When I was 13, I was arrested for stealing the film Becket, a 1964 British production starring Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud. It was the culmination of a time in my life when a group of us began collecting films as a hobby. This included three of my best friends, Mike, Keith and Charlie, along with my brother, Dana. We started out small, almost by chance, but as our film collection grew, so did our willingness to take risks.
In 1972, most kids my age were collecting comic books, Hot Wheels and baseball cards. We collected films because we had the means to watch them and plenty of ways to acquire discarded films for free. My friend Keith had a 16mm projector that once belonged to his father. We also had access to an 8mm projector. On Saturday evenings, we would screen films in our living room and invite friends to join us.
We still watched a lot of TV shows, like The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Adam-12, but on Saturday night we would premiere whatever films we had acquired during our recent rounds.
All of my friends lived in North Hollywood, around Vineland and Ventura, and most of us lived in a large apartment complex at 11170 Aqua Vista St. The building is no longer standing; it’s been replaced by a more modern structure called The Grand Vista. But in the 1970s, this was the place to be. We had celebrity residents, like teen idol Leif Garrett and his sister, child star Dawn Lyn (My Three Sons). Jamie Dixon, the current basketball coach at TCU, lived there (his dad was actor James Dixon of 1974’s It’s Alive), as well as Regis Philbin’s children, Amy and Daniel. There was always an abundance of activity at the building, with everything from police pop-ins to pool parties and even a tragic fire. It was also just down the street from the house used in The Brady Bunch TV show. We used to go trick-or-treating there — and, on occasion, egg the house. Behind the Brady home and our apartments ran the mighty Los Angeles River, aka The Wash. We spent a lot of time walking along the edge of this cement stream. I recall it being almost full one year during heavy rains.
Aqua Vista is a long street that parallels the L.A. River and Ventura Boulevard. There are a lot of apartment buildings on this street. But our life mostly centered around the people and activities that took place at 11170. It was truly a world unto itself.
Many of my friends were enrolled at Rio Vista Elementary School off Vineland. Billy Barty’s daughter, Lori, attended there. So did Melanie, the daughter of the actor who played Mr. Whipple in the Charmin toilet paper TV commercials. He frightened us. Sally Hershberger, who became a celebrity hairstylist, was also in our class. Everyone had a crush on her. It was a fun group to hang out with. After graduation, most of us moved on to Walter Reed Junior High.
FROM TRASH TO TREASURE
I didn’t know what Becket was about then. I wasn’t really interested in historical dramas. Becket was stolen simply because someone left it sitting by the front door. My friend Charlie and I were riding our bikes and stopped in front of this film production company. The film took up four large 16mm reels that were placed inside a container. We saw it, grabbed it, jumped on our bikes and took off. It was exciting to get away with something so big. We were laughing all the way back to my place. My mom worked during the day at North Hollywood Federal, so I had no problem sneaking the film into my bedroom to show my brother later.
It was not our first film acquisition. Vitello’s, the famous Italian restaurant on Tujunga Avenue in Studio City, was once upon a time on the other side of the street. In the 1970s, a film production company occupied its current location. As kids do, we often walked down the alleyways instead of the sidewalks. One day, while we were passing by the trash bin behind this building, we noticed some film canisters sitting on top. Further inspection revealed an entire bin filled with film reels of 16mm movies, television shows and TV commercials. Jackpot! We grabbed a bunch of the films and took them home. There was everything you could imagine, from a filmed big top circus show to Laurel and Hardy movies to animated commercials for cereals like Cap’n Crunch, and so on. We even found one reel from the 1939 film Gone With the Wind.
After this initial discovery, we started going around to film studios in the San Fernando Valley. One of our first stops was the cartoon capital of the world, the Hanna-Barbera studio on Cahuenga Boulevard. It was a gated facility with a guard out front. One day we walked up and asked the uniformed gentleman if we could go through the trash bins on the other side of the gate. No problem, he said. He opened the gate and invited us into the parking lot where the bins were located. The trash bins at the studio were like a secret gold mine. Inside were hundreds of discarded animation cels, drawings and promotional materials from their classic cartoon lineup, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Yogi Bear Show, The Huckleberry Hound Showand more.
So, in we went, climbing up and over the bin. Some of the animation cels had coffee stains, but most were intact. And it wasn’t just one or two cels — there were stacks and stacks, piled on other stacks. Holy moly! It seemed like they had tossed everything. There were also original pencil drawings, colorful background scenes and what were known as “model sheets,” a sheet that featured a character, like Yogi Bear, in various poses for reference. So, we loaded up our stash (not trash), got back on our bikes, thanked our friendly guard and went home. What a thrill! We watched these shows every Saturday morning, so it was beyond our wildest dreams to actually own some of the original animation cels that were used to make our favorite cartoons.
We also visited Universal Studios, where Technicolor used to be. Once again, we approached the guard, and he happily let us inside to explore the studio’s refuse. Here we found 16mm films and the larger 35mm reels. These bins were much nicer and cleaner than Hanna-Barbera’s, yet they didn’t offer as much fun.
