For the premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the program includes short subjects, a theatre orchestra overture by Al Erickson directing, and a prologue by Sid Grauman.
Thank you Warren.
Working in the theatres in those times were something very special, when I was assigned to do a shift at the SI Paramount I could not wait to get there. It was one of Fabian’s favorite theatres, we got all the new toys to play with : )
The Parampount was the first SI theatre to install CinemaScope, I remember working most of Christmas Eve, much to the horror of my family, while the new screen and sound system were installed for the Christmas day opening.
Hello Michael, I wondered, as our 70mm resident expert, you might give your facts or opinions on what happened to 70mm/DTS. When it first came along I rhought there was real hope for the same resurgence of 70mm we had in the 80s, all the eliments were there, the huge cost of magnetic stripping the prints was eliminated and the cost to theatres, already equipt for 35mm DTS, would be only a 70mm reader, I even invisioned a reader that could accomadate both 35 and 70. So what happened? was it the Digital picture revolution, which by the way has not exactly set the movie biz on fire, when is the last time you saw a movie presented in a digital picture format.
It just seemed to make good sense, I even thought perhaps Dolby would find a way to include digital sound codeing on 70mm prints.
Alas, other than a few pictures, as you indicated, it never came to pass. What are your thoughts?
The name of the test film is RP40 and can be purchased from most cinema supply houses. Theatres should have this tool to check the proper presentation of all aspect ratios, it is usually purchased in 50'lengths and can be made into a loop which can be run while cutting plates, setting masking, scope configeration and picture centering.
Congratulations to Joe the projectionist for doing it right. He is probably from the old school who enjoys “putting on a show” as much as we do seeing it done properly. Who knows, Joe may have read our comments and learned something :)
I would also like to suggest to Clearview that they invest in an
SMPTE test loop which will enable the tech/projectionist to cut the aperatures and mask the screen to the exact 1:33/1:37 ratio. I have seen too many theatres simply throw a white light on to the sheet and cut the plates to fill it. There is an exact science to presenting movies in the proper aspect ratio and all the tools needed are easily available.
Bravo Howard, that needed to be said, I am as guilty as anyone here for Clearview bashing, however they have been listining to our comments and appear to be trying, quite frankly I do not think they simply thought,the heck with it just show the darn movies. I am willing to bet Clearview has a better understanding of what they should be doing to present these films properly, and will in the future do the classics justice. As for “Singing in the Rain”, I suggest Clearview contact their equipment vendor with the screen size and projection throw to optain proper prime lenses for 1.33 projection. Once that is done it will be a simple matter of masking the screen accordingly. National Amusements has a classic film day once a month in many locations and have purchased lenses to ensure movies are presented in the proper 1.33 ratio.
Clearview should do the same.
Bob, my 3-d days were as an apprentace (reel boy) on Staten Island.
I worked the Paramount, St. George, Ritz, and latter on Lane
I can’t remember titles to well but I do remember The Paramount with “Man in the Dark” and a movie I can’t recall the title of but I do remember the opening shot of a girl on a swing, I recall that one because it was my first time with a major screw up, the images were out of sync, so to our horror we watched the swing go once on the left eye and then again on the right eye, yikes!
“House of Wax” was at the St.George and Ritz, we started out with a 3-D print of “French Line” at the Ritz but had to go to flat (too many problems) The glases were always a problem, people seemed to hate them. Improvements came with the new “Scoop” plastic frame glasses, which were more popular. 3-D projection was plagued with problems, I think it was one of the reasons exibitors started to shy away from it, in addition the novelty soon wore off and the public became disinterested. An other thing I hated weas when we had a film break, in those days it was all safety film which is not as strong as the mylar we use today. If let’s say the left eye print broke and you had to remove any frames, you would have to slug the print with black leader to make up for the lost frames in order to keep the two prints in sync. We NEVER cut the same number of frames lost in the left print out of the right print to even it out. So if you ever remember watching a 3-D movie and suddenly saw your right or left eye go black for a second, that’s what happened.
You are quitw right about the studios not allowing pristine prints run on a platter, however I understood the Ziegfeld had two projectors but were using only one with a platter. If so they could get the prints and run reel to reel, has that situation changed? I never understood running a platter in a single screen when you have two projectors.
