A Blog With A Cause 2: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love And Historic Preservation?

Last December I blogged ‘bout 3 IN THE ATTIC (Meet Me At The Wrecking Ball - A Blog With A Cause (Dec. 11th, 2007) - a 40 year old teensploitation flick filmed in my hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C. It had come to my attention not just because of its locale but because of its use of a historic house which is in danger of being demolished - The Edward Kidder Graham House. Since then the house has been damaged by a fallen tree in a winter storm and still remains on the market waiting for a prospective buyer. Its days are numbered with nobody so far stepping up to match the owner’s $900,000 asking price.

This Friday, July 18th, the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill is presenting a showing of 3 IN THE ATTIC on the lawn of the Horace Williams House - another historic house here in Chapel Hill. Since the movie featuring former teen idol Christopher Jones as womanizer Paxton Quigley has never been released on DVD and VHS copies are scarce I located an outfit online (Must Have Films - which, by the way, doesn’t exist anymore) that was selling bootleg DVDs of it and ordered it on up. The quality of the no-frills DVD is decent though it appears to have been mastered from a videocassette copy, but I'm nervous about how it will look blown up on a bed sheet screen emitting from a DVD projector. I'm nervous as well about how the forgotten film will go down; maybe it was forgotten for a reason and will be unable to hold an audience with its once radical now quaint picture of ‘60’s decadence. I'll definitely be blogging about the experience so stay tuned.

In the meantime here’s some links about the film and the house:

Future Uncertain For Historic House - By Mark Schultz for The Chapel Hill Newspaper (1/6/08)

Time Is Running Out For Condemned N.C. House- An article on the Preservation Magazine’s website by Glenn Perkins (May 29, 2008)

Unfortunately I was unable to find any clips or anything from 3 IN THE ATTIC on Youtube, but this trailer for WILD IN THE STREETS which also featured actor Christopher Jones, was made by the same production company (American International Pictures) and has the same vibe/tone going. Also here’s a clip of Jones, again from WILD, as rock star/President of the United States (yep, it's that kind of movie) Max Frost singing or at least lips synching "Shape of Things To Come". Groovy stuff.

And finally an article I wrote for today’s Chapel Hill Newspaper:

What’s Free Love Got To Do With It? (Hey - I didn’t pick the title!)

I hope those who live near will consider coming out to see 3 IN THE ATTIC this Friday - it’s schlocky fun and as Ernest Dollar (executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill) said: “This film proves that preservation is sexy!” Come find out if that’s true, won’t you?

More later...