Faithful to first love, the Castro Theatre

I was 14 years old when I fell in love with the Castro Theatre. This was also the age I had my first boyboy crush, but while puppy love was fleeting, my relationship with the Castro deepened with time.

My first film there was Orson Welles’ recut of “A Touch of Evil.” I marveled at the Churrigueresque auditorium designed by Timothy Pflueger, and the Art Deco furniture in the balcony lobby ruined me for cookiecutter multiplexes.

At that age, I was still learning my Nouvelle Vague from my Neorealism, but I felt like a cinephile just walking through the doors. I went crazy for the audience members, too: They hissed and clacked during the previews for kitschy melodramas and sang when the organist played “San Francisco.” They were primarily, but not exclusively, queer people with a mix of hardcore cinephiles across the spectrum. In their black sweaters and ironic eyewear, many looked like people you would cast to play film lovers in a movie.

When Welles made his entrance on the screen, the audience did something I’d never witnessed in a movie before: They broke into applause as if we were at a play. Memories of mall theaters faded as I breathed the popcorn and coffeescented air. “Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found you …”

Since then, the Castro has been central in my professional and personal lives. I’ve interviewed everyone from Tab Hunter and Kim Novak to Ryan Gosling and Laura Linney at festivals and premieres there and have taken part in onstage conversations (including one with a particularly cranky Academy Award nominee).

The theater was also just a place where my life happened. I went on dates there, I found out a classmate had died as I walked out of a screening, I made a tradition of going to “The Sound of Music” and “Beauty and the Beast” singalongs with my besties. I grew up there, results still pending.

The Castro is where I learned to be a true film lover, not a film snob. One night, you might see a Fellini or Bergman masterpiece or an experimental film by a new director, and then it might be a goldenage Bette Davis weepie or an ’80s horror flick with a drag queen preshow. Developing your film taste wasn’t about being exclusive at the Castro. It was about opening yourself to all kinds of movies and learning what spoke to you.

I’m not sure what I last saw at the theater (possibly “The Sound of Music” at Christmas), but one experience keeps coming to the front of my mind as illustrative of a typical screening.

One weeknight there was an Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton double feature. My boyfriend (now husband) went with me for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for the first half, and my best friend came at intermission for “Boom!” The two films are on the exact opposite ends of the critical spectrum. “Virginia Woolf” is considered a groundbreaking adaptation of the Edward Albee play that pushed cinema into emotionally complicated places. “Boom!” is an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play and was blasted by critics on release, only to become a favorite cult oddity years later. It was a double feature where I experienced the full range of the Castro, from classics to camp. Nights like that were the norm for me and a lot of moviegoers at the Castro.

In the year since the pandemic closures, I’ve been inside the Castro only once to film an introduction for the Frameline festival over the summer. Even though it had probably been months since the coffee or popcorn had been turned on, the air still had that hint of their mingled aromas.

All these years later, it still smelled like falling in love.

Developing your film taste wasn’t about being exclusive at the Castro. It was about opening yourself to all kinds of movies and learning what spoke to you.