Cone: Thank you for taking the time to comment on this site. I have very fond memories of working for Modular in the early 70’s and to this day keep in touch with some of the people I met there. Most of my work was at Sandy Springs although I also spent a good bit of time at Peachtree Battle and Doraville. I never knew anyone at this location until I started managing the South DeKalb in 1974 by which time it was a Weis operation.
That is an interesting story about the seats and equipment. I was really surprised when I first walked into Candler by the condition of the furnishings since I always thought that Sandy Springs and Doraville were very nicely appointed. All of that was before I started working in theatres and I assumed that the company must have changed hands or something when the Candler was built since it was so different.
Assuming that you are the co-founder and not Cone Jr., I can recall meeting you a couple of times when you attended movies at Sandy Springs. Roger McClure was the manager at that time. Aaron Bouldin was at Doraville, Bill Henley was at Peachtree Battle, and Bill Sheely was the roving relief manager / operator. I was still a college student just doing hourly work wherever I could pick up some work that fit my schedule, but I also did a lot of film and concession supply delivery which is how I got to know people at the other theatres. Those were great times to work in theatres and your little neighborhood chain was a good place to learn the trade before it became dominated by the big corporations and multiplexes and megaplexes of today.
You should take a look at the Sandy Springs page on this site. Barbara Gentry has posted some information about how her dad and you started the company. It is listed under the name Sandy Springs Theatre. Perhaps you could shine some light on the time when Sandy Springs went independent while the rest of the Mini Cinemas operated under a kind of co-op agreement with Storey before getting back together as Mini Cinemas.
Thanks again. I am still in this business after all of these years and many of my favorite memories are thanks to your company and the people I met there. Just this past weekend a group of retired managers, projectionists and friends from those days had our regular lunch and get together at the old Sandy Springs site which is now The Brickery restaurant.
Nope. Like you I was assuming that Jack meant indoor theatres, or as they say in the trades, walk in or hardtops.
The Starlight opened the south field in 1949 and the north in 1953. The south was closed for a while when the snack bar burned. The north closed a year later when it was split. Every winter one side or the other closes for the season, something I never understood the theory on. However, as far as I know, at least something has been open there since opening day although they close on Christmas Eve, and for the occasional power outage.
I no longer work there, at least regularly, but I did write a history of the place on its page here:
As for indoors, without looking at a list, I can think of the Grand, the Fox, Garden Hills / Fine Art, Plaza (if you count its XXX years), and the Lenox which might have been only 39 years 8 months. I hesitate to even go down this road because I know that people will start listing reasons why some of these places were not in continious operation. Even the Tara shut down once for two days when it was first twinned.
Maybe I should start off the previous paragraph with the words “Generally speaking….”
Most of the indoor theatres built during the 60’s lasted only 25 or so years at the most, some a lot less. I think that the shortest existance for a regular indoor theatre (as opposed to some of the XXX storefront operations) was the Atlantic, an Eastern Federal location on Memorial Drive in or near the Kirkwood area. It lasted only about 5 years.
Doctor Zhivago played at the Ritz during the fall of 1966 not 1965. I saw it for the second time on its final night of the run which was December 22, 1966. The next day, December 23 was the day I saw the Sound Of Music which I also mention in that post.
Thanks to Michael Coate for helping get the dates right.
Thanks for that information Michael. Your research efforts never cease to amaze me. At least this time I caught my memory lapse before you had to point it out to me. This confirms to me that I saw Doctor Zhivago for the second time on the night of December 22, 1966, and then SOM the next afternoon.
This means that SOM played its reserved seat engagement for four months at the Eastwood Mall (not really that long compared to some of the engagements in comparable cities), left for 13 months, and then returned for four more months at the Ritz. This also means that it was the Christmas attraction at the Ritz that year. I hope they got another print quick as I can not imagine that one lasting for another four days much less four months.In all of my years of attending and working in movie theatres I have seen movies that looked worse, but never encountered anything like the breaks and delays of that SOM show, which is probably the reason I remember it so well.
The only time even close was when I was managing a theatre running Elephant Man with a defective print. The black and white emulsion started flaking off and jamming the gates to the point that by the end of the opening weekend, we were having 2 to 3 breaks a show. It got so bad that before the lights were dimmed I would make an announcement telling the sold out house what was going to happen and why. A few people took my advice to get a refund and try again the next weekend when we would have a new print, but most people were good natured about it. At least the projectionist was ready for trouble and we were back on screen quickly with minimum missing footage.
