The big picture: Port Townsend finds new role as a movie town

PORT TOWNSEND — When thinking about movie towns, Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Toronto make the list — but what about Port Townsend?

This Victorian seaport on the Olympic Peninsula, with a population of only about 8,000, supports a film industry that would be the envy of towns many times its size: a wildly popular new film festival; an educated audience hungry for film fare beyond Hollywood blockbusters, and a string of feature films shot within in its picturesque city limits.

It's all centered at the Rose Theatre, a beautifully restored 94-year-old downtown moviehouse that'll be home base Sept. 28 to 30 for the second Port Townsend Film Festival.

Port Townsend, celebrating its 150th year, was known as the "City of Dreams" by early settlers who hoped it would become a West Coast center of industry. But for Rose owner Rocky Friedman, who formed a corporation to buy the theater in 1989, it's been the fulfillment of a very personal dream: to bring a big-city art-house cinema experience, like that of Seattle's Harvard Exit, to this pretty town. Having moved to Port Townsend in the late '70s, he saw the potential — and the audience.

"I remember reading that the American Booksellers Association recommended a population of 20,000 to support one bookstore, and at the time I was doing my business plan, Port Townsend had four or five bookstores. So there were just signs," said Friedman. "An educated audience had been moving there — young families along with lots of retirees who have also come from large urban areas and like all the amenities. It's a unique mix."

Friedman spent more than seven years developing a business plan, studying the local demographics and talking to investors before acquiring the Rose (as part of a 25-member owners' group) in 1989. Two and a half years of renovation of the theater followed, for the Rose had fallen into disrepair. Although a historically significant structure — it was a nickelodeon / vaudeville house when it opened in 1907 — the theater was converted to retail space in 1958, housing a bakery, secondhand store and shoe-repair shop, among other businesses.

The renovation resulted in a few movie treasures.

"We went up into the attic above the projection booth and found between 200 and 300 lantern slides just tossed up there," recalled Friedman. "They're all for black-and-white films, but they've been colored. Just gorgeous. And I did find some nitrate film, which I donated to the George Eastman house. It appeared to have Ingrid Bergman on it — it looked like a war-bond effort."

The 158-seat Rose reopened for business in 1992, and Friedman later expanded to add the Rosebud, an 83-seat theater off the main lobby, in 1995. An ever-changing repertory of movies unspools on the two screens, mixing a few mainstream hits ("Cast Away" did well last winter) with foreign blockbusters ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") and lesser-known gems (recent bookings include Agnes Varda's documentary "The Gleaners and I" and the independent drama "Songcatcher").

"The audience was there. I didn't create it, but I've grown it," Friedman said with a smile. "It's been nine years, and I still have a job I love."

A shared vision

Like the Rose Theatre, the Port Townsend Film Festival started with a dream — in this case, the dream of four movie-loving friends. Friedman, Linda Yakush (this year's festival director, supervising a staff of more than 200 volunteers), Jim Ewing and Jim Westall had been attending the Telluride Film Festival together for some time and admired its format. Now in its 28th year, the Telluride festival draws moviegoers and filmmakers from all over the world to its weekend-long celebration of new and classic film.

Well, if Telluride could do it, why not Port Townsend?

"It must have been a combination of the altitude and the wine, but I agreed," recalled Friedman.

On returning home, the four went to work on what quickly became called "a film-lover's block party." Last September, the first Port Townsend Film Festival, centered at the Rose, featured the Northwest premiere of Paul Cox's acclaimed "Innocence," a weekend-long slate of world cinema, and a guest appearance by Tony Curtis, who introduced a free outdoor screening of "Some Like It Hot" to a huge crowd sitting on hay bales in Taylor Street (closed for the occasion).

"People were hanging out of office windows watching," recalls Yakush. "That was the best thing about the festival — how much the town got into it." About 350 passes and 1,500 individual tickets were sold, making the festival a rousing success.

One key element was the participation of Robert Osborne, the host of Turner Classic Movies — and this connection, like much of Port Townsend's film scene, can be traced to the Rose.

"One of my good friends went to college with Robert at UW," Friedman explained. "(Osborne) grew up in Eastern Washington, where there was a Rose Theater."

Through their mutual friend, Osborne learned of Friedman's project and became one of the original shareholders in Port Townsend's Rose Theatre; hence the festival's connection to Turner Classic Movies, resulting in Tony Curtis' appearance last year.

This year, the festival's special guest is Eva Marie Saint, star of "On the Waterfront" (for which she received an Oscar nomination) and the Hitchcock classic "North by Northwest." She'll introduce a special screening of "All Fall Down," a much-overlooked 1962 drama starring Saint, Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden. Also, in tribute to Saint, "North by Northwest" will be screened outdoors on Taylor Street Sept. 28.

Something for everyone

In all, more than two dozen films will screen over the festival's weekend, including features, documentaries, short films and two workshops. Festival guests include actor Vincent Schiavelli, star of "American Saint"; screenwriter Steven Ryder, who wrote "L.I.E."; Sergio Castilla, Chilean-born director of "Made in Chile"; Tish Streeten, director of the documentary "Juliette of the Herbs"; and Micha Peled, director of the documentary "Store Wars." All will lead question-and-answer sessions after the screenings of their films.

Local film critic Robert Horton will be host of a screening of Vincente Minnelli's 1952 classic, "The Bad and the Beautiful," starring Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. And — shades of Seattle International Film Festival's Secret Festival — a "mystery movie" filmed in Port Townsend will screen twice over the weekend. Distributors didn't want the film's title announced, presumably because it'll make its official premiere elsewhere.

In the true spirit of a block party, there's plenty at the festival to appeal to all ages. Both of the free outdoor screenings — "North by Northwest" on Friday, "Koyannisqatsi" on Saturday — are suitable for all ages, and Saturday morning brings a special program of short films for kids. (And yes, for those older than 21, there's a beer garden.)

Should be a pretty fabulous film weekend, all in all. But, thanks to the Rose Theatre, every weekend's a good film weekend in Port Townsend.

Moira Macdonald can be reached at mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.