Blow-up Scene? AntonioniFilm? See It at the Brattle

What travel-writer's trip to Cambridge, what Harvard Student's stroll to the post office, is complete without pause at that 1967 Xanadu, the Brattle theatre. A grenadine and soda at the Blue Parrot, a bourbon and branch water at the Casa-blanca, and then a Singapore Sling at the Grand Turk. A Union Jack jumbo necktie at Truc and then, sniffing the honey scent of the beeswax candles on the way upstairs, one sits down, coked to the gills but dressed to the teeth, at a Bogie flick to experience the greatest pleasure in the dome: hissing Sidney Greenstreet. That's life, and it's all made possible by Cyrus Harvey and Bryant Haliday who own Brattle Enterprises.

They run their complex on the theory that "It's a lovin' era," and it doesn't seem to do them any harm. Last weekend they began to push into the territory further up Brattle St., when they opened a shop for the woman who actually wants to wear the stuff she sees in Vogue. The new place is called Paraphanalia.

Paraphanalia had a very wild opening fashion show last Saturday, even by Blow-up standards. The models zipped out, danced for a moment to a blaring band on a platform in front of projections showing shots of Cambridge, like the back room of Cronin's, and then zipped back-in. Sixty-five changes in 37 minutes--a new record in the fashion world. "Some of the merchants and columnists who came weren't exactly happy," said store looked crazy--big and white, and Cy Harvey. "Everybody thought the designed to let the clothes speak for themselves. But yesterday I had to go to New York because we don't have any dresses to keep the store open. They bought out a third of our stock in three days."

Why is Paraphanalia so hot? "These clothes are really made for Cambridge. They aren't designed by elderly Coco Chanels."

Paraphanalia is only a franchise operation--one of 26 in the country. But next week, the Brattle will open a new shop of its own--Truc in the Alley, right behind the Brattle Theatre.

Truc in the Alley will carry exterior decorations for men--French capes, English riding jackets, suits from Bond St.--"but cheap!" emphasizes Cy Harvey, "cheap so the students can buy them."

How did Harvey and Haliday turn the moviehouse-coffee house which they started in 1953 into the boutique empire which they possess in 1967? Largely by filling their movie house with movies which they themselves imported. Their company, Janus Films, was the first to import Fellini, Antonioni, and Bergman. Last year, they sold Janus Films (for quite a handsome profit) partly because they were being squeezed out by the big companies, and partly because buying films was "an ulcer business." "You had to make your decision two minutes after you saw the film, and you never knew whether it would go in America," said Harvey.

But buying films took them around Europe, and that is where their catholic taste in true (as the French say) led them to corner the market in Polish movie posters, build up the second most exotic stock of candy in the U.S., and become virtually the No. 1 beeswax candle outlet in this country.

And in shopping for bric-a-brac they developed techniques by which they now buy clothes for Truc, their most successful enterprise. They buy in small batches, from a dozen little stores in New York and California, and strictly according to their own tastes.

"We like pure colors," says Harvey cracking into a new type of candy which he is "testing," "none of those wishy-washy House and Garden colors. Clothes are entertainment."

"Everything we see," he says, "we want to have in Cambridge."

"Great," he says, "we love it."