Rocky Horrow Picture Show

It's August 14, 1975, Harold Wilson is the UK Prime Minister and Gerald Ford is the US President and Western civilization is taking a break from far-right conservatism. That night London's Rialto theatre launched the world's greatest cult film ever -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A month later the UA Westwood theatre gave the US premiere to mostly UCLA undergrads. But soon, and ever after RHPS became the stuff of indie movie maker dreams as it exploded across the Western world in midnight showings featuring wildly enthusiastic audience participation. To this day RHPS remains the longest running release in film history (50 years) -- it continues to play in theatres throughout the world in its original cut. It's current earnings exceed $168M.

Newsweek panned it as "pointless and tasteless". Roger Ebert observed that it was "ignored pretty much by everyone, including future fanatics who would eventually count the hundreds of times they'd seen it".

The Four Seasons Beaumont is among the demographics to be counted among those who have attended midnight showings more times than they would confess to their priest -- only millenials and Gen-Xers have seen it more times.

Original Trailer

Original 1975 trailer.

Script

"Michael Rennie was ill / The day the earth stood still / But he told us where we stand / ..."

Read the rest with a click to the left.




Time Warp

Video clip of the Time Warp dance number.

NPR Celebrates 50 Years of RHPS

NPR Article on RHPS' 50 year theatrical release.

Trivia Answers

  1. Mick Jagger
  2. Riff-Raff, Richard O'Brien
  3. None. She was unsure of her singing ability and just faked it all the way through.
  4. 1942 Harley Davidson WLA fathead
  5. No. He was afraid of motorcycles. Most of the riding was performed by a stuntman.
  6. $1 million
  7. 50 years and counting. RHPS holds the cinematic record for the longest theatrical release in film history.
  8. $168 million and counting
  9. Little Nell was an otherwise unemployed street busker at the time. That day she happened to be dancing on a table inside the pub where Richard O'Brien and Lou Adler were having lunch.
  10. 50 years from now