The Audience Is Listening and Doesn’t Like It

I think we can all agree that the people we dislike most in life are the ones who commit violence, the ones who are mean to children and the ones who use cellular telephones inside theaters.

All right, so I’m exaggerating.

Cell phone talkers aren’t evil. They just don’t seem to know any better, like babies who cry on airplanes and throw food.

There is something about a cell phone that makes users forget that the rest of us do not want to listen to your conversations.

At work, we can’t help overhearing other people’s phone gab. In restaurants, silence isn’t mandatory. So some of us can tolerate somebody’s cellular yakking if it isn’t too loud, too rude or too long.

(Although I do occasionally feel like tossing a salad at somebody.)

There are places, though, where the taking of a telephone call--or worse, the making of a call--is so inappropriate, I feel an urge to use my own phone . . . to call a cop. Have some chatterbox handcuffed in mid-movie for disturbing the peace.

I bet even the arresting officer would be polite enough to whisper.

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On a business trip recently, Jim Loeks, who lives in Rye, N.Y., attended a movie at the Star Theater in Southfield, Mich., a pleasant suburb of Detroit. He sat back and the house lights went down.

Some guy’s phone rang.

It didn’t disturb Loeks all that much. He has been going to movies long enough to understand that some people simply forget to shut off their phones.

This particular customer took the call, got up from his seat, walked down an aisle--not up and out, but down--and used a crossing path in front of the screen, all the while carrying on a conversation.

He didn’t go out to the lobby. He moved to a corner of the theater where there were fewer seats occupied. That way, the guy could continue his phone conversation and not miss a minute of the movie.

Others in the theater looked annoyed, Loeks noticed. But nobody did anything.

Then it got worse.

Loeks says the guy took three separate calls.

That was the last straw for Loeks, who did more than just notify management about the fool on the phone.

You see, Loeks is management there. He is chairman of Star Theaters, a chain of Michigan movie houses based in Grand Rapids.

His company is not as large as Mann, AMC, Edwards or other of California’s principal chains. Star runs only 10 theaters, with 143 film screens in all.

But it is jointly owned by Loews Cineplex Inc., a well-known name in the film industry that Loeks--a similar name, but with a k--also once served as chairman.

“My family has been in this business since 1945,” Loeks says.

Not the business of making movies; the business of showing movies.

Whether in a bygone era of double features and penny candy or today’s stadium seating and ear-splitting sound systems, Loeks knows one thing: “The quality of the presentation is an extremely important part of the experience. Especially if you want your customers to come back.”

Consumer complaints have increased in 1999 in one area more than any other: phone abuse.

“It’s unacceptable,” Loeks says, “so we decided to be proactive.

“Research shows that 30,000 people a day are trying out brand-new cellular phones. We need to get people to turn these phones off. What we didn’t want to do was police every one of our theaters, day in and day out.”

Loeks wasn’t looking to be the Wyatt Earp of the multiplex, demanding phones be checked at the door like guns in Dodge City.

Instead, patrons of Star Theaters will be greeted by ticket-takers and a notice on the screen, informing them that phone use is prohibited. Anyone caught by an usher speaking on a phone will be handed a glow-in-the-dark card that reads: “Phone-Free Zone: Please Turn Yours Off Now.”

The first card is a warning. A second and you get ejected . . . like soccer.

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How lovely if West Coast theaters all adopt this Midwest chain’s policy.

No more: “Shhhhhhhh.”

No more turning behind you to give a loudmouth a dirty look.

It’s a perfect plan. Even your usher won’t need to speak. (Sometimes the person telling somebody to be quiet needs to be told to be quiet.)

“We encourage some noise in our theaters,” Loeks says. “We want people watching a comedy to laugh. We expect people watching a scary movie to react.”

Everybody else? If you want to chew the fat, eat your Milk Duds.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com