Moviegoers Tapped for Donations Raise a Ruckus

It wasn’t quite “Riot in Cell Block 11,” but it did have the makings of a minor fracas in the Big House.

Stomping feet. Airborne cups. Chanted obscenities.

Pre-movie solicitations from the Will Rogers Institute--the pulmonary research outfit based in Los Angeles--can have that effect on patrons, who show up for a movie and find themselves passing the collection plate after an on-screen pitch by Tom Selleck or Barbra Streisand, speaking for the institute.

On a warm recent Saturday, at San Jose’s domed Century 21 theater, the new national Will Rogers infomercial hosted by Mel Gibson brought the customary groans as the lights came up and the donation canisters came out.

Ushers started four buckets, passing them from aisle to aisle. Three came back.

Then an accusatory voice from above: “There is still one bucket missing. We will not start the movie until that bucket is returned.”

The crowd of 700--which had already missed the announced 7:45 p.m. start of “The Truman Show” by 15 minutes--had had enough. They began stomping their feet, pounding armrests, chanting obscenities.

Moviegoer Caroline Slivkoff, new to the drill, was angry enough to seek out the manager.

“I didn’t appreciate being held hostage until the bucket was returned,” said the 34-year-old Slivkoff, who works for the city of San Jose.

An usher broke in on Slivkoff and the manager, pleading, “We gotta start the movie--they’re throwing things!”

Realizing the situation was escalating, manager Bill Tannehill, who said he has never been a fan of the fund-raising interruptions, called for the house lights to be dimmed and the feature to begin--”nearly 30 minutes late,” according to Slivkoff.

The missing bucket--with possibly $50 (based on what the other buckets contained)--was never retrieved.

The Will Rogers Memorial Fund, which owns and operates the institute, is calling the theft a first. That’s some declaration, given that the Will Rogers Institute has been soliciting donations at movies since 1936, the year after humorist/movie star Will Rogers died in a plane crash.

“No kidding? So one of the patrons kept it,” said the organization’s executive director, Todd Vradenburg, of the incident. “We’ve never had a problem like this before. I’m not sure why it happened. . . . The theater will have to make good on [the loss].”

If you haven’t seen one of those Will Rogers spots in a while, it’s because they were discontinued for two years while the organization relocated from New York, reorganized and modified an approach that was not popular with patrons or managers. The hiatus was used to “make our plan more user-friendly for theaters,” explained Vradenburg.

Now, instead of being tacked on arbitrarily to trailers, the slickly produced spots with Gibson and other celebrities are being attached to the summer’s six event attractions: the now-in-release “Godzilla,” “The Truman Show” and “The X-Files,” as well as the upcoming “Armageddon,” “Lethal Weapon 4” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

Eighteen theater chains--ranging from Sony Loew’s and Regal Cinemas on the East Coast to the mid-sized Century Theatres based in San Francisco--are giving over 20,000 screens expected to bring in $2 million in contributions between now and Sept. 1.

Vradenburg called the San Jose incident an exception but admitted that the campaign has always been less popular with and more irritating to urban audiences than audiences in more rural states, such as Idaho and Iowa. “If you don’t think we’re popular, go to Iowa and watch the campaign. We collect so much money in the Midwest.” He added that the campaign’s single largest contribution--a $1,000 bill--was found in a canister in New York City in 1992.

“I admit it’s difficult to collect in any city,” Vradenburg said. “If theater managers suspect something like [the San Jose theft] may happen, we’ve told them not to do the program, to just leave a canister at the concession stand, like the Jerry’s Kids [muscular dystrophy] campaign.”

Both Slivkoff and the Century 21 manager think this less-pushy approach should be enacted as a matter of course. “Unfortunately, the Will Rogers [campaign] leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth,” Tannehill said. “Patrons don’t like the idea of [our] interrupting the show to do it . . . wasting 15 minutes of their time.”

What happened at the Century 21 “doesn’t say much for [Will Rogers’] fund-raising abilities,” fumed Slivkoff, who joined others in stuffing the lobby suggestion box after the show. “This is no way to win friends.”

Do such comments make the Will Rogers people think they should either amend their methods or stop soliciting donations at movies altogether?

Hardly. According to Vradenburg, being an annoyance often pays off. “You know why churches are so successful at fund-raising?” he asked. “They pass the hat. The best fund-raiser is still the direct ask.”