The 10-12 man Cinerama rule represented the total number of men assigned to the theatre, with five or six, depending on the location, per performance. Generally there would be one man in A booth, three men in B booth, and one man in C booth. Again depending on the set up you might have a man in the upstairs booth handling the 35mm “Opps” reel and possibly lightining and curtain, however in some locations that was controlled by an electrician. Basically it varied from location to location.
Yes Bob, it’s coming back to me now, in fact I seem to recall having a sound tech, I think from WB, who ran the sound tracks, it was a bit busy because in some locations the unions insisted on two projectionists for 3-D projection.
I very much enjoyed Stan’s post, we would have made a good team Stan, I would also use soundtrack albums to replicate overtures when there was none. As to the two projectionist rule, we alwys had em for 3-D and 70mm, in fact, for Cinerama there were as many as 5 guys in the booth. Later in the early 70s some of the circuts cut the second man and one man ran the show with an increase of salary for the engagement. Then when so many roadshows were 35mm, the theatre owners baulked and insisted on the elimination of both the two men and premium pay scale. The last 35mm roadshow I ran with a premium rate was “Fiddler on the Roof” I also recall the automation installation at the Ziegeld, I think it was for the 70mm roadshow of “Marooned”. They had some clown in a little booth in the rear of the orchestra seats with a bunch of buttons like “The Wizard od Oz” doing God knows what. He made a comment something to the effect that “we really don’t need those guys in the booth” Upon hearing of this I gave the little jack**s a piece of my mind. I was youger then and pretty full of myself, not to mention very proud of what I did for a living.
Another point about all this is, we were overwelmed with all the new sound and picture formats we were hit with in the early 50s. It’s a little difficult to remember what we ran and how we presented it, I had enough trouble remembering what the heck we were doing at the time, plus I’m an old man :) Bless you Bob for keeping it all straight.
I recall running “Charge at Feather River” and “House of Wax” with the left eye print print having 3 mag tracks (left, center, right) along with a composite optical back up track, and the right eye print with a surround (optical) track, it was a loooooong time ago so I could be a little off here, but it’s as best as I can recall. As for “Kate” I never ran the sound on a seperate interlock so unless the print was either Prespecta or 4 track mag, it must have been optical mono.
Bob, I ran “Kiss Me Kate” in that 3-D format with Prespecta sound,
Wait till they all see that! it will knock their socks off.
As Ann Miller sings
“it’s too darn hot”!
I worked for 20th Century Fox during the 50s, and since most of our films played the Roxy, I attended many shows there. I did not appreciate the grand theatre enough back then, basically took it for granted I quess. Once inside the Roxy or Paramount you entered a wonderful world of make believe like nothing we have today.
well… you don’t know what you’ll miss till it’s gone.
Thank you EdSolero for that wonderful post, it was kind of you to take the time to do that. I for one always get great pleasure in those trips down memory lane.
Yes andreco, during the roadshow heyday we always ran a technical rehersal of both the show print and the back up. I am not sure what goes on today in most theatres, but I can tell you National Amusements, which was the last company I worked for before I retired, has an excellent company policy which states all prints must be screened the night before they open. I spent many a night running prints till three or four in the morning. Since we were running platters, the main purpose of the screenings was to be sure there were no mistakes in continuity or misframes, but if there was a print problem we had an 800# to call to get a replacement
reel/print. In the old days we would get pre inspected prints from a film exchange, now however, it is not out of the ordinary to get the prints straight from the lab. Although it was rare, I did have a couple of times when I recived two reel 3s and no reel 4 etc. The worst case was when I called to tell the exchange I was missing the 5th reel of a movie and had recived two reel 4s, so guess what they sent me, yup… another reel four.
Good point Erik, unfortunatly what I believe is happing here is the projectionist are doing a simple “cookie cutter” presentaion, thread the film, push a button and that’s it. If they wanted to put on a show they could, but it seems they don’t. If I were the projectionist at the Ziegfeld I waould be choppin at the bit to present the classic films as close to the original presentation as possible. Case in point is Ben Hur, instead of allowing the overture to run with the lights down and the curtain open, it would be a simple matter to do it properly, heaven only knows why they chose to run it the way they did, there simply is no excuse for it, even if the Zigfeld is running thru some sort of automation it couild easily be by-passed and the overture run manually. Come on guys, admit it, your just being lazy! Show us a little showmanship for heavens sake.
