The Mitchell Brothers

The material below has been gleamed from newspapers
The pictures on this page have no connection with the adult film business

The brothers grew up in the Delta town of Antioch, back when it was a mill town

The Mitchell brothers are the sons of an elementary school teacher mother, Georgia Mae Mitchell, and a gambling, card-playing father. Artie Mitchell was born in Lodi and Jim Mitchell in Stockton, and they spent their youth in Antioch. Their father died in 1973. Their mother was vice president of their Mitchell Brothers Film Group Corp.

After stints in military service, Jim took film classes at San Francisco State University and Art enrolled at Diablo Valley College. While still in school, they began making their own stag flicks.

Before either graduated, they borrowed $10,000 from their parents and opened The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater on July 4, 1969. At that time it was a 200-seat movie theater and the films were soft core.
Three weeks later, the theater was raided by police, the first in a long series of legal confrontations for the brothers.

In the early 70s the brothers had an extraordinary bit of luck. Marilyn Chambers, a beautiful young woman they recruited in 1971 for their first feature-length film, "Behind the Green Door," told them shortly before the film was to be released that a few years earlier she had modeled for a series of photos and now one of them was about to appear on the new Ivory Snow soap boxes. The brothers milked this for all the publicity it was worth , and "Green Door" got wide distribution and went on to make millions of dollars, turning it into a mainstream success

In the mid-1970s: The Mitchells expand their adult-theater chain to 11 locations, including one in Santa Ana that becomes the center of a years-long battle pitting the brothers against the city council. The crusade ended in 1987.

The Mitchell Brothers took over the Santa Ana theater in 1975

The pastor of a church across the street helped spearhead opposition to the new films, and the city of Santa Ana filed its first lawsuit against the theater the next year. For more than a decade, the city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees in losing battles to shut the theater down.

For 11 years, a former Los Angeles Police Department vice officer attended every movie shown by the theater, getting paid $30 an hour to film the films, audiotape the dialogue and take notes so that a judge could review the movies and decide if they were obscene.

Several movies were judged obscene, but no judge ruled the theater a "public nuisance," which would have let the city close it.

In 1987, after filing 47 lawsuits, the city gave up, letting the theater continue to show X-rated movies and paying the Mitchell Brothers $120,000 in exchange for removal of the theater marquee that advertised the films. The city also paid $80,000 in fees for the Mitchell Brothers attorneys. After the suits were settled, the owners of the theater building said they would not renew the lease with the Mitchell Brothers when it expired.

Despite the city's action, Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn., then headed by millionaire anti-pornography crusader Charles H. Keating, filed a lawsuit of its own. The bank, which has a branch diagonally across the street from the Honer Plaza shopping center that contains the theater, lost its suit as well. (The federal government later took over the bank after it failed. Keating has been charged with fraudulently diverting depositors' money, although those allegations are not connected to the bank's suit against the theater.)

In February, 1985 an estimated 25 to 30 San Francisco police officers raid the O'Farrell Theater and arrested sex star Marilyn Chambers for prostitution, perhaps the most famous arrest in connection with the Mitchell Brothers

In march, 1985 the brothers released the pornographic film "The Grafenberg Spot," which was made to raise money for their ceaseless legal conflicts.

In 1986, thirteen years after Marilyn Chambers stared in ''Behind the Green Door,'' the sequel to one of the most notorious adult films of all time was finally released.

''Behind the Green Door: The Sequel,'' starring Missy Manners, is the first mainstream adult film in which all the on-screen sex acts are performed with prophylactic devices.

Mitchell Brothers' Film Group, the San Francisco-based concern that produced the first ''Green Door'' film, put together the sequel with technical advice from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Dr. Ted McIlvenna, head of the institute, tested and recommended the prophylactic devices used in the film (they included condoms, spermicides, gloves and more) and spoke to the actors and actresses about safe-sex methods and practices.

Dr. Ted McIlvenna said that he thought that the Mitchell Brothers made the film because of their concern about AIDS.

Jim Mitchell confirmed that the ''Green Door'' sequel was, in fact, a partial response to the Meese Commission hearings, as well as the AIDS hysteria that has been sweeping the country.

''We were approached by Margo St. James, co-founder of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics, the San Francisco-based prostitutes union), who asked us to make a safe-sex movie,'' he said, ''something to counter the fear of AIDS, and the government suppression of information about AIDS. We thought it was a good idea. She wanted us to make one to show other pornographers the way.''

On Dec. 28, 1989, the California Supreme Court threw out a six-month jail terms imposed in 1982 on the brothers for allegedly allowing lewd acts in the O'Farrell, in violation of a court order. The charges stemmed from a 1981 undercover police operation in which naked women were filmed sitting on customers' laps.

On Feb. 27, 199, Artie Mitchell is shot to death. Brother Jim Mitchell is charged with the crime.

In 1992, a Marin County jury found San Francisco pornographer Jim Mitchell guilty of voluntary manslaughter for shooting to death his brother and business partner while on what his attorney described as a mission of love.

Jim Mitchell was sentenced on Friday, April 25, 1992 to six years in prison for gunning down his brother Artie on Feb. 27, 1991, in what his lawyer described as "an intervention gone awry."

Ignoring both defense attorney Michael Kennedy's plea for probation and prosecutor John Posey's recommendation of a nearly 12-year prison term, Marin County Superior Court Judge Richard Breiner ordered that Mitchell serve three years for voluntary manslaughter and an additional three years for use of a gun.

Jim Mitchell said he remembered firing a warning shot into the ceiling, but then remembers nothing until several minutes later, when he was stopped by a police officer while hobbling away from the house with the rifle stuck down a pants leg.

Links. These are outside links and contain adult material Mitchell Brothers Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre Home Page Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre History Marilyn Chambers Marilyn Chambers Marilyn's merchandise Marilyn Chambers biography Adult movie reviews and databases Adult Movie Review Index (AMRI) Rog's Reviews The Director Reviews The Imperial Archive Cyberspace Adult Video Reviews Adult movie news and business Adult Film Archive Company addresses Magazine addresses Film Database Internet Adult Film Database

© Daniel P. Jesudasen