During the late 1970s and early 1980s, movies were shown on campus every weekend — much like today. According to The State News in January 1985, “X-Rated movies had been shown intermittently on campus since 1969.” 

In the early-to-mid-80s, film students Bob Murawski, now a Hollywood film editor, and Darin Greyerbiehl founded two student organizations — Box Office Spectaculars and Revolver Cinema — that booked rooms on campus to showcase films, especially films featuring nudity and sex.  

The State News’ archives show that the initial advertisements for Box Office Spectaculars’ screenings were in spring 1984, including films like “Invasion of the Bee Girls,” where women take over the world by seducing men to death, and “Up,” a soft-core porn film starring American stripper Raven De La Croix.

Film screenings for both organizations went on throughout fall 1984, often taking place in the first-floor lecture halls of Wells Hall, the Union and Holmes Hall. Admission was typically $2.50, and attendance for the Friday and Saturday showings typically ranged between 100 and 200 students.

As time went on, some members of the university community began to protest the showings. A new organization formed around this time led by Korbi Roberts, the Coalition Against Pornography on Campus, staged demonstrations at many film viewings, carrying signs emphasizing the immorality of pornography. They, along with other concerned students, began pressuring student government and administration officials to shut down the showings.

“I couldn’t take (the demonstrators) seriously,” Murawski said at the time, noting that most of them seemed to be there for socializing.

Moses Turner, the vice president for student affairs and services at the time, took action on Jan. 23, 1985. After calling Murawski and Greyerbiehl to his office to request for them to stop the X-rated showings, that weekend’s shows were canceled. After some pleading, the two were able to convince Turner to allow them to show “Female Trouble” Jan. 31. But later that evening, Greyerbiehl was locked out of Wells Hall when he tried to show a second film.

This kicked off the first of multiple legal issues for the university in regards to the porn screenings. In that first week of February, the Lansing-branch of the ACLU threatened to sue the university if it canceled all future showings, and on Feb. 20, they followed through. 

In a case filed in 1985, the ACLU, representing Murawski and Greyerbiehl, said MSU could not prevent the organizations from booking rooms just because they were showing porn. They sought $20,000 in damages for both plaintiffs, as well as attorney’s fees and the right to show films until the case was settled.

On February 22, 1985, Judge Douglas Hillman issued an injunction allowing Box Office Spectaculars and Revolver Cinema to show films until a settlement was reached. During this time, Turner received backlash from some at the university, which led to a statement from the Associated Students of Michigan State University, or ASMSU, condemning his decision to cancel the screenings. 

Throughout spring 1985, more porn films were shown, and the groups began showing more hardcore movies to taunt the MSU administration. The taunting reached its peak on April 22 when the student organization hired a stripper to perform prior to the showing of a film. 

In April 1986, an agreement was signed by lawyers representing Murawski, Greyerbiehl and MSU outside of court, allowing students to continue showing movies in campus buildings while reducing the damages paid out by the school. 

But it didn’t take long for tensions to rise again. Box Office Spectaculars ran an advertisement for their films the week of May 18, 1986, inviting students to celebrate Gay Pride Week by watching a gay porn film. This led to intense denouncement by the Lesbian/Gay Council, which took offense, and accused the organization of false advertising by playing off the university-sanctioned Gay Pride Week. The council submitted a complaint to the MSU Judiciary Board for review.

Before that had a chance to blow over, Box Office Spectaculars prompted even more denouncement with the showing of its own film, “Spartan School for Sex,” on May 30, 1986. The movie was produced by Murawski, and featured MSU students in scenes on campus spliced together with sex scenes from existing movies. The film was shown in Wells Hall to more than 300 students, amid protest from the Coalition Against Pornography on Campus. In response to the film being shown, the MSU president at the time, John DiBiaggio, said he found pornography “personally offensive.”

″We’ve always wanted to make a film, and we figured something like this would have the greatest impact,” Murawski told reporters prior to the premier.

The showing of “Spartan School for Sex” led to administration officials again shutting down showings, this time claiming that MSU property had been used in the film without permission. Eventually, this led to another lawsuit where Murawski was forced to publicly apologize, but by this time he had graduated and had no plans to further stir things up on campus. 

“I publicly apologize to MSU, its students, organizations and alumni for any harm or embarrassment this may have caused them,” Murawski said in his apology given as part of his settlement in August of 1986.

Box Office Spectaculars did outlast its creator, periodically showing films during the 1986-87 academic year, but by then, campus-shown films had fallen out of fashion due to the rise of video stores where students could cheaply rent movies.

Murawski is now a Hollywood film editor and distributor who often works with director and fellow MSU alumnus Sam Raimi. He won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on “The Hurt Locker,” and also worked on the Spider-Man trilogy of the 2000s. Greyerbiehl does not show up in the MSU Alumni Association database of graduated students and cannot be found via web search.