Hey Bob, I remember working the booth as relief projectionist for Ben Hur and later worked full time during 1970s.
It was a great theatre to work, friendly staff. Working for Century was top of the hill in those days.
Segask, my quess would be at least two.
The original 70mm six track mag speaker configeration used to be Five (5) stage speakers, #1 Left, #2 left center, #3 center
4 right center, #5 right, and channel#6 was for surrounds. Later on, when Dolby came along, the left center and right center channels became a mono sub woofer track (two speakers)and the fifth and sixth track became stereo surrounds. The same config continues today with Dolby Digital. Of course that was a few years ago before I retired, perhaps someone knows of any changes since then.
Everyone enjoy seeing RCMH on the Tony’s,
Gee the ole girl looked great!
I just wish they had scaled down the set, just a tad, so that the curtain could have gone up and down. The darn thing seems to always be in the up position. Markert and Leonidoff would never approve, right Vincent?
Garth, seeing what has become of that wonderful theatre is rather heartbreaking, I wish I had not gone inside. I would be interested in knowing what the plans for the building are.
Ed, your dad was a total pro, he loved his work and made working with him an absolute pleasure. I very much enjoyed stopping by the booth and visiting with him with pad and pen in order to make sure Ted got what ever he needed to keep the booth running.
I don’t know if you and I worked together, there was a lot of employee turn around in the days I was at Amboy. I was Managing Director for a little under a year during 1991, before taking on the simultanous openings of Newark and Atco Multiples in December 1991.
Did you know your dad helped design one of the first interlocks?
Thanks to him, we were able to simultaniously run a single print on two screens, something that would become common in most theatres in years to come.
Actually Wally, the JL twin I worked in Hawaii, which opened in 1972, had what was called a film transport system that utilized huge 15k reels, (roughly two hours and twenty minutes of film) that were mounted on the rear of the projector. Platters came along a year or two later I believe. Yikes, those reels were heavy, but you could rewind right on the projector. It was the second complex in Hawaii to use Xenon lamps,the first being the now closed Waikiki twins.
Yes Bway I would agree, however, circumstances I can not go into here will not allow it. The new building, which will be an improved Cinema Delux, will be state of the art.
I woulld agree with Jeff regarding the flicker problem. A shutter mis-alignment as the cause is not likely.
I would look for the problem to be either in the rectifier (power supply), possibly a bad diode, or most probably just a bulb that has exceeded it’s life. As for cost of a new bulb, I would imagine the lamp in question is at least 2000 watt, which costs about $500. There has been many stories of lamps burning well beyond the average life span of 2000-2500 hours, however, generally the rule of thumb for me has always been to replace them at 2000 hours. A 3000 watt bulb costs about $650.00 and should be changed after about 1500 hours. As Jeff pointed out, many theatre owners run the lamps well beyond the manufactures recommendations, sometimes untill they fail completly. National Amusements, the company I most recently worked for, has a policy of reporting the hours used on every lamp once a
month, bulbs reaching the end of the warranty period are expected to be replaced. Of course, without benefit of first hand knowledge of the problem at AMMI, I can only speculate as to the cause of the problem. Certainly based on what I have read in this thread, an inspection of the lamp source would be appropriate at this time.
Hal you make some interesting points. I have seen 70mm flurish thru the 50s, die off in the late 60s and come back to life bigger than even in the early 80s, but I think, except for Imax, 70mm is really dead this time. No one is installing 70mm anymore and exsisting locations are for the most part replacing magnetic capabilties with Digital. I really thought 70mm would come back with DTS, but sadly no, the trend is totally 35mm digital. The push now is for Digital Cinema, although I think it may be a while before Digital Cinema is the main sourse of exibition, I seriously doubt we will ever see 70mm again. You are correct about folks wanting to see movies in a theatre like our beloved Cinema 150, IMAX is very popular and often draws the biggest crowds for releases like Harry Potter and Poseidon, proving that perhaps the D-150 could have survived.
I am happy to have been around during the fab 50s and 60s when it seemed like a new film format was born every week. Now the movie magic is all digital and for me not much fun anymore
Consolidated and Royal always had a great professional relationship.
The CEOs were friendly rivals, if a Royal theatre went down, Consolidated was always there to help get it back up and running.
There were no booking wars, the movies were played based on studio.
