It was late 1979 and I was a senior in high school. Most weekends my buddies and I decided to go to the movies and there were a couple of films that we were considering. I was driving so I took the lead in deciding we would go to see Apocalypse Now. It had been released earlier in the year but had just made it to theaters in our area. My friends were not as excited about seeing it as I was. I didn’t really know that much about it, but I knew there was a lot of buzz around it. I knew it was a war movie so that was the angle I would use to sell the idea to my friends.
We made our way to the box office of the theater where fortunately, some of the younger guys in the group tried to purchase tickets. The theater was following a strict policy of not allowing anyone under 18 in to see this R rated film and some of the group didn’t meet that requirement. As we were walking away from the theater, several people in our group expressed relief that they weren’t going to have to watch that movie. The film that served as our backup plan was playing at a theater across town. We traveled to the older theater downtown where they would usually show films they didn’t expect to attract as many people. We were easily able to get everyone on in to see the PG rated The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh on its opening weekend. This film starred Julius Erving, aka Dr. J., who was one of the NBA’s biggest stars. I watched a lot of NBA basketball at this time when the league didn’t get as much attention. While I was disappointed at not getting to see the big important film, I enjoyed getting to see one of my sports heroes showing off his basketball skills in a not-so-impressive movie.
In the years since then, I have seen both films several times but Apocalypse Now ran more often on TV and was easier to find on home video. I have copies of both films now but The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh was much harder to find and hasn’t been preserved with the same loving care. And people are amazed when I tell them that I went to see The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh instead of Apocalypse Now.