The Morning Call Newspaper Company
by Geoff Gehman, The Morning Call
Friday, August 9, 1985
In a phone conversation from Beverly Hills, Terry Press, publicity coordinator for Crown International Pictures, described the marketing approach for ''Cave Girl.''
The film opened April 19 in St. Louis and Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Colo.
These markets, said Press, traditionally have been supportive of Crown releases, which have included ''Galaxina,'' ''My Tutor,'' ''Tomboy'' and ''Americana.''
They also are smaller and less competitive than places like New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia, college centers which tend to ignore independently distributed movies.
''We do well in the South, throughout the Midwest, but once you get into the large urban areas, the independents have problems,'' Press explained. ''There's too much product.''
''Cave Girl'' sounds like a drive-in staple: A bit of comedy, a bit of action, a bit of sexual innuendo, a bit of flesh, targeted at the 17-to-30ers.
Indeed, on May 3 it opened at five drive-ins (and 44 theaters) in the Los Angeles area.
It also has been doubled on outdoor screens with Crown releases like ''Nine Deaths of the Ninja,'' a karate film with a built-in drive-in clientele. But Press indicates that it really belongs in theaters.
''It's a theater film because it's really quite a nice little movie . . .,'' she noted. ''It's a small comedy . . . It's not really raucous or bawdy; it's very sweet.''
Besides, she added, Crown doesn't issue products in the summer, a fact which hasn't prevented ''Cave Girl'' from being obscured by heavily hawked, teen-oriented summer pictures.
''Cave Girl'' has opened at 150 sites and has earned $4.2 million in rentals. The closest it has come to the Lehigh Valley is Pittsburgh, with Buffalo being the location of the only other screening in the Northeast.
Press says the film will probably hit the Valley this year.
Robert Klaas, general manager of the Lehigh Valley Mall Cinemas, says Crown may allow him to show it at midnight as early as next month. If it doesn't surface locally, viewers will get the chance to watch Dan Roebuck, amateur archeologist, and the cave people on videocassette next year.