Well.. I suppose I knew the presentations of these old roadshow movies would not be the same as they were when I ran them back in the day. I would ask REndres if the Ziegfeld uses automation to run the show these days, If so , that would somewhat explain the lights down and curtain open problem. Of course if they wanted to do it right,the simple solution would be to just not use the automation and do everything manualy, I would be happy to teach them how :)
Thanks Clearview for the promise to pay paying closer attention to
print condition. Now one last thing before “Lawrence”, lets present the movies in the true roadshow format. Try it, you’ll like it.
The reference to “Hello Dolly” reminmded me of the technical rehersal (dry run) we had at the Rivoli, the fox guys were there and insisted on putting in their two cents. For the intermission we cued the curtain to close in time with the speed of the Rivoli’s curtain, which meant the curtain started to close before the words Intermission appeared. Well the Fox guys did not like that and told the UA tech, Joe Kelly, and I to start the curtain only after the words Intermission appeared. With protest we complied, the result was a white screen for about 20 seconds as the words Intermission
faded out. While Joe and I cringed, we heard one of the Fox guys cry “perfect”. “Yeah sure” said Joe, “that aint gonna happen”
The opening night audience saw the intermission with the two curtain panels kissing as the Intermission faded out. There was to be no white sheet (screen) showing at the Rivoli. P.S. We got our way and never heard anymore about it.
Perhaps when clearview made the decsion to have the festival, the film buyer should have had a discussion with the studio regarding print availabilily. If the studio could not promise a good quality print of MFL, the picture should not have been booked at all. I still believe the poor presentation of MFL was the fault of Clearview dropping the ball here and not the studio. As ALAvarez pointed out, Clearview can only play the prints that are available.
I just feel, under the circumstances, MFL should not have been played. I promise not to vent about this any longer. I only hope Clearview will pay more attention to print quality next time.
For the premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the program includes short subjects, a theatre orchestra overture by Al Erickson directing, and a prologue by Sid Grauman.
Do we know if the original 1933 Roxy/Music hall run included overture?
Opps, now I’ve started something : )
TCM has now included the overture when they play the film.
Oh, I forgot to mention the name of the picture which was of course “The Robe”
Thank you Warren.
Working in the theatres in those times were something very special, when I was assigned to do a shift at the SI Paramount I could not wait to get there. It was one of Fabian’s favorite theatres, we got all the new toys to play with : )
The Parampount was the first SI theatre to install CinemaScope, I remember working most of Christmas Eve, much to the horror of my family, while the new screen and sound system were installed for the Christmas day opening.
Warren, I worked the SI Paramount for that engagement, would you happen to have the newspaper ad?
Hello Michael, I wondered, as our 70mm resident expert, you might give your facts or opinions on what happened to 70mm/DTS. When it first came along I rhought there was real hope for the same resurgence of 70mm we had in the 80s, all the eliments were there, the huge cost of magnetic stripping the prints was eliminated and the cost to theatres, already equipt for 35mm DTS, would be only a 70mm reader, I even invisioned a reader that could accomadate both 35 and 70. So what happened? was it the Digital picture revolution, which by the way has not exactly set the movie biz on fire, when is the last time you saw a movie presented in a digital picture format.
It just seemed to make good sense, I even thought perhaps Dolby would find a way to include digital sound codeing on 70mm prints.
Alas, other than a few pictures, as you indicated, it never came to pass. What are your thoughts?
I agree Stan, I mean it’s a whole lot better than watching Gene Kelly dancing with no head or just his head and no feet :)
The name of the test film is RP40 and can be purchased from most cinema supply houses. Theatres should have this tool to check the proper presentation of all aspect ratios, it is usually purchased in 50'lengths and can be made into a loop which can be run while cutting plates, setting masking, scope configeration and picture centering.
Congratulations to Joe the projectionist for doing it right. He is probably from the old school who enjoys “putting on a show” as much as we do seeing it done properly. Who knows, Joe may have read our comments and learned something :)
I would also like to suggest to Clearview that they invest in an
SMPTE test loop which will enable the tech/projectionist to cut the aperatures and mask the screen to the exact 1:33/1:37 ratio. I have seen too many theatres simply throw a white light on to the sheet and cut the plates to fill it. There is an exact science to presenting movies in the proper aspect ratio and all the tools needed are easily available.