Bill: White Castle has made it as far south as Nashville, so I have tasted them. The only difference I could notice is that Krystal’s did not have holes and were, of course, much MUCH better. In those early to mid 60’s days, we would usually see a movie on Friday nights a couple of times a month. Usually as a family, but sometimes our parents would drop my older brother and me off at our movie and go see a more adult film at a different theatre. We would then meet at the Krystal when our movies were over. All of this was in about a 6 square block area, but now it is hard to imagine two boys ages 7 and 12 going to a downtown movie alone to say nothing of walking to the Krystal on a Friday night in downtown Birmingham, or anywhere else for that matter.
I guess movies were not the only things that were better about those days.
Michael: One more note on my last comment. The more I think about it the more I think that I have the date wrong. No suprise there is it? (Bob, I feel your pain.)
I know the Ritz engagement of SOM started the day after the end of the run of Doctor Zhivago. I attended the final performance of Zhivago and remember the marquee and lobby posters were changed when the movie ended. That is how I found out about SOM starting there the next day. Since I had never heard of Zhivago until we watched the Academy Awards the night SOM won, that means that the SOM engagement at the Ritz had to have been Christmas of 1966.
That would still put it ahead of some initial engagements of some notable cities, but not as outrageous as I first thought. Maybe some day you could do an article on Doctor Zhivago. I have a whole boatload of stories about that one.
Thanks Bill and Bob for the kind words. I always enjoy reading your posts on the Ziegfeld page. I got so engrossed in that discussion once that I made a trip to NYC to see one of the first Classic Series showings.
On the subject of the 70MM staffing question, I can only speak for the practice here in Atlanta. In the 60’s theatres with IATSE contracts had a choice of paying two operators for 70MM showings or pay time and a half for one man. This also applied to 35MM runs of reserved seat engagements. The last time I recall this coming into play was in April of 1973 at the Atlanta Theatre when they ran the 70MM reissue of This Is Cinerama. That was also the only time I ever saw the time and a half for one man option used.
Michael: I have a Birmingham note to add. Your research shows that SOM played at the Eastwood Mall for 17 weeks starting in July of 1965 which would take it up to around Thanksgiving. I recall that I saw it again at the downtown Ritz Theatre during Christmas holidays. I think this was just a filler until the Christmas attraction for the Ritz started. I do not recall it being a moveover since there was a break between the engagements. I described that showing in my post on the Ritz page: /theaters/9396/
I see your list did not mention this engagement. Do you think there were any runs of this nature during Christmas of 1965 which was prior to many cities getting a booking. I am pretty sure this was 1965 since I recall it being shortly after the Eastwood run ended. Of course I am going on my memory here, and you of all people know what can happen when I start doing that.
Thanks Michael for another one of your exercises in research. I have always enjoyed your efforts to list the movies that played in certain theatres and what theatres played some notable movies.
For me, SOM was one of those watershed movies that opened up a whole new area of interest, namely musicals, just like The Longest Day did for war movies and Doctor Zhivago did for historical drama. I can remember the day I first saw SOM like it was yesterday. I still have my reserved seat ticket stub from the Eastwood Mall Theatre in Birmingham with its SOM logo printed on it. The date has faded, but it was a Friday, October 13th I think, 1965. 2 PM showing. I was 13, and even in those days we had teacher work days, just not as many as they do now. My mother offered to take me out to lunch and then all the way out to Eastwood Mall to see the movie. Going to Eastwood, which was a long way on the other side of Birmingham in those pre expressway days, was always a treat since it was one of the first enclosed malls in the southeast.
I fell in love with everything about this movie that day. The beautiful picture, impressive locations, wonderful music, and an entertaining story really made it a day to remember. On the way home we picked my dad up at work, and I could not wait to tell him about my day. He did his parental duty and listened, then told me that he was happy I enjoyed the movie, but he would pass on it. O well. He was a Georgia Tech man who five years later would be paying for me to earn a liberal arts degree, so SOM was not the only thing we did not have in common. The next day, he did take me to the local Woolworths so I could buy the record, my first movie soundtrack. It still sits on my shelf to this day. Shortly after that was another first, a return visit to see the movie again. I remember seeing the same movie twice, but usually as the co feature at the drive in. This was the first time I returned to see a movie during the same engagement.
