Underground Cinema 12: Origin & August-September 1970
Beginning in the early 1960s, one of the main venues where audiences could watch underground films outside of New York City was the midnight movie screening series called Underground Cinema 12.
The origins of Underground Cinema 12 were related by one of its founders, Mike Getz, to the Alternative Projections historical project. Getz was the manager of the Cinema Theater in Hollywood, California when he was approached by John Fles, who had been holding alternative cinema screenings around Los Angeles, such as in the Jewish and Ukrainian cultural centers.
Fles had the idea to run a regular midnight movie screening series in an actual movie theater, which Getz quickly agreed to host. The Cinema Theater typically ran foreign films and independent cinema, so screening underground films at midnight seemed like a good match. Initially, the series was called Movies 'Round Midnight and it premiered on Columbus Day 1963 with a screening of Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures, Gregory Markopoulos's Twice a Man, and a chapter of Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man.