Bravo Howard, that needed to be said, I am as guilty as anyone here for Clearview bashing, however they have been listining to our comments and appear to be trying, quite frankly I do not think they simply thought,the heck with it just show the darn movies. I am willing to bet Clearview has a better understanding of what they should be doing to present these films properly, and will in the future do the classics justice. As for “Singing in the Rain”, I suggest Clearview contact their equipment vendor with the screen size and projection throw to optain proper prime lenses for 1.33 projection. Once that is done it will be a simple matter of masking the screen accordingly. National Amusements has a classic film day once a month in many locations and have purchased lenses to ensure movies are presented in the proper 1.33 ratio.
Clearview should do the same.
Bob, my 3-d days were as an apprentace (reel boy) on Staten Island.
I worked the Paramount, St. George, Ritz, and latter on Lane
I can’t remember titles to well but I do remember The Paramount with “Man in the Dark” and a movie I can’t recall the title of but I do remember the opening shot of a girl on a swing, I recall that one because it was my first time with a major screw up, the images were out of sync, so to our horror we watched the swing go once on the left eye and then again on the right eye, yikes!
“House of Wax” was at the St.George and Ritz, we started out with a 3-D print of “French Line” at the Ritz but had to go to flat (too many problems) The glases were always a problem, people seemed to hate them. Improvements came with the new “Scoop” plastic frame glasses, which were more popular. 3-D projection was plagued with problems, I think it was one of the reasons exibitors started to shy away from it, in addition the novelty soon wore off and the public became disinterested. An other thing I hated weas when we had a film break, in those days it was all safety film which is not as strong as the mylar we use today. If let’s say the left eye print broke and you had to remove any frames, you would have to slug the print with black leader to make up for the lost frames in order to keep the two prints in sync. We NEVER cut the same number of frames lost in the left print out of the right print to even it out. So if you ever remember watching a 3-D movie and suddenly saw your right or left eye go black for a second, that’s what happened.
You are quitw right about the studios not allowing pristine prints run on a platter, however I understood the Ziegfeld had two projectors but were using only one with a platter. If so they could get the prints and run reel to reel, has that situation changed? I never understood running a platter in a single screen when you have two projectors.
The 10-12 man Cinerama rule represented the total number of men assigned to the theatre, with five or six, depending on the location, per performance. Generally there would be one man in A booth, three men in B booth, and one man in C booth. Again depending on the set up you might have a man in the upstairs booth handling the 35mm “Opps” reel and possibly lightining and curtain, however in some locations that was controlled by an electrician. Basically it varied from location to location.
Yes Bob, it’s coming back to me now, in fact I seem to recall having a sound tech, I think from WB, who ran the sound tracks, it was a bit busy because in some locations the unions insisted on two projectionists for 3-D projection.
I very much enjoyed Stan’s post, we would have made a good team Stan, I would also use soundtrack albums to replicate overtures when there was none. As to the two projectionist rule, we alwys had em for 3-D and 70mm, in fact, for Cinerama there were as many as 5 guys in the booth. Later in the early 70s some of the circuts cut the second man and one man ran the show with an increase of salary for the engagement. Then when so many roadshows were 35mm, the theatre owners baulked and insisted on the elimination of both the two men and premium pay scale. The last 35mm roadshow I ran with a premium rate was “Fiddler on the Roof” I also recall the automation installation at the Ziegeld, I think it was for the 70mm roadshow of “Marooned”. They had some clown in a little booth in the rear of the orchestra seats with a bunch of buttons like “The Wizard od Oz” doing God knows what. He made a comment something to the effect that “we really don’t need those guys in the booth” Upon hearing of this I gave the little jack**s a piece of my mind. I was youger then and pretty full of myself, not to mention very proud of what I did for a living.
Another point about all this is, we were overwelmed with all the new sound and picture formats we were hit with in the early 50s. It’s a little difficult to remember what we ran and how we presented it, I had enough trouble remembering what the heck we were doing at the time, plus I’m an old man :) Bless you Bob for keeping it all straight.
