posted 04-24-2006 12:12 PM                    

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HOST OF MARATHON KEEPS FILMS, COMMENTARY OUT OF THIS WORLD
Published: Saturday, April 22, 2006
By Tim Feran
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The marathon
The latest 24-Hour Ohio Science Fiction Marathon will feature nine movies, ranging from the campy to the classic, in addition to a variety of trailers.

This year, like every other year for almost three decades, Bruce Bartoo will stay awake for 24 hours surrounded by giant lizards, cartoon Martians and courteous robots.

Bartoo is known as the "host organism" of the annual 24-Hour Ohio Science Fiction Marathon, which he co-founded after hosting a similar event for nine years in Boston.

Despite all his experience, he still feels the pressure to top previous gatherings.

"When it comes close, he starts bugging out," said David Filipi, associate curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts, where Bartoo serves as head projectionist. "You can see it coming."

"Yeah," Bartoo said with a sigh, "it's difficult. This year is shaping up to be one of the most painful because we were really late deciding a date."

From noon today until noon Sunday, he will show nine sci-fi films and numerous trailers. The movies, ranging from the cheesy to the classic, will be interspersed with his droll and informative comments plus costume contests and other events.

He has worked on the marathon with Jeff Frank, president of the Drexel Theatres Group, since 1987, when Bartoo appealed to Frank's sense of showmanship with tales of the Boston event.

"I thought, 'Well, we'll try it once,' " Frank said. "Little did I know. If it's successful, you've got to do it next year, then another, then two a year when he got the idea for the horror marathon, then a 'Schlock Around the Clock' marathon. This little idea became this industry."

The upcoming program is billed as the 23rd annual event, even though Bartoo landed in town 19 years ago.

"It's a relativity issue," the 56-year-old explained. "We smacked into a time warp in 1999. No one seemed to notice for three or four of your 'Earth years.' "

He developed his passion for pop culture during his Cleveland childhood.

His first cinematic memory: the time he fell asleep in his parents' car at a drive-in -- perhaps the last time he did so at a movie.

The first sci-fi film he saw was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

A year or two later came Forbidden Planet, which made a tremendous impression on him and will be presented this year at the marathon.

Another significant moment occurred in 1963, when he joined a friend in producing an 8 mm epic that featured flying pie plates, burning toys and a giant dancing the mashed potato. They sent the product to subversive TV hipster Ghoulardi, who presented the short at a commercial break during a schlocky old horror movie he was hosting.

Bartoo draws on Ghoulardi as he entertains the marathon crowd between films.

"That's the standard I hold myself to. . . . He was a countercultural hipster, a beatnik -- but a (Lawrence) Ferlinghetti beatnik, not a Maynard G. Krebs beatnik. He was constantly skewering the sacred cows."

In other words, he was authentic, a word often used by friends to describe Bartoo.

"He's so beloved by the audience because he doesn't put on an act," said Joe Neff, who has helped present several horror marathons with Bartoo. "They can tell he genuinely loves not only the movies but the event.

"The classic year was when he broke his leg -- he was still up there."

Bartoo's list of classic marathons includes not only the year he hobbled around on crutches (2002) but many others dating to the early days of the Boston event, which he began to work on in 1977, its second year.

At the time, he was in the graduate film program at Boston University and working as a manager and projectionist at art theaters.

"I knew some of the people organizing it. They asked me whether I would put some intermission music together for them. I just sort of got sucked into the vortex."

The next year, the event was presented shortly after the blizzard of '78.

"For about a week, it was illegal to drive in Boston, and the streets opened up just in time for the marathon. Every-one had cabin fever. Everyone was sort of pent-up. A lot of traditions erupted."

Among them: audiences shouting during scenes.

During the screening of Planet of the Vampires that year, "every time someone speaks to Barry Sullivan they say his character's name, which was Mark. The audience picked up on that at some point and they would shout, 'Mark!' every time someone talked to him. In one of the other films that year there was a character named Mark, too, so it took off."

More marathons followed in Boston, and Bartoo became more involved. He took over as host and began programming the event. When he and his wife returned to Ohio in 1986, he wanted to continue the tradition and found a willing co- conspirator in Frank.

"Things really ratcheted up because of Jeff, who was so enthusiastic -- 'Let's decorate the whole lobby!' " Bartoo recalled Frank saying. "I can't overstate Jeff's enthusiasm for this. When I came from Boston, I had a very fixed notion of what a marathon should be.

"In Boston, they were very reluctant to have fun. They didn't have time for trailers or shorts. The whole trailers thing mushroomed here, and I owe that to Jeff."

Bartoo's collection of movie trailers is known among local film cognoscenti.

Originally used as a fun distraction between full-length movies, the trailers eventually became an important lure as the lineup expanded.

Realizing that the short films could easily be lost in the chaos after a marathon, Bartoo began to collect them as a safeguard.

The treasure-trove inhabits areas of his home, a storage facility and the Wexner Center projection booth.

"I remember vividly the first time I walked into the booth at the Wexner Center," said Tim Lanza, longtime guardian of the Raymond Rohaur film collection and creator of the Avant Garage movie events. "How NASA-like it was on one hand, but on the other hand, the piles and piles and piles of trailers. It was pretty incredible."

The trailers number in the thousands and focus primarily on science fiction, horror and rock 'n' roll movies. But it isn't just the size of the collection that impresses friends -- it's that Bartoo knows them all.

"Just remembering what he's got," Lanza said. "Saying 'Oh, that would be perfect for this.' "

Among Bartoo's favorite trailers are ones promoting The Green Slime and Common Law Wife.

But even with his stacks of trailers, he has some regrets.

"Sadly," he said, "the version of The Killer Shrews with an expert warning the audience of nearby sightings and urging them to call local authorities continues to elude me."

He hopes eventually to package portions of the collection by presenting some midnight shows at the Drexel Gateway theater, perhaps screening one feature film surrounded by related trailers.

"More and more, though, things I want to show might not appeal to the crowd on campus," said Bartoo, chuckling. "But it's worth a try."

tferan@dispatch.com

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