Portland Chain Will Delay ‘X’ Opening at One Complex

Portland, Ore.-based Act III Theaters will not show “Malcolm X,” director Spike Lee’s movie about the slain African-American leader, during its opening weeks at a complex that is closest to Portland’s center of black population.

But Act III, owned by producer Norman Lear’s Act III Communications, appears to be the only major city theater circuit in the nation to take this kind of action in booking the movie.

Portland Urban League President Darryl Tukufu said there’s been an “inference that violence might occur when there’s no indication that it will.” He said the league was trying to reach Lear, who also heads the liberal interest group People for the American Way.

“We think Mr. Lear needs to know what’s going on,” Tukufu said. “I don’t think he would like this.”

Reached by a reporter at his Los Angeles office Tuesday, Lear said he was not aware of the Portland situation. “As a recipient of one of the Urban League’s awards, I would certainly be upset if something was going on,” Lear said. “I think the error was in all the parties not sitting down and talking . . . This is not just another picture. This is an event . . . Spike Lee by himself is an event.”

Act III, in a statement earlier this week, said it would show the movie two weeks after its national opening on Nov. 18, at the theater complex in question--the Lloyd Cinemas. Meanwhile, Act III will show the movie at several suburban Portland locations beginning opening day.

ACT III President Walter Aman on Tuesday said Act III initially proposed playing the film at the 1,200-seat downtown Fox Theater “to handle the crowd for the first week. Then we would move it to the Lloyd. But Warner Bros. (the film’s distributor) rejected that idea.”

Warner Bros., which had no immediate comment, has designated another, smaller theater for the central Portland opening.