I recall running “Charge at Feather River” and “House of Wax” with the left eye print print having 3 mag tracks (left, center, right) along with a composite optical back up track, and the right eye print with a surround (optical) track, it was a loooooong time ago so I could be a little off here, but it’s as best as I can recall. As for “Kate” I never ran the sound on a seperate interlock so unless the print was either Prespecta or 4 track mag, it must have been optical mono.
Bob, I ran “Kiss Me Kate” in that 3-D format with Prespecta sound,
Wait till they all see that! it will knock their socks off.
As Ann Miller sings
“it’s too darn hot”!
I worked for 20th Century Fox during the 50s, and since most of our films played the Roxy, I attended many shows there. I did not appreciate the grand theatre enough back then, basically took it for granted I quess. Once inside the Roxy or Paramount you entered a wonderful world of make believe like nothing we have today.
well… you don’t know what you’ll miss till it’s gone.
Memo to Clearview: Hire Bob Furmanek
Thank you EdSolero for that wonderful post, it was kind of you to take the time to do that. I for one always get great pleasure in those trips down memory lane.
Yes andreco, during the roadshow heyday we always ran a technical rehersal of both the show print and the back up. I am not sure what goes on today in most theatres, but I can tell you National Amusements, which was the last company I worked for before I retired, has an excellent company policy which states all prints must be screened the night before they open. I spent many a night running prints till three or four in the morning. Since we were running platters, the main purpose of the screenings was to be sure there were no mistakes in continuity or misframes, but if there was a print problem we had an 800# to call to get a replacement
reel/print. In the old days we would get pre inspected prints from a film exchange, now however, it is not out of the ordinary to get the prints straight from the lab. Although it was rare, I did have a couple of times when I recived two reel 3s and no reel 4 etc. The worst case was when I called to tell the exchange I was missing the 5th reel of a movie and had recived two reel 4s, so guess what they sent me, yup… another reel four.
Good point Erik, unfortunatly what I believe is happing here is the projectionist are doing a simple “cookie cutter” presentaion, thread the film, push a button and that’s it. If they wanted to put on a show they could, but it seems they don’t. If I were the projectionist at the Ziegfeld I waould be choppin at the bit to present the classic films as close to the original presentation as possible. Case in point is Ben Hur, instead of allowing the overture to run with the lights down and the curtain open, it would be a simple matter to do it properly, heaven only knows why they chose to run it the way they did, there simply is no excuse for it, even if the Zigfeld is running thru some sort of automation it couild easily be by-passed and the overture run manually. Come on guys, admit it, your just being lazy! Show us a little showmanship for heavens sake.
Well.. I suppose I knew the presentations of these old roadshow movies would not be the same as they were when I ran them back in the day. I would ask REndres if the Ziegfeld uses automation to run the show these days, If so , that would somewhat explain the lights down and curtain open problem. Of course if they wanted to do it right,the simple solution would be to just not use the automation and do everything manualy, I would be happy to teach them how :)
Thanks Clearview for the promise to pay paying closer attention to
print condition. Now one last thing before “Lawrence”, lets present the movies in the true roadshow format. Try it, you’ll like it.
The reference to “Hello Dolly” reminmded me of the technical rehersal (dry run) we had at the Rivoli, the fox guys were there and insisted on putting in their two cents. For the intermission we cued the curtain to close in time with the speed of the Rivoli’s curtain, which meant the curtain started to close before the words Intermission appeared. Well the Fox guys did not like that and told the UA tech, Joe Kelly, and I to start the curtain only after the words Intermission appeared. With protest we complied, the result was a white screen for about 20 seconds as the words Intermission
faded out. While Joe and I cringed, we heard one of the Fox guys cry “perfect”. “Yeah sure” said Joe, “that aint gonna happen”
The opening night audience saw the intermission with the two curtain panels kissing as the Intermission faded out. There was to be no white sheet (screen) showing at the Rivoli. P.S. We got our way and never heard anymore about it.
Perhaps when clearview made the decsion to have the festival, the film buyer should have had a discussion with the studio regarding print availabilily. If the studio could not promise a good quality print of MFL, the picture should not have been booked at all. I still believe the poor presentation of MFL was the fault of Clearview dropping the ball here and not the studio. As ALAvarez pointed out, Clearview can only play the prints that are available.
I just feel, under the circumstances, MFL should not have been played. I promise not to vent about this any longer. I only hope Clearview will pay more attention to print quality next time.