Silent Flicks Make A Comeback

Songwriter Charlie Lustman was on his way to get a sandwich when he drove by an old, abandoned silent movie theater and ended up buying it.

That theater - the nation's only movie theater dedicated to silent films - reopens Friday night.

"I knew nothing about silent movies or renovating old theaters - but I do now," laughs Lustman. "I had no choice. Now I know more than most people."

Lustman said he was driving down Fairfax Avenue and stumbled upon the theater. He said he got out of his car, looked around and called the number.

"I kind of convinced a few wealthy people to buy it. I stepped in at the right moment. I was the lucky guy. Someone up there obviously had a plan in mind. I think it was John Hampton, the original owner."

The theater was first opened by Hampton in 1942, 15 years after "talkies" entered the picture.

Charlie Chaplin would be pleased.

"This guy was taking films upstairs and restoring them in the bathtub. I feel like this guy has to be appreciated. He was a major player in the story of American film preservation. He deserves accolades. Hampton is the man."

After keeping the theater going for 37 years, Hampton and his wife, Dorothy, closed it in 1979.

"Chaplin would come disguised and sit in the back row and watch people laugh all over again to his comedies," says Lustman. "There were no places to go to see these films."

It reopened in 1991 after Laurence Austin persuaded Hampton's widow to let him take over. He also coaxed her to sign the business over to him for free.

In 1997, a 19-year-old gunman shot the 74-year-old Austin in the face at the theater's candy counter, wounded a clerk and fled.

When the gunman was caught weeks later, police learned that James Van Sickle, who was running the projector when the murder happened, had paid to have Austin killed. Van Sickle was Austin's live-in lover and beneficiary of his $1 million estate.

The gunman and Van Sickle are serving life sentences, and the estate reverted to Austin's heirs. The theater's fate was tied up when the Los Angeles County Public Guardian's office stepped in to press an ownership claim for Dorothy Hampton, now in a nursing home.

The estate eventually went to Austin's family, with interest on the proceeds going to Hampton's wife for the rest of her life.

The theater has been closed since Austin was gunned down.

Charlie Lustman put together an investment group that bought the theater for $650,000 last spring. They won out over competing parties interested in using the site foa parking lot or a Persian rug showroom.

Lustman then spent four months painting and redecorating the 224-seat theater, converting an upstairs apartment into a coffee bar and gallery for movie art and adding memorabilia from silent days.

"These are the pioneers of film. These are the people who built Los Angeles," Lustman said, gesturing at pictures of Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd and other silent stars that line the theater walls.

"My goal is to share the art form of the century with my city, L.A. and the country. We really want to turn on everyone."

The Silent Movie Theatre begins its new run with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, the last great silent film.