What Price G?

Pornographic movies, those shadowy 16-mm. offerings with titles like Lust Cave and Schoolgirls for Sale, have moved out of downtown into your friendly neighborhood theater. One neighborhood that did not take kindly to the progress of prurience was Chicago's Northwest Side. Indeed, the Rockne Theater aroused such ire when it began showing steamies that local matrons picketed in protest last summer.

Owner Arthur Ehrlich, after complaining strenuously that he could not make a living on wholesome entertainment, finally capitulated to the determined mothers, who insisted that they would support family films. Ehrlich agreed to a trial period beginning Dec. 1, in which he would show only G-rated movies. He leased the popular picture Planet of the Apes, as well as other family films, and even reduced the adult-admission price from $3 to $1.25. Then he waited for the deluge of upright parents and gladsome children.

It never came. On one weekend Ehrlich took in less than $300, hardly enough to pay his utilities bill. He quickly returned to porn and higher prices; the voyeurs poured back in. The problem will surely crop up elsewhere, though. Perhaps the answer is movies that would appeal to both elements --say, Lassie Goes to Tijuana or Gidget's Night on an Aircraft Carrier.

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