Royal had exclusive rights to all Paramount, Disney and Avco Embassy releases and Consolidated played the rest. Now and again a popular film would cross over from Consolidated to Royal to play a second run. An example of that was the re-make of “A Star Is Born” which had a long run at Consolidated’s Waikiki#3 and then moved over to Royal’s Marina Twin. Both played the film in 35mm four track stereo.
Ok guys, here is as best as I can remember.
I do not recall the Kapiolani ever being operated by Royal; Consolidated ran it the whole time I was in Hawaii. However, there was a previous independent owner from Japan, possibly Nippon, which may have sold the theatre to Consolidated. Chuck, you mentioned the theatre was picked up by Consolidated in 1986, however Royal had sold all of its interests by then. I still remember Consolidated running “Star Wars†there, day and date with the Cinerama in 1977. I also recall in 1982 when the Royal theatre closed, we took the main gold waterfall stage curtain and installed it at the Kapiolani, the Royal had a second Blue traveler title curtain which we donated to a local school.
When Royal Development Company (Royal Theatres) began to dissolve in or around 1981, it’s two
Drive-ins, Waialie and Royal Sunset, were closed, the Queen was leased to a guy by the name of Mr. Yu who operated it as a porno house, Mr. Yu desperately wanted the King twin as well, but Royal’s Herman Rosen would not allow it. The Royal was closed and demolished in 1982, I drove Royal Theatres CEO, Herman Rosen, by the theatre as the first wrecking ball hit the building, he wanted to be there when the theatre he loved so much took it’s last dying breath. The Marina Twins, which by the way did not open in the 50s but in 1974, was built and operated by Royal, it was originally going to be called the Ilikai Twin, but problems with the corporation operating the Ilikai Hotel caused the name change. The Marina Twin was eventually taken over by Consolidated in the mid-late 1980s.
Royal’s other theater, the Kings Alley in Waikiki, was operated for a short time by Consolidated until it closed. Royal also built the Jerry Lewis twin in Kaneohe during 1972 and ran it a while before leasing it to an independent owner who changed the name to the Kaneohe Twin.
If you want more specific info on any of this let me know and I will try and recall what I can. I wore a lot of hats in those days, very little went on in the theatres in Hawaii that I was not involved with.
Thanks Chuck for another Hawaii adition.
We did indead close the Kapahuku but I thought it may have been as early as February of 1980, but I would have to research that. The building was torn down and replaced with retail space. I have no stories about this old gal, it was not much of a theatre, just a plain neiborhood house as I remember it.
Thank you Rob, my only concern was that the 35mm projection equipment I installed in the original booth was going to be used.
By NYC law, This would require using the services of a licenced motion picture operator. Since 35mm film will be used I will pass this information on.
Rob, When I stated there was no such thing as a 35mm screen I was of course speaking of the differences between a screen used to project film or slides and a screen designed for DVD or rear projection video etc. My question should have been, are you suppling a screen for film projection? Of the 20 or so movies being shown are anyone them planned in 35mm.
Rob, there is really no show thing as a 35mm screen.
Projection screens come in many sizes for use with DVD,video,slide or film. Are you suggesting that some of the movies will be presented on 35mm film? If so will the equipment I installed in the original booth be used.
Joshua, I was working for National Amusements at the time, I have sent you an E-Mail, perhaps I can help.
Ectojed, I opened the Hazlet Multiplex and remember 50 cent day, it is kind of a blur because we were swamped from opening to closing. The complex was sold out for much of the day, in fact the box-office lines often streached all the way to Route 35. By the way everything was 50 cents, including all the concession items. For $2 you could get a ticket, popcorn, hot dog and a soda.
Robert, it would be terrific if Mrs Rosemary held a 35mm classic film festival similar to the one presented this year at the Ziegfeld in New York. In January of 2004 I had the projection booth up and running again, I can only hope it remains that way now.
Vito, an extra apology to you-I truly am humiliated in looking at what I said)!
Gary
Thank you Gary, your apology is appreciated and accepted.
By the way, I miss the D-150 as well.
Some of us have been a little tough on Clearview, in retrospect I am sorry in some ways. I suppose being “old school” I wanted the shows to run the way I remembered them. However, as many have pointed out it was a good effort and I have a feeling Clearview learned a lot on this thread and the next festival will be even better.
Ziegfeld man, I am discusted by Gary’s street talk language in this forum and ask that you please not post such comments again. I would appreciate the moderators/owners delete the post.
