drednour, forgive an old man for not getting your dad’s name right. It was a long time ago in a ….well you know.
Your dad was a terific guy and an excellent projectionist.
I first worked with him at Twin South on the roadshow engagement of “Grand Prix”, in those days there were two projectionists on duty for 70mm roadshows. We worked together again after the theatre became a sixplex.
I also worked with his brother (your uncle)Gus, I believe it may have been was at the Commack Multiplex.
Gus also served on Local 640’s pension commitee until he passsed away. I also seem to recall Gus had a son in the business as well,
possibly a projectionist or manager.
Vito
commented about
Waikiki 3on
Jul 4, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I live in New York now, but will be “coming home” in late winter.
I will be brave and visit the former site of #3 and the twins.
In fact I plan on doing a graveyard tour of the Royal, Cinerama and Kuhio as well. Should be very depressing. But, at least I was there during the hey-day, and still have many happy memories.
Especially #3 with the Friday Saturday organ music between shows and those packed houses emjoying the show in that most magnificent theatre.
Vito
commented about
Waikiki 3on
Jul 3, 2007 at 1:47 pm
bobosan, thanks so much for that link and website. I very much wanted to see the ole girl since the demolition but was afraid to look. I thought it would be too painfull after all the wonderful years I spent working that grand theatre.
It’s hard to believe that there are now no theatres left in Waikiki proper. It all began in 1982 with the closing of the Royal, followed by Kuhio and Waikiki 1-2-3. So sad.
Kamehameha Schools is acquiring the Varsity Theatre site in Moiliili in a land exchange that gives Robertson Properties Group the trust’s old Kamehameha Drive-In property in Aiea.
The deal, announced Wednesday, gives Hawaii’s largest private landowner the deed to the 1.7-acre Varsity property on University Avenue, which includes the Varsity Office Building, in exchange for the property at the corner of Moanalua Road and Kaonohi Street near Pearlridge Center and an undisclosed cash payment.
Los Angeles-based Robertson Properties Group is owned by Pacific Theatres parent Decurion. Pacific Theatres owns Consolidated Theatres and the Varsity Theatre.
“Consolidated’s decision to close the Varsity provided us with an opportunity to acquire a strategically valuable piece of property,” Kirk Belsby, vice president for endowment for Kamehameha Schools, said in a statement.
“It strengthens our ties with the university community and with Moiliili business and residential communities, and it strengthens our ability to support our educational programs and services.”
Robertson plans to redevelop the Aiea site and will come up with a master plan in the coming months, said John Manavian, vice president of development for Robertson Properties Group.
Kamehameha Schools plans to upgrade the Moiliili area, which includes Puck’s Alley, in the next few years, said Tara Young, senior commercial asset manager for Kamehameha Schools.
“The Varsity property adds even greater synergy to our options and opportunities in Moiliili,” she said.
Robertson Properties Group recently completed the renovation of the former Waikiki Theatre site on Kalakaua Avenue, now called the Center of Waikiki, and is currently developing a shopping mall called Pearl City Gateway on the city’s former Manana land in Pearl City.
“Oahu is one of our core target markets where we are actively developing and acquiring land,” Manavian said. “It also is a challenging market but we are well-positioned to move quickly and pursue opportunities where we can bring new uses to older properties and reposition them to better serve Oahu residents.”
Thanks Rob, I sorta thought that is what a MUTT is, I ran a similar transport system, made by Cinemacanica, that could also rewind the reel as well.
Sad to hear so few peole can do changeovers these days, a lost art
I suppose. In addition, I was told at a recent screening that cue marks are being phased out and soon will no longer be on prints.
Well, from my point of view I guess I like to see that the movie is being shown on 35mm film rather than Digital, and of course anything to keep those dang-blasted platters out of the Music Hall booth.
By the way, with the new and improved Digital 3-D we now have, do you suppose the Hall will eliminate the 70mm 3-D interlock format for the opening of the Christmas show this year? I would hope the presentation is still better with 70mm and they stay with it.
