The ghost of video stores past
Where would I be without the video stores? My childhood, or my teenage years more specifically, are so intimately connected to them I sometimes wonder if I did not spend more time there than at home, actually watching the films.
Some years ago, I did a popular thread on Twitter about some of these video stores in Stockholm, and I felt that it would make for a nice post here, where I can expand it a bit. These stores have all disappeared, one by one, and been replaced by all sorts of things. Some, during a transition time, primarily sold candy and had the films hidden in the back, as if they were ashamed of the fact that the still had DVDs. Now I do not think you can rent DVDs anywhere in Stockholm, and there might be only one shop that sell new DVDs. You can find a lot of them though in charity shops and second-hand stores. For some reason you can almost always, in all these shops, find some copies of the James Bond film Die Another Day (2002). No other Bond films is as ubiquitous, so presumably it is a film nobody wants to own. (Except me, I have the DVD.)
This space in the photo above, under the balcony, was a video store when I was a child and teenager and the one closest to home. It was in the basement of one of several red brick high-rise buildings in the suburb of Farsta where I lived. I may not have been there every day during my teenage years, but almost. Now long since closed, just like all the other video stores in Stockholm. It has for most of this century been a hairdresser instead. That is the point of this post, to show some spaces where once there were video stores.
Here on Birkagatan, a space now seemingly empty, is where the store Velvet Video was located for a few years in the 1990s. They rented out, and sold, VHS tapes directly imported from the UK. The day I found it was something of a paradigm shift in my life. All of a sudden, films I had only read about for years became available to me. It was magic. I rented Ford's Rio Grande (1950) and Zorba - The Greek (1964) on my first visit.
Here at the end of Norrtullsgatan was a packed video store with narrow aisles between high shelves of films organised by director. It felt like a Tarantino/Winding Refn place, too narrow and too overwhelming.
Here on the corner of Hornsgatan/Varvsgatan was a shop that was not particularly remarkable except that it smelled bad. Here I rented Sex and the City on DVD and when the store permanently closed, I bought a John Farrow film on sale, Five Came Back (1939). The tired man at the cash register wondered why I wanted such an old film on such an old tape.
Here on Götgatan 75 was No. 1 Video, one of Stockholm's biggest and best video stores. After I moved from Farsta to the centre of Stockholm it became my new favourite video store. I once applied for a job there but they just laughed at me. Not sure why. but it was a shock when the store closed. I am sure Flying Tiger have lots of cool stuff but what they do not have is an abundance of films.
Here on Valhallavägen was the video store closest to the Swedish Film Institute, so I often visited it. They had new films on the street level but even better was a large basement room full of older films. After they closed the space was first used by an estate agent but since then it has been unclear what exactly they do in there.
On the corner of Roslagsgatan and Odengatan was a fairly large video store, now a restaurant, that once saved me from failing a home exam in film studies. I had missed the screening of the film I was going to write about, Damen i svart/The Lady in Black (1958), and rode the bus from video store to video store until I found a VHS copy of the film here. Living on the edge. On another occasion I borrowed Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie (1948), but the sound was so bad that I could not watch it. I went back and complained but got no sympathy and no refund. It got a bit tense.
Sveavägen 88 was the location for what is Stockholm's most legendary video store, Casablanca, with a magnificent selection. If you wanted something more obscure it was often only here you would find it. Also a shop with many anecdotes. The staff were known to be unpleasant and rude, but a change of ownership improved on that. One day at the Film Institute a man called me and asked if I knew whether a specific film was available on DVD, and if so where. I told him he could try Casablanca. "I'm there now!" he replied. "They suggested I call you."
Here at Sankt Eriksgatan 38, now a pharmacy, was what I think was the last pure video store in central Stockholm, so I often hung out there during their last years. Strangely enough, the same woman who in my teens worked at a video store in Farsta also worked at this place. You can imagine my emotions when the same woman who worked in my first video store also eventually worked in my last video store, serving me on the day they closed. I do not think she recognised me, but it felt like my video store life had come full circle.
The Farsta store she worked in is not the same one I wrote about at the top of this post. Unfortunately, the place where "her" shop was located has disappeared after the centre of Farsta was completely rebuilt some years ago so I cannot provide a photo of what it looks like today.
Ending this post here at Sankt Eriksplan instead. Before Synoptik took over, a small video store was located there. I do not think I ever borrowed any films from them but since I liked a girl who worked there, I hung out there for a few months anyway. Video stores have more to offer than films.