Thanks movieman for that info, I was hoping someone could tell us what actually happened. It’s like they say, there as always two sides to every story. When film wraps around the intermittent sprocket,especially 70mm, it is very difficult to undue. As to runnung reel-to-reel, I would not think it would be very difficult to pick up another reader for the second projector. The whole 70mm DTS idea never really took off, and I’ll bet they have a few readers sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust that could be bought cheaply. I too have spent a lot of time in the booth (50 years) and still can’t understand why the classic old roadshow movies are shown
using a platter when there are two projectors in the booth. Would you have spliced the two parts to a movie with intermission and allowed the intrermission tag and entre'act music to play in a dark theatre with the curtain open, or would you have gotten up and performed a little showmanship magic? Come on now, that’s just a lazy, who gives a darn attitude, that does not belong in the Ziegfeld.
Good one, saps.
Yes Ed, a while back I asked REndres what equipment was in the booth and I believe he wrote both 35/70 projectors were still in the booth along with a platter and of course a digital projector as well.
This is probably how they are running the commercials, using the second projector set up for 35mm. If that is the case running reel-to reel is something they most certainly should be doing with these valuable prints. It is especially shocking to me that the operator (he’s no ptojectionist) could not fix the problem with the film break. The man has no business being in that booth, he should instead collect tickets at the door.
Stan, I hear what you are saying, but sometimes when the print sticks and several layers of film try to pass thru feed plate at the same time, you have to be quick and try to prevent the film from wrapping, it just makes matters worse the operator is not paying
attention to what is going on in the booth. As posted, he could not even start the second half properly but ran the commercials again.
Good grief! Sorry Clearview, you need to clean house in the booth,
and demand local 306 supply you with compatant professional projectionist.
Well, Jeff and Bill disagree on the sync problem, based on what Bill has written, my experince tells me a problem exsists with the time code, I have seen that before with 35mm, I never ran 70mm DTS but would assume the problems with the time code is similar.
Any techs out there? shed some light for us.
REndres, wanna weigh in on this?
Thanks for the fix!
I also did not receive any e-mail regarding responces to comments during that time. Is that fixed as well?
Hey Bob, I remember working the booth as relief projectionist for Ben Hur and later worked full time during 1970s.
It was a great theatre to work, friendly staff. Working for Century was top of the hill in those days.
Segask, my quess would be at least two.
The original 70mm six track mag speaker configeration used to be Five (5) stage speakers, #1 Left, #2 left center, #3 center
4 right center, #5 right, and channel#6 was for surrounds. Later on, when Dolby came along, the left center and right center channels became a mono sub woofer track (two speakers)and the fifth and sixth track became stereo surrounds. The same config continues today with Dolby Digital. Of course that was a few years ago before I retired, perhaps someone knows of any changes since then.
Everyone enjoy seeing RCMH on the Tony’s,
Gee the ole girl looked great!
I just wish they had scaled down the set, just a tad, so that the curtain could have gone up and down. The darn thing seems to always be in the up position. Markert and Leonidoff would never approve, right Vincent?
Garth, seeing what has become of that wonderful theatre is rather heartbreaking, I wish I had not gone inside. I would be interested in knowing what the plans for the building are.
Ed, your dad was a total pro, he loved his work and made working with him an absolute pleasure. I very much enjoyed stopping by the booth and visiting with him with pad and pen in order to make sure Ted got what ever he needed to keep the booth running.
I don’t know if you and I worked together, there was a lot of employee turn around in the days I was at Amboy. I was Managing Director for a little under a year during 1991, before taking on the simultanous openings of Newark and Atco Multiples in December 1991.
Did you know your dad helped design one of the first interlocks?
Thanks to him, we were able to simultaniously run a single print on two screens, something that would become common in most theatres in years to come.
Actually Wally, the JL twin I worked in Hawaii, which opened in 1972, had what was called a film transport system that utilized huge 15k reels, (roughly two hours and twenty minutes of film) that were mounted on the rear of the projector. Platters came along a year or two later I believe. Yikes, those reels were heavy, but you could rewind right on the projector. It was the second complex in Hawaii to use Xenon lamps,the first being the now closed Waikiki twins.
Yes Bway I would agree, however, circumstances I can not go into here will not allow it. The new building, which will be an improved Cinema Delux, will be state of the art.