Thanks for all the info, it’s always entertaing and informative when you post.
Interesting Rob, but why the 12,000 foot reels? can’t they be trusted to make a chngeover any more?. I am sure if you are not available, Peter and I would be happy to come by and run the show reel-to-reel for them. In addition I am not familiar with “double mutts”, and would be interssted in how the reels are being feed to the projector. I recall running a theatre back in the early 70s
(pre platters) that had a tower mounted behind the projector which served to feed and take up the print which was mounted on 15,000 foot reels.
I simply had to add my two cents regarding the comments about National Amusements not wanting to keep older employees around.
As a retired employee of 22 years I can tell you that comment is completly false. National Amusements does not now, nor have they ever, practiced age descrimination. Seasoned employes are revered
and respected, and I can tell you, any employee who would deny or terminate an employee based on age would be reprimanded.
Just wanted to make that perfectly clear.
The project has been in the planning stages for quite some time. There are new inovations, or an improved version of the Cinema Delux concept, which will be included in the Commack design.
Stay tuned.
Bway, yes, as of yesterday (Monday) everything is back to normal.
I have received several e-mail notifications regarding thetares I had previously posted on. :)
Bway, you will be fine, once everything got going again all was back to normal. You will find you will begin to recieve e-mail alerts of new commments to all the theatres you have posted on in the past.
Email notifications of responses are now working for me.
Everything is now back to normal.
Patrick, take the weekend off,see a movie,you deserve it.
Job well done!
Patrick, I am no longer having any problems logging on, in addition I recievd an email notice today regarding this thread. However I still wonder what happens to all those theatres I had ben reciving
e-mail notifications about over the years and wonder if that is going to be a problem.
Sorry you have had to work so hard getting everything back to normal, just know, all of your efforts are very much appreciated.
Michael, I am afraid I may have confused you. At that time, we only had Dolby stereo processors in only one other location besides the Cinerama, and that was one side of the Waikiki Twins.
Royal Development Company, or Royal theatres, had Dolby installed at the Royal and one side of the Marina Twins. We did however have several locations with magnetic non-Dolby installations.
Wesley and I decided to test playing SVR prints through some of our old magnetic sound systems by installing stereo solar cells in those systems. Since the Cinerama was one of the few theatres with stereo optical solar cells, we made the test there with “The Wizâ€. Thinking back, while I am not sure,
I believe we must have played “The Wiz in Dolby Stereo.
When we tested the SVR print at the Cinerama we tied the stereo solar cells directly to the old Cinerama mag system, bypassing the Dolby processor. It worked, but without surrounds or Dolby EQ of course.
Since magnetic prints were becoming scarce, we were just trying to come up with a way to run stereo in our non-Dolby theatres. “The Wiz†did not do well and we lost interest in for a while.
I was relentless in my push to install Dolby in all our locations; but it was not until the very early 1980s when we were able to convince the bosses at Consolidated that Dolby was here to stay. It was then they loosened up the checkbook and allowed me to by more systems.
Until that time, we ran several 70mm prints at the Waikiki twins without Dolby. I recall when we played E.T, Universal struck a 70mm print for the Waikiki #1 which was not Dolby encoded, which we played through our old six track mag system. Eventually we installed Dolby in both sides of the Waikiki and Marina Twins.
I wish I could reach Wesley to enlighten us a bit more, perhaps his memory is sharper than mine,
Also there is an old friend of mine, who posts here from time to time, by the name of Scott who worked with us in those days who might remember more good stuff. I still recall the first time Scott ran 70mm at the Cinerama, when the unexpected print arrived he called me up all excited telling me how he was about to “wallow in 70mmâ€. Scott, are you out there??
Michael I hope I cleared up any questions you may have. I am sorry I did not make myself clear the first time, old age ya know :)
I am wishing you best of luck for a trouble free conversion.
I am looking forward to many more years of sharing information and memories with all my friends at Cinema Treasures.
