‘Sunrise’ Finally to Be Shown at Silent Movie Theatre

Three years and two days late, audiences will finally see “Sunrise” at the Silent Movie Theatre.

The 1927 classic by F.W. Murnau was scheduled to be shown Jan. 17, 1997--the night theater owner Laurence Austin was murdered. His killer, a 19-year-old hired gunman, emerged from the auditorium during the opening short films, and shot Austin and an employee in the lobby before “Sunrise” began.

The screenings--Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m.--are intended as a tribute to Austin, who ran the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Boulevard in Hollywood starting in 1991. Charlie Lustman, who bought and reopened the theater last year, said he hopes the screening will provide some closure. But some patrons--particularly those who felt some personal connection to Austin or the theater--are offended that the tribute falls essentially on the third anniversary of the crime.

“Personally, I think this is tasteless,” said Peter Malloy, a silent film fan who was at the theater the night of the shooting. “I fought a lot of nightmares to go back when the theater reopened. . . . The first few times I went there when it was reopened, every time a person came down the aisle while the film was showing, I jumped, thinking it was the gunman again.”

Michael F. Blake still hasn’t been back after seeing the aftermath of the shooting.

“I think it’s nice if he wants to honor Larry,” Blake said. “I just don’t think this is the time or place. . . . ‘Sunrise’ is a helluva a good film, but I wouldn’t want to see it in that theater, especially not on that date.”

But to Lustman, “the date is an anniversary--not of his murder, but of the closing of the Silent Movie Theatre. That sticks out to me as an event.”

He’s already fielded about a dozen angry phone calls, letters and e-mails about the “Sunrise” showing. “It’s not like we want to exploit the fact that this murder was here,” added Lustman, who renovated the Silent Movie and now shows films with live music six nights a week. “It’s not about the murder, but about the guy who saved the theater in 1990.”

“Sunrise,” Murnau’s first American film, is recognized as one of the best in the history of cinema. The story concerns a man who thinks of killing his wife, but then reconciles with her and falls back in love. The movie won an Oscar in 1929 and more recently made the entertainment magazine TimeOut’s international list of the top 100 films. The French Cahiers du Cinema picked it as the greatest film of all time.

Whether the film is an appropriate tribute--and the timing--is an issue that also has been bantered about for a few weeks on the Internet news group alt.movies.silent. “Why would you want to remind people of a murder that happened at your business?” posted one silent film buff from Michigan.

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In 1990, John Hampton, the man who built the theater in the ‘40s, died of cancer. The theater had been shuttered since the early ‘80s, but Laurence Austin, an acquaintance of the Hamptons, convinced John’s widow, Dorothy, to let him reopen it. Eventually she signed the whole theater and its contents over to Austin.

Some thought Austin took advantage of Dorothy Hampton. And even those who liked Austin admit he could be hard on people. Most didn’t understand why he kept reuniting with James Van Sickle, the man who had once robbed him and eventually hired Christian Rodriguez to shoot him. Both are currently in prison serving life sentences for the murder.

David Slaughter worked for Austin for two and a half years, and came back to manage the theater after it reopened. “[Austin] didn’t live in opulence and he worked here every day. . . . The money went pretty much back into the theater. He did use [Dorothy’s] money, and maybe it’s questionable, but if he hadn’t, it would have closed. A lot of the reason this place stayed open was through sheer force of will.”

Slaughter had reservations about the tribute, but eventually decided to speak on those nights about Austin. Other friends will offer remembrances as well, including The Times’ film reviewer Kevin Thomas. Mark McLaughlin will show footage of Austin that he filmed for his documentary “Keepers of the Frame.”

“Sunrise,” Slaughter said, was one of Austin’s favorite movies.

“The date of Laurence’s death was going to come,” he said, “and we had to mark the occasion somehow.”