We were at a between-semesters lull in the office and asked our secretaries to cover for us as four or five of my co-workers and I sneaked out of the office and walked over to the Warner Theater in downtown Pittsburgh to watch the new movie, "Alien." The Warner was old, cavernous and dark and only about a half dozen other people were in the theater that afternoon. When the baby alien popped out of John Hurt's chest, my friend, the school psychologist, screamed, vaulted out of his seat, and landed on the floor in the row behind us.
I'm not much of a sci-fi / fantasy fan, but "Alien" is among my all-time favorites. Great design elements and atmospherics set by the opening sequences. Sigourney Weaver said a couple years later that she felt they should have filmed the final sequence with Sigourney in the nude as she slipped into the space suit to fight the alien and eject it from the escape pod.
