12/26/2019
NEW TIMES -HANS MORGENSTERN, Oct 12, 2015
I was an 11-year-old kid, dragged by my father to read more subtitles during a German film. The movie was Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and the film’s crazed and passionate lead character, played by Klaus Kinski, freaked me out like none other. I could hardly understand the heavy dialogue and the opera-loving maniac startled me to the core, ingraining a vision of once having sat in the seats of the Grove Cinema that I would have otherwise long forgotten about.
Many unforgettable movies played at the Grove Cinema, and Richard Fendelman, who ran the cinema with his younger brother, James, as the Fabulous Flying Fendelman Brothers, says he hears such stories all the time. “Everybody had their favorite movie. Um, of course, I don't want this on my tombstone. I've got other things I've done since then, but I think everybody remembers the lines going around the block to see Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The film ended up playing at the theater for 15 years, thus the Grove Cinema became known for having the longest run of Rocky Horror in the entire U.S.
The Grove Cinema opened in 1973. The Fendelmans hosted screenings with rented 16mm projectors at a playhouse called the Upstage Theater off Virginia, near Grand Avenue, where CocoWalk and a Cinépolis now stand. In October of 1976, they moved to a space that used to be a Winn-Dixie supermarket on the corner of Grand and McDonald, re-purposing the structure into a proper movie house. It was the place to catch foreign movies and art house fare that wouldn't play at commercial
cinemas. A cinema like this pulled in the local community and the film and art community from all over the world.
Opening night at the new Grove Cinema with Monty Trainer (left) and Richard Fendelman
“There was always something unexpected happening,” says James. “There were a lot of people who would drop in who had something to do with film, like [Franco] Zeffirelli. Miami Vice would use our theater during the day to screen their dailies. That was a lot of fun. But every day was exciting because you just didn't know who was going to stop by. We used to play The Harder They Come and Jimmy Cliff and Perry Henzell, the director, would stop in all the time, and he would stand in the lobby to talk to people.”
There were also some small details that made the Grove Cinema different from other movie houses. The theater had a snack selection like none other. It was the first to have Suji Mama popcorn spice, a concoction of 20 spices. Many also remember the Grove Cinema had a baker and an organic concession stand before "organic" was a trendy marketing word, including an iced tea that was really popular among patrons. "We were hippies," says Richard. They also served wine and had beer on tap.
Of course, nothing outshined the movie experience at the Grove Cinema. The Fendelmans worked hard for exclusive screenings, but they also believed in giving great movies second chances. One film Richard says he was proud of showing was the 1979 movie Being There, starring Peter Sellers. Now a classic in the world of cinema, its initial run in major theaters was a terrible disappointment at the box office. In Miami, Richard says, "It played like one theater and came and went ... I went, wow, everybody missed this movie. We gotta bring this movie back."
Within the next few weeks, Richard convinced the distributor, United Artists, to send a print of the film to the Grove Cinema. "And it was packed," says Richard. "People were like, ‘Wow, where did this movie come from?’ They didn't promote it right. Nobody got to see it. So that was a great thing, turning people on to those movies."
When asked what may have ultimately killed the Coconut Grove Cinema, Richard mentions the fateful 1986 release of James Ivory’s A Room With a View. Miramax, the distributor that was once owned by Harvey Weinstein of the Weinstein Company, would usually give art films like this English drama to indie theaters like the one owned by the Fendelmans.
For some reason, he says, Miramax played it at the Dadeland Twin Wometco, and it was a hit. "That's when they realized they could play art films in regular theaters and chains,” recalls Richard, “so in the next few years probably hundreds of theaters, art theaters like mine, closed because they couldn't get the films anymore. You had to pay so much money. You had to sell out every night just to break even."
In order to keep the venue open, the Fendelmans tried turning the theater into a nightclub. Richard would DJ, and they booked live bands. “We hung in there,” he says. However, “The timing wasn't right, music was in transition." When they could no longer pay the bills, the Grove Cinema closed.
But don’t worry about the Fabulous Flying Fendelman Brothers, they don’t feel they’re missing out on anything. James is happy he doesn’t get phone calls at two in the morning anymore from the security system, and Richard is done dealing with the tight budget of running a theater. He now runs his own commercial video production company specializing in on-line video coverage and streaming (artsandculturetv.com ) and works with 360-degree virtual reality footage for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR as well as computer and cell phone video (Miami360vr.com). He still lives in Coconut Grove.
