For a long time, I had a message on this page which said, "We will put an introduction here, just as soon as we write one."

What can you say about a kid who sees 488 films in one year? And this back in 1976, in the days before the video cassette changed everything forever?

Perhaps you could say he was crazy. Maybe I was. But what I was trying to do was to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for having seen the most films in theatres in one year. In 1976, I decided to keep accurate records of my film attendance. I kept all the information you will see here on a huge wall chart, which came to be over ten feet long. On this chart, I wrote down all the details of what I saw and where and what the print was like and how much I paid to get in. Any details I could provide to convince the Guinness people that I had actually attended these films.

Of course, when I submitted my chart to them several years later, they politely sent it back to me, while informing me that they needed better verification for each attendance. Ticket stubs or signed affidavits from the theatre managers. So I had failed in my bid for self-aggrandizement.

But what has remained is a most unusual document of a rather interesting year in my life. I had just somehow gotten out of High School. I was attending Trade School courses in printing at the time, but my head was elsewhere. My film going had been prodigeous all through High School; I got in free to many in exchange for making signs for the various theatres in the San Fernando Valley. My chums and I would go see just about every film that was released during those years, as well as everything that was playing on the "repertory" circuit. Some of the films we saw are hardly even remembered today. The Giant Spider Invasion comes to mind, while many of the theatres no longer exist.

This list is an amazing compendium of the theatres and practices of motion picture distribution in 1976. Some things are no longer with us: the annual springtime tidal wave known as FILMEX, and the practice known as the "Sneak Preview." 1976 was an interesting year, poised as it was between the release of Jaws the summer before, and the arrival of the first Star Wars film the next summer. The list of films released in 1976 struggles between the older style of filmmaking, such as Gable and Lombard, and the new sensational style, represented by The Omen. They all seem to be waiting for George Lucas to come along to show them the way. It all changed radically in the coming years. I cannot imagine something like Risky Business at Radio City Music Hall with a stage show — can you?

Scarlett O'Hara has some wonderful advice for her romantic object Ashley, in Gone with the Wind; she tells him that he should not dwell on the past, "It just drags at your heart until you can't do anything else." True enough, Scarlett. As much as I enjoy this backward looking, I have to admit that I'd much rather be looking forward to what's ahead for all of us at the movies and in life.