By Chris Starr

The American institution of pornography is receiving hard knocks from a theatre owner in Tucker. Chester Strycula and his wife Rita, parishioners of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, own and operate a neighborhood theatre in the Lilburn Square Shopping Plaza.

The couple are trying to give decency and family entertainment a fighting chance. Having been in business for eighteen months, the Stryculas have found that this chance does indeed require a fight.

Their theatre, when it was first opened, was part of a theatre chain run by actor Jerry Lewis. The philosophy of the corporation, as outlined in its many television announcements, was to provide wholesome, family entertainment. The center for these activities was to be the neighborhood theatre run by a local family who could take a special interest in the affairs of the community.

Churches and other groups would receive special consideration when sponsoring theatre activities for children who normally would not receive attention. Lewis had in mind especially those children afflicted with crippling diseases such as the ones he fights in his March of Dimes crusades.

To Strycula all this sounded great. He had recently suffered a heart attack and was looking for a chance to get off the road, which he had to travel extensively in his salesman’s job. So he invested his life’s savings of 23 years and went into the theatre business.

Thinking this concept of family theatre would interest ministers, councilmen, and leaders of the community he invited them to a special preview of his new theatre, and was all set to help clean up the mind pollution that he felt pornography encouraged.

“This is the beginning of a new era in the movie business,” Strycula told his audience. “Here we hope to take children away from the violence and seduction of movies that are just plain unhealthy for their impressionable minds. This is where we begin, by parents refusing to patronize theatres that are more concerned about money value than the value of the films they show to young children.”

Intimations of trouble from the theatre franchise has been slowly leaking to Strycula, but it was not until his opening week that he had this confirmed. Involved in his contract with Lewis was a two-week training course in theatre management. Yet he and his wife only received one confusing afternoon of instruction while engineers put together their equipment. The instruction was so inadequate that Strycula had no chance to preview his opening film. This proved to be quite an embarrassment because no sooner had the film started than a covey of obscenities flew from the screen and within five minutes seven men had been killed.

Strycula tried to correct the situation with the Lewis corporation but only opened a Pandora’s box of problems that are still involved in litigation. Lewis was served with a suit by Strycula’s lawyer for failure to provide services that were under the franchise contract, services like the booking of unobjectionable films and the aforementioned instruction program. The corporation only asserted that it was extremely difficult to find good and decent films. Other sources also said that the corporation was in financial trouble and was unable to fulfill its franchise contracts.

Pressed on by their conviction that this still was a worthwhile project, the Stryculas severed their ties with the Lewis corporation and set out on their own. It had been six weeks since their opening embarrassment.

“After we went on our own we again invited ministers, councilmen and community leaders to come together in support of an effort that would be a great community builder. Perhaps because of our earlier fiasco only a handful showed, and the next day I watched parents dropping their kids off at neighboring theatres that were running the type of shows I had run a month and a half ago,” Strycula said.

“Both Rita and I were pretty disappointed, but somehow we still managed to be here by our shoestrings, and more so with the help of people such as Mark and Devin Webb. These two work for an occasional pizza and the enjoyment they get out of working with the young children. They were at one time our Saturday matinee antagonists, but have since joined us in keeping the kids under control and supervision.

“Others who have helped a great deal are our daughter, Valerie and her husband Andy Doss. Andy used to come to the theatre occasionally before he met Valerie, and then his visits became more frequent. Now that Valerie and Andy are married they are always coming up with ideas and the work to back them up. I guess if we have made any profit on the theatre, it has to be attributed to Andy.”

Some of the feature films the Stryculas have recently shown are Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” “Battle for the Planet of the Apes,” “Snoopy Come Home,” and “The Last American Hero.” They too find it difficult to maintain suitable family fair because of its scarcity, but so far they have not had to resort to showing coming attraction features that are objectionable.

Asked what he thought about the recent Supreme Court decision on pornography, Strycula replied, “It is an excellent decision because now the local community has the authority to decide the values and criterion of worth in a film. Now, I see this as investing the people with a responsibility that they will accept. In so accepting, I feel communities will again turn towards entertainment that will be of a positive value to their children. And this is what I offer to the community I serve.”