True Story Media.

This is Dakota Spotlight Season 3, The House on Sweet and 7th. I'm James Walner.

This podcast contains content that some may find disturbing. Discretion is advised. Today, many of us sit at home

and at the touch of a button we binge movies and TV shows online and on demand. But many of us can

remember another era when we had to leave the home and take ourselves to the video store to rent

or purchase movies on VHS tapes.

In fact, if we were really eager to see a new movie release, we might even line up outside

of the video store before they opened up in the morning.

Such was the case on September 1st, 1998, when the movie Titanic became available for purchase

on video all around the United States.

One such place was Bismarck, the capital city of the state of North Dakota.

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was. On that morning, September 1st,

1998, video stores in Bismarck were flooded with customers.

They fled to places like the Suncoast store in Kirkwood Mall,

or Cashwise Video, near the corner of expressway and 12th.

And in the older part of town near Main Street and the railroad tracks,

at Blockbuster Video,

a line of excited North Dakotaans spiraled through the parking lot and filed right up to the front door.

So hungry were Americans to get their hands on the movie Titanic,

a movie they knew would deliver on Hollywood's long-standing promise of allowing them to escape to the movies.

Do not let go of my hand!

I'll never let go.

...