It seems like only yesterday. We often bought out of town papers in the seventies (because my Dad liked to read different comic strips). One Sunday afternoon we got one with an article about how Bruce Lee, the former TV star of THE GREEN HORNET, had become a big star in Hong Kong movies. At that stage, I would have been 14 and I'm not sure I had realized up to that point that there were such things as whole movie industries that never released their films in the US. I was intrigued, particularly when the article said that he was working on a big budget US movie at that time.
Cut to a few months later when I spot a new magazine on the stands called FIGHTING STARS with a big article about that new movie, apparently to be called THE DEADLY THREE.
Cut to a couple weeks later when ENTER THE DRAGON plays as a sneak preview on a Saturday Night at Cincinnati's Grand Theatre. My friend Terry and I go and are majorly excited! By that point, we had already seen 5 FINGERS OF DEATH and a few Jimmy Wang Yu pictures.
Cut to just a week later and I'm reading Bruce lee's obituary in the newspaper.
R.I.P.
I saw ENTER THE DRAGON 5 times that summer, 4 at the Grand and once, when it finally left there, at Covington's Madison Theater.
At the latter venue, they gave out the free poster above which adorned my wall for years.
Here's a link to an updated version of a piece I wrote on Bruce and ENTER THE DRAGON back in 2006.
http://bookstevebijou.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-films-of-bruce-lee.html
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