I woulld agree with Jeff regarding the flicker problem. A shutter mis-alignment as the cause is not likely.
I would look for the problem to be either in the rectifier (power supply), possibly a bad diode, or most probably just a bulb that has exceeded it’s life. As for cost of a new bulb, I would imagine the lamp in question is at least 2000 watt, which costs about $500. There has been many stories of lamps burning well beyond the average life span of 2000-2500 hours, however, generally the rule of thumb for me has always been to replace them at 2000 hours. A 3000 watt bulb costs about $650.00 and should be changed after about 1500 hours. As Jeff pointed out, many theatre owners run the lamps well beyond the manufactures recommendations, sometimes untill they fail completly. National Amusements, the company I most recently worked for, has a policy of reporting the hours used on every lamp once a
month, bulbs reaching the end of the warranty period are expected to be replaced. Of course, without benefit of first hand knowledge of the problem at AMMI, I can only speculate as to the cause of the problem. Certainly based on what I have read in this thread, an inspection of the lamp source would be appropriate at this time.
Hal you make some interesting points. I have seen 70mm flurish thru the 50s, die off in the late 60s and come back to life bigger than even in the early 80s, but I think, except for Imax, 70mm is really dead this time. No one is installing 70mm anymore and exsisting locations are for the most part replacing magnetic capabilties with Digital. I really thought 70mm would come back with DTS, but sadly no, the trend is totally 35mm digital. The push now is for Digital Cinema, although I think it may be a while before Digital Cinema is the main sourse of exibition, I seriously doubt we will ever see 70mm again. You are correct about folks wanting to see movies in a theatre like our beloved Cinema 150, IMAX is very popular and often draws the biggest crowds for releases like Harry Potter and Poseidon, proving that perhaps the D-150 could have survived.
I am happy to have been around during the fab 50s and 60s when it seemed like a new film format was born every week. Now the movie magic is all digital and for me not much fun anymore
Consolidated and Royal always had a great professional relationship.
The CEOs were friendly rivals, if a Royal theatre went down, Consolidated was always there to help get it back up and running.
There were no booking wars, the movies were played based on studio.
Royal had exclusive rights to all Paramount, Disney and Avco Embassy releases and Consolidated played the rest. Now and again a popular film would cross over from Consolidated to Royal to play a second run. An example of that was the re-make of “A Star Is Born” which had a long run at Consolidated’s Waikiki#3 and then moved over to Royal’s Marina Twin. Both played the film in 35mm four track stereo.
Ok guys, here is as best as I can remember.
I do not recall the Kapiolani ever being operated by Royal; Consolidated ran it the whole time I was in Hawaii. However, there was a previous independent owner from Japan, possibly Nippon, which may have sold the theatre to Consolidated. Chuck, you mentioned the theatre was picked up by Consolidated in 1986, however Royal had sold all of its interests by then. I still remember Consolidated running “Star Wars†there, day and date with the Cinerama in 1977. I also recall in 1982 when the Royal theatre closed, we took the main gold waterfall stage curtain and installed it at the Kapiolani, the Royal had a second Blue traveler title curtain which we donated to a local school.
When Royal Development Company (Royal Theatres) began to dissolve in or around 1981, it’s two
Drive-ins, Waialie and Royal Sunset, were closed, the Queen was leased to a guy by the name of Mr. Yu who operated it as a porno house, Mr. Yu desperately wanted the King twin as well, but Royal’s Herman Rosen would not allow it. The Royal was closed and demolished in 1982, I drove Royal Theatres CEO, Herman Rosen, by the theatre as the first wrecking ball hit the building, he wanted to be there when the theatre he loved so much took it’s last dying breath. The Marina Twins, which by the way did not open in the 50s but in 1974, was built and operated by Royal, it was originally going to be called the Ilikai Twin, but problems with the corporation operating the Ilikai Hotel caused the name change. The Marina Twin was eventually taken over by Consolidated in the mid-late 1980s.
Royal’s other theater, the Kings Alley in Waikiki, was operated for a short time by Consolidated until it closed. Royal also built the Jerry Lewis twin in Kaneohe during 1972 and ran it a while before leasing it to an independent owner who changed the name to the Kaneohe Twin.
If you want more specific info on any of this let me know and I will try and recall what I can. I wore a lot of hats in those days, very little went on in the theatres in Hawaii that I was not involved with.
Thanks Chuck for another Hawaii adition.
