If you live in Cleveland, you may be familiar with this show. It runs every night at midnight on Adelphia Channel 23, the city's public access channel. Nick has been hosting the show for three years. His introduction usually runs about 10 minutes or more. The movies featured are old B rated movies such as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and The Sadist. Nick's expertise runs to movies, as he says, "no one in their right mind would know anything about." The introductions are written by him and if he feels the movie sucks, he'll tells the audience in advance. He says, "Whether or not they stick around after that is up to them, but amazingly, my viewers do."

I asked, "Does the introduction usually cover trivia about the movie and the people who make the movie?". His reply, "Well, it is, if I can find anything out about the movie! Most of the movies we show are so obscure that no information is available about them. If so, I'll spin off into something related to it no matter how tenuous the connection may be. It seems to have worked out so far. The good thing about being local is that a lot of the viewers remember the things I talk about. They remember things like the aside about Mr. Jingaling when we showed Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or, in an example that has nothing to do with local history, the section about the history of Technicolor when we showed Phantom of the Opera. I always tell the audience exactly what I think about the movie. I get to slip a few clever (I hope, anyway) observations about the films. The only drawback is that there are only so many ways to say a movie blows.
   I recently became friends with a viewer who used to be a Private Eye. When I mentioned that I couldn't find anything out about an upcoming movie (The Screaming Skull), he actually managed to get in touch with the lead actress; and, she gave us her home phone number. I then called her for an interview! Is that cool or what?!"

About Nick D'Amico

I asked Nick, "Do you have any background information you would like to share?" He replied, "Um, let's see... I've been working in production for about 23 years. I was a huge fan of movies in general and monster movies in particular. As a kid, I was a faithful reader of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Castle of Frankenstein and just about any other monster mag I could get my hands on. When I got older, I began to look at movies instead of just watching them, trying to figure out how they got me to feel the way I did. I pretty much learned the language of film that way. I found a way into production and got hired when a friend started a production company. After learning the basics and teaching myself the rest by instinct, I began writing, directing and editing on a freelance basis. Henry, my producer, worked with me in the 80's and, after becoming the Production manager at Adelphia 23, thought of me when he wanted a host for the daily movie. After a bit of haggling (mostly him trying to talk me into appearing on camera, something I detest), we went into production. I didn't think anyone ever watched until I put up an e-mail address and found out people were not only watching but actually enjoyed the intros! Everyone's been really great and supportive about the show, so I guess I'm doing something right."

You'll find the show fun and informative as well as a great chance to see some of the old classic B movies. For those of you who are outside the viewing area and would like to get a chance to look at one of Nick's introductions to Cleveland Classic Cinema. Nick has supplied us with a video sample for your enjoyment.

Thanks to Nick for allowing us to share his reviews with you.