This was a great time to be starting an interest in movies. Titles such as the three I mentioned above plus Lawrence, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Man For All Seasons, Mary Poppins, and McLintock made movies hard to resist.
Like countless others, I have seen SOM many times over the years. In the late 60’s it made a final round of neighborhood theatres in Atlanta, where I was living by then, with the tag “Going Out Of Release Until 1973.” In late 1971, about the time I started working in theatres, there was word that Fox was hurting for money and was considering bringing SOM back a year early. However, French Connection bailed them out and the big reissue took place in April 1973. By this time, the Martin Cinerama in downtown Atlanta had been sold to the Walter Reade Org. and been renamed The Atlanta. This magnificent theatre with its 70MM Cinerama projectors, deeply curved screen, and plush appointments had run SOM in its premiere release for 90 weeks. In addition it had run 3 strip Brothers Grimm, HTWWW, and 70MM IAMMMMW and 2001, as well as musicals such as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary Poppins, Camelot, Fiddler On The Roof, Man Of La Mancha, and even Goodbye Mr. Chips. But times had changed and it was now preparing for a run of the third Ginger movie, Girls Are For Loving, to be followed by Super Fly TNT. Needless to say, SOM would not be returning to its Atlanta home.
Martins suburban Cinerama house, the Georgia Cinerama got the honor. Not as big or plush as the downtown theatre, it did have the 70MM projectors and curved Cinerama screen. They had a 12 week run of packed houses before the picture was pulled in July and sent on a wider “intermediate” break. By this time the thrill of The Atlanta had faded and I was working at the Sandy Springs Theatre which got one of the intermediate bookings. For five weeks I had the pleasure of seeing this show as much as I liked, and on slow nights would prop the auditorium doors open so I could listen along as I worked. I was sure sorry when it had to go to make room for that next big Fox hit, Neptune Factor.
Within five years the video revolution had begun, and one of the first movies I bought to play in my $1200 RCA Selectavision VCR was a pan and scan copy of SOM from that producer of incredibly fuzzy, grainy, movies, the Magnetic Video Corp. I swear the thing looked like it was filmed in 8MM aimed at a screen showing a 16MM print. However, thinking that this was the ultimate in technology, I was happy to have it.
In the early 80’s a 70MM print of SOM showed up at the Rhodes Theatre which in better days had premiered such hits as West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, and Sand Pebbles, to say nothing of Darling Lilly. As a payback for that great afternoon 16 years earlier, I took my mother to see it, and then again a couple of months later when the same print showed up as part of the Fox Theatre summer film series.
In 1984, I passed through Saltzburg Austria, and spent a day seeing all of the SOM sites. I was impressed with how compact the city is and how many of the buildings and landmarks from the movie can be seen from one spot. The magic of film angles and editing made the place look much bigger. Even more so, the church where the wedding scene was filmed was amazingly small. I have photographed many places where movies scenes have been filmed over the years, but the one that hangs on my wall is a picture of my mother standing in front of the fountain where Julie Andrews and the children were dancing, with the castle in the background.
In the 90’s I started working in the projection booth of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, and twice have had the pleasure of running SOM. In fact, that is the only time I have run this picture as a projectionist. The last time, I had finished inspecting the film for the next day, and had the chance to relax and watch the last hour or so. Sitting on the window sill of the spotlight booth, looking out over a packed house of over 4000 people, it was impossible for me not to think back to that day about 30 years earlier when I first saw SOM and started a life long love affair with movies and theatres.
Dmorg: Thanks for that nice write up of your memories of the South Dekalb. Maybe I saw you on your first visit since on my first day as manager we were running Herbie and Crazy Mary Dirty Larry. This was a very enjoyable theatre to work in and even when busy was easy to run since you could stand in front of the box office and see almost the entire operation. The only time things got hectic was when you had to line people up in the mall for #1 or outside for #2.
Your memories of what type of movies played on which side may be correct, but content had nothing to do with it. During cold weather, we usually tried to put the busy movie in #1 so we could line people up inside the mall. This was always a problem as the line would get confused with the people in the mall and it was too easy for people to hang around the mall entrance and break in line once we started to let the people in. Whenever the weather permitted, the busy movie would be in #2 so we could run the line up the hall and outside.