Evelyn was a big help to me when I ran the Amboy Multipex, she was very well liked by the staff and other managers. Because of her vast experience, Evelyn was able to mentor many of the new managers coming in, something she enjoyed doing. She was sick for quite a while but continued working, after the Amboy Multiplex closd Evelyn helped out for a while at the Hazlet Mutilpex. She will be missed.
Al, that’s true, and how about those prints that arrive direct from the lab still on cores. Lab splices have always been a thorn in my butt, however the cost is of a print wihout lab splices is higher, It is refered to as no-splice-stock and while a studio can demand certain prints be struck that way it does increase the cost per print.
For those of you not familiar with lab spices, they are the result of one or more rolls of left over stock spliced together to make up one 2000' roll. For example, since a roll of raw stock is 2000' in length, when a reel of a movie runs 1700', the remaining 300' is then joined together with another roll of left over stock to make up a full roll of 2000'. The end result is a 2000'roll of spliced raw stock. Unfortunatly the splices are cement splices and are very narrow, causing them to be fragile, and can break or open up very easily during a prints run. In addition, if when the splice is made, any light that should strike the roll of stock causes an ugly blotch of even as much as two frames which is very noticablle in the struck print. I would always cut those lab splices out and resplice the print properly.
That flaking you refered to, or what I called the evil white powder, never stops coming off the print no matter how long you run it and gets everywhere in the projector.
William, I wondered how long it would be before they stopped putting our beloved cue marks on prints. I shall miss em.I wonder if
reel-to-reel houses (the few left)can still buy cue scribers.
Note to TommyR, I hope you will forgive us for some of the off topic discussions contained in your thread.
Al, I am shocked to read about the problems you are encountering.
In all the years I spent in the booth (post mylar) I never heard of the problems you write about. Soundtracks cracking after a week?
I have run many prints on a platter for up to 8 weeks without a problem. I wonder if any one else can explain what the heck is going on with our prints in Europe.
Denny, true about the wet splicing, fortunatly however, I don’t think to many folks are still splicing that way. One fact remains, mylar is tough on projection equipment.
Also the testing both written and practical you described is very much the way it was in NY back in the day.
On Long Island, where a licence is not needed, practical tests used to given by the union before one can start work there. I am not sure if that is still required, one would imagine so.
Michael and Ed, The D-150 was in Woodbury, Zip code 11797.
I know there has been a lot of confusion about all this, but I lived in Woodbury at the Fairhaven town houses which are located directly across the dtreet from D-150. In fact I could see the atraction board from my kitchen window. I worked Syosset as a single screen duing the period 1962 thru 1972, and then both houses from 1983 thru 1987. I worked on the installation when the Syosset was triplexed and worked it part time for a while. At no time do I recall the
D-150 ever being called anything but Cinema 150. If it was ever called the “Syosset” it would have had to have been after October
1987 which is when I ran my last show (Dirty Dancing)there.
Michael, I can’t recall which closed first the Syosset triplex or the D-150, perhaps if the triplex closed first they may have renamed the D-150 as “Syosset”. That would be odd however since the theatre was in Woodbury. OK Michael my friend, you now have you work cut out for you to sort all this out. If anyone can do it, you can. :)
Alavarez, I wonder if you are a bit confused, the prints we use today, and have for a while now, are made up on mylar stock which is very durable.
Prints are hard to break (tear)and do not scratch as easily as they did in the past when safety film stock was in use.
In the old days we had a lot of problems with broken (stripped)or torn sprocket holes but since mylar was introduced the print damage has decreased considerably. The one down side of mylar is that it may be too tough, now if a print jams it does not break and can cause damage to gears and other parts of a projector.
Try it for yourself, take a strip of mylar and try and tear it with your bare hands, you will not be able to do it. Then if you can find a piece of safety stock you will find you will be able to tear it easily.
drednour, forgive an old man for not getting your dad’s name right. It was a long time ago in a ….well you know.
Your dad was a terific guy and an excellent projectionist.