We did indead close the Kapahuku but I thought it may have been as early as February of 1980, but I would have to research that. The building was torn down and replaced with retail space. I have no stories about this old gal, it was not much of a theatre, just a plain neiborhood house as I remember it.
Thank you Rob, my only concern was that the 35mm projection equipment I installed in the original booth was going to be used.
By NYC law, This would require using the services of a licenced motion picture operator. Since 35mm film will be used I will pass this information on.
Rob, When I stated there was no such thing as a 35mm screen I was of course speaking of the differences between a screen used to project film or slides and a screen designed for DVD or rear projection video etc. My question should have been, are you suppling a screen for film projection? Of the 20 or so movies being shown are anyone them planned in 35mm.
Rob, there is really no show thing as a 35mm screen.
Projection screens come in many sizes for use with DVD,video,slide or film. Are you suggesting that some of the movies will be presented on 35mm film? If so will the equipment I installed in the original booth be used.
Joshua, I was working for National Amusements at the time, I have sent you an E-Mail, perhaps I can help.
Ectojed, I opened the Hazlet Multiplex and remember 50 cent day, it is kind of a blur because we were swamped from opening to closing. The complex was sold out for much of the day, in fact the box-office lines often streached all the way to Route 35. By the way everything was 50 cents, including all the concession items. For $2 you could get a ticket, popcorn, hot dog and a soda.
Robert, it would be terrific if Mrs Rosemary held a 35mm classic film festival similar to the one presented this year at the Ziegfeld in New York. In January of 2004 I had the projection booth up and running again, I can only hope it remains that way now.
That’s not film, they should call it what it is, a DVD/Video festival
Vito, an extra apology to you-I truly am humiliated in looking at what I said)!
Gary
Thank you Gary, your apology is appreciated and accepted.
By the way, I miss the D-150 as well.
Some of us have been a little tough on Clearview, in retrospect I am sorry in some ways. I suppose being “old school” I wanted the shows to run the way I remembered them. However, as many have pointed out it was a good effort and I have a feeling Clearview learned a lot on this thread and the next festival will be even better.
Ziegfeld man, I am discusted by Gary’s street talk language in this forum and ask that you please not post such comments again. I would appreciate the moderators/owners delete the post.
Thanks movieman for that info, I was hoping someone could tell us what actually happened. It’s like they say, there as always two sides to every story. When film wraps around the intermittent sprocket,especially 70mm, it is very difficult to undue. As to runnung reel-to-reel, I would not think it would be very difficult to pick up another reader for the second projector. The whole 70mm DTS idea never really took off, and I’ll bet they have a few readers sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust that could be bought cheaply. I too have spent a lot of time in the booth (50 years) and still can’t understand why the classic old roadshow movies are shown
using a platter when there are two projectors in the booth. Would you have spliced the two parts to a movie with intermission and allowed the intrermission tag and entre'act music to play in a dark theatre with the curtain open, or would you have gotten up and performed a little showmanship magic? Come on now, that’s just a lazy, who gives a darn attitude, that does not belong in the Ziegfeld.
Good one, saps.
Yes Ed, a while back I asked REndres what equipment was in the booth and I believe he wrote both 35/70 projectors were still in the booth along with a platter and of course a digital projector as well.
This is probably how they are running the commercials, using the second projector set up for 35mm. If that is the case running reel-to reel is something they most certainly should be doing with these valuable prints. It is especially shocking to me that the operator (he’s no ptojectionist) could not fix the problem with the film break. The man has no business being in that booth, he should instead collect tickets at the door.
Stan, I hear what you are saying, but sometimes when the print sticks and several layers of film try to pass thru feed plate at the same time, you have to be quick and try to prevent the film from wrapping, it just makes matters worse the operator is not paying
attention to what is going on in the booth. As posted, he could not even start the second half properly but ran the commercials again.
Good grief! Sorry Clearview, you need to clean house in the booth,
and demand local 306 supply you with compatant professional projectionist.
Ed, unless they have removed the second projector, there should be no real cost to stop using the platter. Have they removed the second projector?
Well, Jeff and Bill disagree on the sync problem, based on what Bill has written, my experince tells me a problem exsists with the time code, I have seen that before with 35mm, I never ran 70mm DTS but would assume the problems with the time code is similar.
Any techs out there? shed some light for us.
REndres, wanna weigh in on this?