Of course this all changed when they split the two houses. Then, things got too hectic with different showtimes and exit times so you just had to do the best you could and when possible stretch out the intermissions. On some movies like Jaws 2 and The Muppet Movie, and the Bo Derek Tarzan of all things, the crowds were so large you would have an entire sellout lined up while the previous movie was still on. No amount of intermission could solve that.
I have always thought that the original twin theatre was the nicest theatre combined with the best presentation of any theatre I ever worked in. Glad to see someone else noticed.
Mike, This is an odd page to bring up the Weis chain since this theatre was never operated by Weis and has spent the vast majority of its life as a porno house. However, since you asked, all of the Weis theatres in Atlanta have pages and comments on this site. They are:
Only the last two were actually built by Weis. All of the others were already operating, sometimes under different names, when purchased by Weis. You will have to read down into the comments section to get to the Weis information on these.
Dave Poland was gone from Atlanta by the time I went to work for GCC, and his place was taken by Larry Pittman. I first met Larry Anderson when he replaced Webb Brainerd, who was the opening manager for the Perimeter Mall Triple. I think Webb went to Columbia SC, but he eventually ended up in Dallas in the booking department.
Larry stayed at Perimeter until 1978 when he went to open the new Akers Mill. I think that he was replaced by Stu Hoffman. If not, Stu came in shortly afterwards. I never met Larry or Stu at the time, but before our GCC days we were all managers for Loews. I think that they were both in Miami then.
Larry stayed at Akers until he was made DM. I think that at one time he was a DM in another area, but most of the time he was in Atlanta. In the early 80’s he left GCC to become the head of operations for Septum Cinemas, an Atlanta based regional. He must have left with a return option, because in less than a year he was back, not starting over as a manager, but in his old DM job. In the late 80’s he left GCC to work for Storey, another Atlanta based local chain. Within months, Storey was bought out by Regal and last I heard he was in NC.
Stu left GCC and went to work for NCN, the intermission slide show advertising company. I last saw him in 1988 when he came by a theatre I was running to check the slide set up. That job was a natural for him. When he and Larry were managers for Larry Pittman, they would travel all over the Pittman district selling screen ads for the Christmas season. Each manager was supposed to do that, but many did not have the knack or interest, so Larry and Stu would earn a lot of comissions and the results for Pittman’s district would be near the top.
That is too bad about Craig Zacker. I only met him at the Northlake. From my recollection of him I would say the he was a prime candidate for a heart attack. I think that Larry Anderson used him as a helper because Craig enjoyed the work and did not mind the extra duties. Some of the managers thought that Craig was just trying to get in good with the DM and that his own theatre could never measure up to the standard he held them to when doing his inspections.
Managing for GCC was no picnic, at least in Atlanta, and I think that most of the managers were just trying to get through the week without anything bad happening. Some of them hoped to move up in the company, like Anderson, but I do not recall any who did. Some of them did leave GCC for much better jobs.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
In 1998, and again in 1999 I made the trek to Dayton to experience Cinerama at the Neon. In 1998, the Saturday feature was This Is Cinerama, and in 1999 it was Cinerama Holiday, in glorious Eastman pink. Both times the Sunday feature was How The West Was Won. Given the friendly and informal atmosphere of the New Neon Movies, we were invited to look the place over on Friday night.
Since the Cinerama projectors must be mounted at screen level to avoid the vertical keystone effect, we were able to get an up close look at the whole operation. The side projectors were located in the back corners of the auditorium while the center projector was located in the lobby itself with the beam shooting through a hole cut in the back wall of the auditorium. The 7 track sound projector/processor was located next to the center projector. The entire presentation was run by John Harvey who alone did the work of the four to seven man crew used in the Cinerama days.
Despite the somewhat slap dash nature of the set up, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the presentation. Although the New Neon was small, with about 220 seats, from the fifth row of seats we were treated to an experience equal to that at the Seattle Cinerama and superior to the one at the Dome. Great sound, incredible picture, and a great time was had by all.