I first worked with him at Twin South on the roadshow engagement of “Grand Prix”, in those days there were two projectionists on duty for 70mm roadshows. We worked together again after the theatre became a sixplex.
I also worked with his brother (your uncle)Gus, I believe it may have been was at the Commack Multiplex.
Gus also served on Local 640’s pension commitee until he passsed away. I also seem to recall Gus had a son in the business as well,
possibly a projectionist or manager.
I live in New York now, but will be “coming home” in late winter.
I will be brave and visit the former site of #3 and the twins.
In fact I plan on doing a graveyard tour of the Royal, Cinerama and Kuhio as well. Should be very depressing. But, at least I was there during the hey-day, and still have many happy memories.
Especially #3 with the Friday Saturday organ music between shows and those packed houses emjoying the show in that most magnificent theatre.
bobosan, thanks so much for that link and website. I very much wanted to see the ole girl since the demolition but was afraid to look. I thought it would be too painfull after all the wonderful years I spent working that grand theatre.
It’s hard to believe that there are now no theatres left in Waikiki proper. It all began in 1982 with the closing of the Royal, followed by Kuhio and Waikiki 1-2-3. So sad.
THE LATEST NEWS
Kamehameha Schools is acquiring the Varsity Theatre site in Moiliili in a land exchange that gives Robertson Properties Group the trust’s old Kamehameha Drive-In property in Aiea.
The deal, announced Wednesday, gives Hawaii’s largest private landowner the deed to the 1.7-acre Varsity property on University Avenue, which includes the Varsity Office Building, in exchange for the property at the corner of Moanalua Road and Kaonohi Street near Pearlridge Center and an undisclosed cash payment.
Los Angeles-based Robertson Properties Group is owned by Pacific Theatres parent Decurion. Pacific Theatres owns Consolidated Theatres and the Varsity Theatre.
“Consolidated’s decision to close the Varsity provided us with an opportunity to acquire a strategically valuable piece of property,” Kirk Belsby, vice president for endowment for Kamehameha Schools, said in a statement.
“It strengthens our ties with the university community and with Moiliili business and residential communities, and it strengthens our ability to support our educational programs and services.”
Robertson plans to redevelop the Aiea site and will come up with a master plan in the coming months, said John Manavian, vice president of development for Robertson Properties Group.
Kamehameha Schools plans to upgrade the Moiliili area, which includes Puck’s Alley, in the next few years, said Tara Young, senior commercial asset manager for Kamehameha Schools.
“The Varsity property adds even greater synergy to our options and opportunities in Moiliili,” she said.
Robertson Properties Group recently completed the renovation of the former Waikiki Theatre site on Kalakaua Avenue, now called the Center of Waikiki, and is currently developing a shopping mall called Pearl City Gateway on the city’s former Manana land in Pearl City.
“Oahu is one of our core target markets where we are actively developing and acquiring land,” Manavian said. “It also is a challenging market but we are well-positioned to move quickly and pursue opportunities where we can bring new uses to older properties and reposition them to better serve Oahu residents.”
Thanks Rob, I sorta thought that is what a MUTT is, I ran a similar transport system, made by Cinemacanica, that could also rewind the reel as well.
Sad to hear so few peole can do changeovers these days, a lost art
I suppose. In addition, I was told at a recent screening that cue marks are being phased out and soon will no longer be on prints.
Well, from my point of view I guess I like to see that the movie is being shown on 35mm film rather than Digital, and of course anything to keep those dang-blasted platters out of the Music Hall booth.
By the way, with the new and improved Digital 3-D we now have, do you suppose the Hall will eliminate the 70mm 3-D interlock format for the opening of the Christmas show this year? I would hope the presentation is still better with 70mm and they stay with it.
Thanks for all the info, it’s always entertaing and informative when you post.
Interesting Rob, but why the 12,000 foot reels? can’t they be trusted to make a chngeover any more?. I am sure if you are not available, Peter and I would be happy to come by and run the show reel-to-reel for them. In addition I am not familiar with “double mutts”, and would be interssted in how the reels are being feed to the projector. I recall running a theatre back in the early 70s
(pre platters) that had a tower mounted behind the projector which served to feed and take up the print which was mounted on 15,000 foot reels.
