Johnny Tough at the Capitol

The first, last and only time I ever saw a movie at the Capitol Theater was sometime in the mid-seventies when my mom and I saw Johnny Tough! together. The tagline: "He's bad...he's black...he's beautiful...He'll steal your heart!" It was summer; downtown was empty; and there were only a handful of people in attendance. I remember the theater manager actually standing in the lobby wringing his hands and sweating. He knew he'd be out of a job soon.

Johnny Tough! was a wildly ambitious low-budget attempt to make a blaxploitation version Francois Truffaut’s masterpiece The 400 Blows. It didn't quite work, but you have to admire first-time director Horace Jackson's lofty aspirations.

My mom's attempt to help me experience the Capitol of her youth, where she often spent entire Saturdays and watched hundreds of films, was probably even more ambitious...and impossible to achieve.

Film stills courtesy of Moon in the Gutter, a very addictive film blog.