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If the film has a moral, it is, "Don't dream it, be it"--a line O'Brien took from the catalog of the racy couturier Frederick's of Hollywood. For most Rockyphiles it is enough to dress like a Frederick's dream: Dracula makeup, dominatrix corset, your basic black garter belt. The hard-core fans, who mime the dialogue onstage, do more than suit up for the dream; they star in it. And once in a full moon the dream can come true. Ron Maxwell, 22, is a Citibank computer operator by day and one of the Eighth Street's performing "Brads" on weekends. Listen to this testimony of salvation: "At school I was a nerd, a dork, a social outcast. So of course I identified with Brad. Now I'm still a dork, but it's O.K. Rocky Horror says, 'You're weird, but you belong somewhere. Let's all be weird together.'" He excuses himself to go onstage opposite a comely "Janet"; they met at the Eighth Street and are engaged to be married. Cult movies can have happy endings too.
And birthday parties as well. On Halloween Sal, Ron and 2,600 Rockyites--some from as far away as Montreal, London, Sacramento, Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Bronx--made a pilgrimage to Manhattan's cavernous Beacon Theater for a tenth-anniversary bash. Sal presented sham Oscars to each of seven R.H.P.S. actors, who tried not to look as if they had wandered into a Star Dreck convention. The audience judged a costume contest: dozens of odd fellows dressed as their favorite Rocky characters. Everyone had a ball. Richard O'Brien, dressed for the occasion in a cunning black tube top with feather-duster hem, black mesh stockings and a rhinestone choker, set the tone for the evening, and offered a clue to his film's enduring, endearing popularity, when he proclaimed, "It's very hard sometimes to separate fantasy from reality. Let's keep it that way!" Sage advice, in side or outside a late-night double-feature picture show. --By Richard Corliss