I simply had to add my two cents regarding the comments about National Amusements not wanting to keep older employees around.
As a retired employee of 22 years I can tell you that comment is completly false. National Amusements does not now, nor have they ever, practiced age descrimination. Seasoned employes are revered
and respected, and I can tell you, any employee who would deny or terminate an employee based on age would be reprimanded.
Just wanted to make that perfectly clear.
What madness, it will soon bcome a toy for folks to play with causing even more disruptions than we already have.
Ridiculous!
The project has been in the planning stages for quite some time. There are new inovations, or an improved version of the Cinema Delux concept, which will be included in the Commack design.
Stay tuned.
One of the last of the theatre treasures in Hawaii is gone.
Now, only the downtown Hawaii remains.
Bway,Sorry to hear that, perhaps if you wrote to Patrick he could help you. Good luck!
Bway, yes, as of yesterday (Monday) everything is back to normal.
I have received several e-mail notifications regarding thetares I had previously posted on. :)
Bway, you will be fine, once everything got going again all was back to normal. You will find you will begin to recieve e-mail alerts of new commments to all the theatres you have posted on in the past.
Email notifications of responses are now working for me.
Everything is now back to normal.
Patrick, take the weekend off,see a movie,you deserve it.
Job well done!
Patrick, I am no longer having any problems logging on, in addition I recievd an email notice today regarding this thread. However I still wonder what happens to all those theatres I had ben reciving
e-mail notifications about over the years and wonder if that is going to be a problem.
Sorry you have had to work so hard getting everything back to normal, just know, all of your efforts are very much appreciated.
Great news! Is there going to be a problem with getting updates from theatres we originaly checked at the bottom to recieve new comments?
Oh happy day, I was finally able to log in today. I have not rec’d any ….someone responded.. mail in quite a while. Will that correct itself?
Michael, I am afraid I may have confused you. At that time, we only had Dolby stereo processors in only one other location besides the Cinerama, and that was one side of the Waikiki Twins.
Royal Development Company, or Royal theatres, had Dolby installed at the Royal and one side of the Marina Twins. We did however have several locations with magnetic non-Dolby installations.
Wesley and I decided to test playing SVR prints through some of our old magnetic sound systems by installing stereo solar cells in those systems. Since the Cinerama was one of the few theatres with stereo optical solar cells, we made the test there with “The Wizâ€. Thinking back, while I am not sure,
I believe we must have played “The Wiz in Dolby Stereo.
When we tested the SVR print at the Cinerama we tied the stereo solar cells directly to the old Cinerama mag system, bypassing the Dolby processor. It worked, but without surrounds or Dolby EQ of course.
Since magnetic prints were becoming scarce, we were just trying to come up with a way to run stereo in our non-Dolby theatres. “The Wiz†did not do well and we lost interest in for a while.
I was relentless in my push to install Dolby in all our locations; but it was not until the very early 1980s when we were able to convince the bosses at Consolidated that Dolby was here to stay. It was then they loosened up the checkbook and allowed me to by more systems.
Until that time, we ran several 70mm prints at the Waikiki twins without Dolby. I recall when we played E.T, Universal struck a 70mm print for the Waikiki #1 which was not Dolby encoded, which we played through our old six track mag system. Eventually we installed Dolby in both sides of the Waikiki and Marina Twins.
I wish I could reach Wesley to enlighten us a bit more, perhaps his memory is sharper than mine,
Also there is an old friend of mine, who posts here from time to time, by the name of Scott who worked with us in those days who might remember more good stuff. I still recall the first time Scott ran 70mm at the Cinerama, when the unexpected print arrived he called me up all excited telling me how he was about to “wallow in 70mmâ€. Scott, are you out there??
Michael I hope I cleared up any questions you may have. I am sorry I did not make myself clear the first time, old age ya know :)
I am wishing you best of luck for a trouble free conversion.
