BY CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL

The 2020s have been lethal to the business of screening movies. Cineworld, a parent company of the Regal Cineplex chain, filed for bankruptcy last year. If major chains struggled through years of mandatory closures and social anxiety, independent cinemas had it even rougher. According to The Hollywood Reporter (March 10, 2022), “Pacific Theatres’ six locations and Arclight Cinemas’ eight spots all shuttered permanently, ... Studio Movie Grill and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and L.A.-based Laemmle Theatres was forced to sell three properties” over the prior two years. Yet Tacoma’s 205-seat Blue Mouse Theatre stands proudly in the Proctor District, with this year being its hundredth in business.

Impresario John Hamrick opened the Blue Mouse along Tacoma’s then-new Point Defiance streetcar line, using a Craftsman-style design by a London-Seattle architect with the almost offensively British name Fitzherbert Leather. The $40,000 facility opened to the public in November 1923 with the silent adventure melodrama “The Green Goddess.” Since then it’s passed through various owners and names and, in the early 1990s, there was even talk of converting it to a suite of offices. But in 1993 and 1994, a group of 17 activists, the “Blue Mouse Associates,” refurbished the theater, enlarged its concession stand, added a restroom and brought it into ADA compliance.

Moviegoers may not realize this, but cinemas don’t make a great deal of profit from selling tickets; it’s concession sales and special events that keep most theaters afloat, including the Blue Mouse. Luckily, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” continues to be a lucrative midnight draw (OK, 11:55) the second and fourth Saturday of each month at Blue Mouse, complete with an active “shadow cast,” the “Blue Mouseketeers,” that performs the movie live and in costume as it screens. Each third Friday at 10 p.m., the Blue Mouse presents classic (and guilty-pleasure) horror movies for its “Friday Night Frights” series. On Nov. 17, for example, it’ll screen  “Frankenhooker” (1990), a self- explanatorily entitled splatter comedy  with a memorable VHS release: When a button on the videotape case was pushed, the titular character, played by centerfold Patty Mullen, exclaimed, “Wanna date?”

For just $350, Tacomans can reserve exclusive, big-screen presentations of current and classic movies. Such special events offer experiences 4K home streaming services cannot and do not. Brad Lehrer, Blue Mouse Theatre’s treasurer and administrator, recalled a recent, private event at which a single couple rented the theater solely for the purpose of hooking up a video game console and Lights, Projector, Action: BLUE MOUSE TURNS 100!  BY CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL  battling the forces of evil on the Blue Mouse’s giant screen. More often, small groups come together to experience movie magic en masse. “I think that’s the joy,” Lehrer explained. “It’s being able to have a shared experience that’s more than just talking to your neighbor, but like at ‘Star Wars’: ‘Wow, good job, Han!’ ... In a theater, you can (yell) that, and your fellow (adult) 12-year-olds won’t say, ‘You need to have a lobotomy,’ but you have another 50 people in there that are in total agreement.”

In years to come, Blue Mouse plans to expand its weekday options to include private parties, business meetings and classic cinema revivals. “If you wanted to get 60 of your friends together for “Barbarella” or something like that,” says Lehrer, “we would figure out how.” And maybe, just maybe, we might even see the emergence of a new midnight movie with the perennial popularity of “Rocky Horror” — if we haven’t already. Lehrer believes “the next cult movie is ‘Barbie.’ ... We had ‘Barbie’ for a number of weeks. She left — She came back!” So don’t be surprised if, sooner rather than later, teens and college students start assembling outside the mojo dojo Blue Mouse Theatre in full, late-night, antacid-pink finery for a tribute to our shared plastic heroine. 

Wanna date? The Blue Mouse Theatre is celebrating its 100th birthday with a gala weekend of films and events that pay homage to its 100-year history. Highlights include a Saturday night red-carpet screening of the Academy Award-winning “Casablanca,” with all the trappings of a Hollywood premiere including period dress, red carpet photos, hors d’oeuvres and bubbly. Also on Sunday, there will be a 90-minute celebration of Disney animation, as Disney is also celebrating its 100th year in business. This collection was curated by Clark Spencer, the president of Disney Animation Studios, whose family were former owners of the Blue Mouse when it was known as the Proctor Theatre. On Monday, the Blue Mouse will show “The Green Goddess,” the movie that opened the theater 100 years ago. Tickets that night will be 25 cents, just as they were in 1923. 

Blue Mouse Theatre 100th- Anniversary Gala Weekend Schedule

Friday, Nov. 10 — Friday Family Fright Night double bill 7 p.m. — “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” 1948 9 p.m. — “Monster Squad” 1987

Saturday, Nov. 11 — red carpet gala 6:30 p.m. — red carpet arrival 7:30 p.m. — “Casablanca” 1942 midnight — “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” – “almost 50” celebration

Sunday, Nov. 12 — Disney animation and movies made in Tacoma 1 p.m. — 100 years of Disney Animation – a Shorts Celebration free screening 3:30 p.m. — “The Eyes of the Totem” (silent film made in Tacoma) 1927 6 p.m. — “10 Things I Hate About You” (made in Tacoma)

Monday, Nov. 13 — the film that opened the Blue Mouse Theatre, at the 1923 price of $0.25 7 p.m. “The Green Goddess” (1923)