An article recently appeared in Slate magazine on the subject of Cinerama. This is the paragraph that mentioned the Neon:
Cinerama faded before I was born, but my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, became the unlikely site of a Cinerama revival in the ‘90s, thanks to the efforts of Dayton projectionist John Harvey. Harvey had previously set up a Cinerama screening room in his ranch homeâ€"eliminating two bedrooms in the processâ€"and helped the National Media Museum in Bradford, England, set up Cinerama projection in 1993. In 1996, Harvey moved his home equipment to the Neon Movies, a downtown theater that had served as a pilgrimage site for Daytonians seeking art house fare since the mid-'80s. Harvey’s Cinerama setup was supposed to have a one-month stay. Instead, it stuck around for more than three years, attracting widescreen enthusiasts like Quentin Tarantino and Joe Dante.
Keith Phipps writes about movies for The A.V. Club, the entertainment section of the Onion.
Three screen Cinerama was long gone by the time I arrived in Atlanta. My only experiences with that format were at the Ritz in Birmingham, and the New Neon in Dayton. However, I do have some knowledge of the theatres mentioned in this article, so I will confine myself to that subject.
The Roxy (CT: /theaters/10331/ ) was the first Cinerama theatre in Atlanta, and like the Ritz was a conversion of a 30 year old movie palace. Some of the comments on the CT page are in error and some contradict each other, but one in particular is useful in describing the effects of the conversion. It had been reconverted to a traditional layout by the time I first attended a movie there in 1968, so there is not much I can add.
Martin Cinerama (CT: /theaters/4784/ ) started out life as the Erlanger before being renamed the Tower, or maybe it was vice versa, resembled the old Loews Grand in size and shape, and was a fine venue for live shows and movies for close to 30 years before being purchased by the Martin chain and converted to Cinerama. The conversion turned the theatre into a luxury showcase and was my favorite of all of the theatres that I have worked in during my 40 or so years in this business. By the time I showed up all of the Cinerama projection equipment was long gone, and the A and C projection booths were used for store rooms. The ribbon screen was still there, but it was removed in 1971.
After Circus World, Martin moved their Cinerama efforts to the new Georgia, which was in the northern suburbs and had acres of free parking. The Martin continued to do business as it became the home of the big musicals of the 60’s. Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Camelot all had roadshow engagements here. Sound of Music played for 18 months. 2001 was the only other Cinerama to play here during the late 60’s. The only addition I have to make to Michael’s list is to state that both Custer of the West and Krakatoa East of Java did play here. Eventually. After Martin sold the location to Walter Reade Org. those two titles played as a double feature sometime in 1971, or perhaps 1970.
The removal of the Cinerama ribbon screen took place because of yet another big budget musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This was at the insistence of United Artists Pictures. Reade would not pay the extra bill for a 70MM print and UA would not allow it to be run in 35MM on the huge, curved Cinerama screen because of the light and focus problems. For the 70MM reissue of This Is Cinerama a solid 95 foot screen was installed.
The Georgia Cinerama was built in the mid 60’s strictly as a single strip 70MM Cinerama house. There was never any 3 screen plan for this site. (CT: /theaters/11568/ ) As Michael’s list shows, it ran most of the 70MM releases, and if my memory is correct all were big reserved seat, roadshow type presentations, usually far in excess of the quality of the film itself. The Cinerama screen, which was solid not ribbon, was removed in 1971 and a smaller screen with a more shallow curve installed.
The Georgia was later twinned and is now a church. Both the Martin and Roxy are in the landfill.
That was during my college years so I was the theatre gofer. I would change the marquee, pick up film, change light bulbs, and fill in whenever there was a need on the floor crew. Jack was one of that unfortunate group of EFC managers and projectionists who were carted off to jail for the crime of managing a theatre that was booked with “Oh Calcutta” all in the name of getting some free publicity for the Fulton County solicitor. Jack was the relief manager for the Atlanta area theatres at that time, but the manager of the Ben Hill quit rather than take the chance of going to jail so Jack got sent out to take the fall. For a short while after that he ran the Belvedere.
That was in 1972. By 1973 he was at the Toco Hill and he stayed there until at least 1975. The only notable thing that I can remember about his tenure at Toco was that “Deliverance” was booked on the intermediate break the day after it left its first run engagement at the 12 Oaks. The 12 Oaks was only about 5 or 6 miles away, but “Deliverance” ran at Toco for 14 weeks in the days that 4 to 6 weeks was considered a long run. It left for two weeks then came back for two more.