I am looking forward to many more years of sharing information and memories with all my friends at Cinema Treasures.
Evelyn was a big help to me when I ran the Amboy Multipex, she was very well liked by the staff and other managers. Because of her vast experience, Evelyn was able to mentor many of the new managers coming in, something she enjoyed doing. She was sick for quite a while but continued working, after the Amboy Multiplex closd Evelyn helped out for a while at the Hazlet Mutilpex. She will be missed.
Al, that’s true, and how about those prints that arrive direct from the lab still on cores. Lab splices have always been a thorn in my butt, however the cost is of a print wihout lab splices is higher, It is refered to as no-splice-stock and while a studio can demand certain prints be struck that way it does increase the cost per print.
For those of you not familiar with lab spices, they are the result of one or more rolls of left over stock spliced together to make up one 2000' roll. For example, since a roll of raw stock is 2000' in length, when a reel of a movie runs 1700', the remaining 300' is then joined together with another roll of left over stock to make up a full roll of 2000'. The end result is a 2000'roll of spliced raw stock. Unfortunatly the splices are cement splices and are very narrow, causing them to be fragile, and can break or open up very easily during a prints run. In addition, if when the splice is made, any light that should strike the roll of stock causes an ugly blotch of even as much as two frames which is very noticablle in the struck print. I would always cut those lab splices out and resplice the print properly.
That flaking you refered to, or what I called the evil white powder, never stops coming off the print no matter how long you run it and gets everywhere in the projector.
William, I wondered how long it would be before they stopped putting our beloved cue marks on prints. I shall miss em.I wonder if
reel-to-reel houses (the few left)can still buy cue scribers.
Note to TommyR, I hope you will forgive us for some of the off topic discussions contained in your thread.
Al, I am shocked to read about the problems you are encountering.
In all the years I spent in the booth (post mylar) I never heard of the problems you write about. Soundtracks cracking after a week?
I have run many prints on a platter for up to 8 weeks without a problem. I wonder if any one else can explain what the heck is going on with our prints in Europe.
Denny, true about the wet splicing, fortunatly however, I don’t think to many folks are still splicing that way. One fact remains, mylar is tough on projection equipment.
Also the testing both written and practical you described is very much the way it was in NY back in the day.
On Long Island, where a licence is not needed, practical tests used to given by the union before one can start work there. I am not sure if that is still required, one would imagine so.
Michael and Ed, The D-150 was in Woodbury, Zip code 11797.
I know there has been a lot of confusion about all this, but I lived in Woodbury at the Fairhaven town houses which are located directly across the dtreet from D-150. In fact I could see the atraction board from my kitchen window. I worked Syosset as a single screen duing the period 1962 thru 1972, and then both houses from 1983 thru 1987. I worked on the installation when the Syosset was triplexed and worked it part time for a while. At no time do I recall the
D-150 ever being called anything but Cinema 150. If it was ever called the “Syosset” it would have had to have been after October
1987 which is when I ran my last show (Dirty Dancing)there.
Michael, I can’t recall which closed first the Syosset triplex or the D-150, perhaps if the triplex closed first they may have renamed the D-150 as “Syosset”. That would be odd however since the theatre was in Woodbury. OK Michael my friend, you now have you work cut out for you to sort all this out. If anyone can do it, you can. :)
Alavarez, I wonder if you are a bit confused, the prints we use today, and have for a while now, are made up on mylar stock which is very durable.
Prints are hard to break (tear)and do not scratch as easily as they did in the past when safety film stock was in use.
In the old days we had a lot of problems with broken (stripped)or torn sprocket holes but since mylar was introduced the print damage has decreased considerably. The one down side of mylar is that it may be too tough, now if a print jams it does not break and can cause damage to gears and other parts of a projector.
Try it for yourself, take a strip of mylar and try and tear it with your bare hands, you will not be able to do it. Then if you can find a piece of safety stock you will find you will be able to tear it easily.