simply want to watch--or who need an energy boost--a snack bar sells candy bars, sodas and other snacks.

All things considered, the O’Farrell’s $1 Diet Pepsi may be the theater’s biggest bargain.