‘Boyz’: One Theater’s Debate

Owners of the Baldwin Theater, the nation’s only African-American owned first-run movie theater, debated a lot among themselves before deciding at the last minute to show “Boyz N the Hood.”

The film, about growing up strong and smart despite gang pressures and violence in South Central Los Angeles, is by John Singleton, a first-time director. The film’s release in more than 800 theaters across the nation on Friday, was greeted by much critical praise, but also concern in some communities about potential violence.

The film will not be playing in Los Angeles’ Westwood district at Mann’s Plaza Theater as advertised earlier in the week. Ads on Friday showed the film playing at many Southern California locations, but not in Westwood, which has been the scene of previous violence.

Last March when the film “New Jack City” opened at a Mann theater in Westwood, ticketholders waiting in line for hours to see the Harlem-set anti-drug movie rioted after being turned away by theater management. Mann officials could not be reached for comment on Friday, but observers suggested that the incident raised concern about showing “Boyz N the Hood” in Westwood.

Baldwin owners felt differently, however. “Ultimately, we felt ‘Boyz N the Hood’ was important,” said Nelson Bennett, the general manager of the Baldwin Theater on South La Brea Avenue, “so we chose to play it. But we questioned the early marketing campaign that tended to play up the violence in the movie and did a great deal to raise concern among (theater) exhibitors.

“We considered what it would mean if we did not play the movie, versus what it would say to the community if we did play the movie,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he took the question to the board of directors of the Baldwin, who saw the movie themselves. Usually he just books movies himself, he said.

“We needed to be sensitive to the community around us,” Bennett said. “If we didn’t play the film, that would have said that the marketing strategy would have instilled such a sense of concern in the minds of our patrons that we could not play it.”

But after the board saw it, Bennett said, “we all felt it was the kind of film every young man needs to see.”

Bennett criticized TV commercials that show a young man wearing a red baseball cap sticking a sawed-off shotgun out of a car window--an image that would suggest street gangs.

But he praised Columbia Pictures, the movie’s distributor, for beginning to change the campaign and said the company plans to provide video tapes discussing the themes of the movie for exhibitors to show in theater lobbies.

A Columbia spokesman took issue with criticism of the ad campaign. “The advertising campaign does not pander to violence. It is a campaign that is reality based and that aims to emphasize the entertaining and poignant aspects of the movie.”

The spokesman confirmed that the studio would be paying for additional security in response to theater operators who request it, and that it will provide video tapes by today to almost all theaters.

One source close to the movie said there are actually two ad campaigns. One is reportedly designed to appeal to the primary target audience of black males under 25 and the other to a more general market and persons over 25. “The clips with some violence added tested very well with the target audience,” said the source who declined to be identified. “The reality is that selling the film as a drama would have sold 10 cents worth of tickets.”

Times staff writer Zan Dubin contributed to this report.