I ran into Jack again in 1977. By then he was managing a theatre for Georgia Theatre Company, the Village, I think. Later he was relief manager at Village, Suburban Plaza, South DeKalb, Westgate, but not Greenbriar for some reason. I always thought Jack a nice guy and pleasant enough to work for. He had one remarkable habit that I would never have had the nerve to try to get away with. In all of the times I worked for or with him I never knew him to have a home telephone in those pre cell phone days. Or, if he did he never told the company the number. This eliminated the aggravation of the company calling you on your day off and telling you to get to work, or switching you assignment for the day to some hell hole on the far side of town.
First let me say that I have enjoyed your posts on the Ziegfeld and RCMH pages of this site. I need to say that the technical side of this business is not really my field. Having started out my theatre days downstairs, and later in management, this site, especially the Ziegfeld page which has turned into something of a blog on showmanship in general, is more in line with my interests.
Your Ben-Hur write up reminded me of something that I had known about but did not think to consider when this subject came up. As I remember the story, Ben-Hur was filmed in 2.76 to 1 but the action was centered within the frame in something like 2.55 to 1 so that the theatres of the day could show it without cropping out anything important. Sort of an early version of what I understand Super Panavision to be. If my understanding of that is correct then I guess I owe Mr. Wade an apology since it is possible that he did indeed see an earlier screening of Ben-Hur in the wider 2.55 version. There are a couple of reasons that this is possible.
First is the way the curtain and masking operate. Instead of the local megaplex method of having someone in the booth hitting a button to move the masking back and forth (or up and down as the case may be) to one of two preset positions, the masking at the Fox is set by stagehands pulling the ropes. This allows the masking to be set to accommodate even the smallest variables in the size of the image. Second is the fact that the head projectionist at the Fox, who has been there since that first showing 30 years ago, is a true perfectionist. Before each show, he makes sure that the side and top masking is set to expose every possible inch of screen surface. So, if the image on the print was greater than 2.35 to 1, I am sure that the masking marks were set at the points needed to show every bit of it. Also, the Fox has had several screens over the past 30 years, the first of which, like the projectors, was the refugee from the Loew’s Grand. It might have had different dimensions and been slightly wider than the ones that followed which were measured to fit the layout of the Fox.
As for your visit to the Fox booth, that must have been in the fall of 1974. The Fox was still a grind movie house in those days but would occasionally cancel an evening for live shows in an effort to keep the doors open. Those projectors are long gone. If you want to wade through my post from last year, that story is in there, somewhere. That was during my theatre managing days and was long before my days of working in the Fox booth.
Your comment on the Turner letterboxing story reminds me that there was a VHS release during the 80’s that was pan and scan except for the race which was letterboxed. I never actually saw it but have heard several people mention it so it is probably true.
Your mention of the Martin Cinerama brings back good memories as it was my favorite of all the theatres I worked in, even if I was only an usher working my way through college. It was located only a couple of blocks from the Fox, operated under several names over the years, and is listed on this site as the Atlanta Theatre. When Martin renovated it for Cinerama they put in the 146 degree ribbon screen. I never saw three screen Cinerama there, but did see numerous 70MM presentations using the projectors that were installed starting with Mad Mad World. I regret to say that the theatre now resides in the landfill and the site now serves as a parking lot.
Cone: Thank you for taking the time to comment on this site. I have very fond memories of working for Modular in the early 70’s and to this day keep in touch with some of the people I met there. Most of my work was at Sandy Springs although I also spent a good bit of time at Peachtree Battle and Doraville. I never knew anyone at this location until I started managing the South DeKalb in 1974 by which time it was a Weis operation.
That is an interesting story about the seats and equipment. I was really surprised when I first walked into Candler by the condition of the furnishings since I always thought that Sandy Springs and Doraville were very nicely appointed. All of that was before I started working in theatres and I assumed that the company must have changed hands or something when the Candler was built since it was so different.
Assuming that you are the co-founder and not Cone Jr., I can recall meeting you a couple of times when you attended movies at Sandy Springs. Roger McClure was the manager at that time. Aaron Bouldin was at Doraville, Bill Henley was at Peachtree Battle, and Bill Sheely was the roving relief manager / operator. I was still a college student just doing hourly work wherever I could pick up some work that fit my schedule, but I also did a lot of film and concession supply delivery which is how I got to know people at the other theatres. Those were great times to work in theatres and your little neighborhood chain was a good place to learn the trade before it became dominated by the big corporations and multiplexes and megaplexes of today.