I think we would visit these studios every few weeks. Each time we were greeted by the same guards. We eventually knew them by name and were welcomed inside. But one day it all stopped. I remember walking up to the gate at Hanna-Barbera and finding a new guard on duty. He told us that they would no longer be allowing anyone inside to search their bins, because one child had been injured. Who knew there were other film-seeking kids out there like us? Universal changed guards too, and soon we were locked out completely from all the major studios in the area.
This brought us back to the smaller production companies that were scattered throughout the Valley. There was another great facility we used to visit in Burbank, where the Iliad Bookshop now resides. That facility had tons of film reels in their bins. We would visit them often.
Even though the film production site on Tujunga Avenue, which was our first discovery, had dried up a little, we still went by every now and then to check on their supply. That’s probably when I first peeked in the front door and discovered film canisters lying on the floor in the front office.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Stealing was something my brother and I had been doing since we were wee tykes, starting with our dad’s own coin collection. My brother was older (by about two years) and bolder than I was, which led to him getting caught more often. The classic encounter came when he was at a grocery store wearing his Boy Scout uniform and decided to slip a candy bar under his cap. They quickly nabbed him and called our parents.
Some of our favorite shoplifting spots in the Valley were Camera Craft, where Lankershim crosses Vineland, and Kit Kraft, near Laurel Canyon and Ventura Boulevard (both have since gone out of business). We had plenty of success at these locations. Sometimes we would dare each other to see who could steal the biggest item. We eventually had to stop visiting these spots, not because they caught us, but they had grown suspicious of our presence and kept a very close eye on us. The woman at Kit Kraft even accused me of stealing from her one day, though she had no real proof.
When we entered Camera Craft, most of the 8mm movies were kept behind the counter. They had everything from Frankenstein and Dracula movies to Mighty Mouse cartoons, the Three Stooges and a variety of classic silent movies. We especially loved Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin films. Most of the movies were abridged, edited versions to fit on a small 5-inch reel, which was about 12 minutes long. The cartoons were on smaller 3-inch reels, about five minutes long. They came in brightly colored boxes with eye-catching graphics.
There was usually a woman behind the counter at Camera Craft, and we would enter the store and look around. Then we’d ask her if we could look behind the counter. Of course, she said. Off we went. One of us would ask her questions and act as a decoy, while the other person pocketed the films. It was pretty easy, and for a while, they were totally unaware of what we were doing.
My most dramatic theft was carried out at a Ralphs grocery store near Buena Vista and Victory when we were living in Burbank. One of my neighbors had asked me to steal some razor blades for him, so off I went. I was standing in the checkout line when a cashier approached and asked me to open my jacket. I refused and bolted out the front door with the checker quickly in pursuit. I ran across Buena Vista Street (this was at nighttime) and zig-zagged my way through a series of small apartment buildings until I eventually found my unit. During the run, I had discarded the stolen blades in the bushes. As I ran up the stairs, the checker grabbed me by the ankle and down I went. I yelled for help. My mom came running out, as well as the neighbors. The checker stood over me and accused me of stealing. Upon searching me, he found nothing and had to let me go. No evidence, no crime.
My theft of the Becket film was a complete success. No one saw me, no one gave chase. I wasn’t a suspect. The problem came when my brother and Charlie went back for more. They did not tell me about the plan beforehand. So, when my brother came home one day and told me that they had been caught, I knew we were all going to be in big trouble. Apparently, they couldn’t get on their bikes fast enough to escape, and someone ran out and grabbed Charlie and his bike.
A few days later, a police detective arrived at our front door, asking to see me and my brother — and for the return of Becket. We were told that we were to meet the detective the next day at the North Hollywood Police Station, where they would talk to us and book us for our crime. We were shocked. My mom was sad.
The police station visit was more like a scene from Scared Straight, where they grilled us until we said we were sorry and/or cried. My brother didn’t cry. He didn’t take it too seriously. Even when the detective told us that it might go on our permanent records, my brother didn’t blink. I was the only one who was really scared. It turns out that it was indeed just a threat, and no record was made. Finally, the detective stopped lecturing us and sent us on our way. I wiped my tears and went home.
We stopped going by the film production facility on Tujunga Avenue after that. I think it changed our friendships a little, too, though I’m still in touch with Keith and Mike today.
Aqua Vista wasn’t always the safest place to live. I remember once seeing a trail of blood on the driveway that went from the street all the way back to the swimming pool. It was a long driveway. There was also a fire in an apartment unit where a friend lived. Fortunately, he was safe. My brother eventually got us evicted from the building because of all the trouble he kept getting into. Within a year, all my friends had moved away.
The saddest part was moving day, when I was forced to discard most of my film collection “from whence it came” (the bin), because there was no room for it at the new place.
Whenever I see or hear of the motion picture Becket, I’m always brought back to that time in 1972 when I was arrested for stealing the film. I have very fond memories of those days living on Aqua Vista Street, when we had total freedom to do whatever we wanted. It was a fun time to be a kid in the Valley — the reel film capital of the world.