You should take a look at the Sandy Springs page on this site. Barbara Gentry has posted some information about how her dad and you started the company. It is listed under the name Sandy Springs Theatre. Perhaps you could shine some light on the time when Sandy Springs went independent while the rest of the Mini Cinemas operated under a kind of co-op agreement with Storey before getting back together as Mini Cinemas.
/theaters/12161/
Thanks again. I am still in this business after all of these years and many of my favorite memories are thanks to your company and the people I met there. Just this past weekend a group of retired managers, projectionists and friends from those days had our regular lunch and get together at the old Sandy Springs site which is now The Brickery restaurant.
Stan
Nope. Like you I was assuming that Jack meant indoor theatres, or as they say in the trades, walk in or hardtops.
The Starlight opened the south field in 1949 and the north in 1953. The south was closed for a while when the snack bar burned. The north closed a year later when it was split. Every winter one side or the other closes for the season, something I never understood the theory on. However, as far as I know, at least something has been open there since opening day although they close on Christmas Eve, and for the occasional power outage.
I no longer work there, at least regularly, but I did write a history of the place on its page here:
/theaters/11497/
As for indoors, without looking at a list, I can think of the Grand, the Fox, Garden Hills / Fine Art, Plaza (if you count its XXX years), and the Lenox which might have been only 39 years 8 months. I hesitate to even go down this road because I know that people will start listing reasons why some of these places were not in continious operation. Even the Tara shut down once for two days when it was first twinned.
Maybe I should start off the previous paragraph with the words “Generally speaking….”
Most of the indoor theatres built during the 60’s lasted only 25 or so years at the most, some a lot less. I think that the shortest existance for a regular indoor theatre (as opposed to some of the XXX storefront operations) was the Atlantic, an Eastern Federal location on Memorial Drive in or near the Kirkwood area. It lasted only about 5 years.
Correction on my first post:
Doctor Zhivago played at the Ritz during the fall of 1966 not 1965. I saw it for the second time on its final night of the run which was December 22, 1966. The next day, December 23 was the day I saw the Sound Of Music which I also mention in that post.
Thanks to Michael Coate for helping get the dates right.
Thanks for that information Michael. Your research efforts never cease to amaze me. At least this time I caught my memory lapse before you had to point it out to me. This confirms to me that I saw Doctor Zhivago for the second time on the night of December 22, 1966, and then SOM the next afternoon.
This means that SOM played its reserved seat engagement for four months at the Eastwood Mall (not really that long compared to some of the engagements in comparable cities), left for 13 months, and then returned for four more months at the Ritz. This also means that it was the Christmas attraction at the Ritz that year. I hope they got another print quick as I can not imagine that one lasting for another four days much less four months.In all of my years of attending and working in movie theatres I have seen movies that looked worse, but never encountered anything like the breaks and delays of that SOM show, which is probably the reason I remember it so well.
The only time even close was when I was managing a theatre running Elephant Man with a defective print. The black and white emulsion started flaking off and jamming the gates to the point that by the end of the opening weekend, we were having 2 to 3 breaks a show. It got so bad that before the lights were dimmed I would make an announcement telling the sold out house what was going to happen and why. A few people took my advice to get a refund and try again the next weekend when we would have a new print, but most people were good natured about it. At least the projectionist was ready for trouble and we were back on screen quickly with minimum missing footage.
Bill: White Castle has made it as far south as Nashville, so I have tasted them. The only difference I could notice is that Krystal’s did not have holes and were, of course, much MUCH better. In those early to mid 60’s days, we would usually see a movie on Friday nights a couple of times a month. Usually as a family, but sometimes our parents would drop my older brother and me off at our movie and go see a more adult film at a different theatre. We would then meet at the Krystal when our movies were over. All of this was in about a 6 square block area, but now it is hard to imagine two boys ages 7 and 12 going to a downtown movie alone to say nothing of walking to the Krystal on a Friday night in downtown Birmingham, or anywhere else for that matter.
I guess movies were not the only things that were better about those days.
Michael: One more note on my last comment. The more I think about it the more I think that I have the date wrong. No suprise there is it? (Bob, I feel your pain.)
I know the Ritz engagement of SOM started the day after the end of the run of Doctor Zhivago. I attended the final performance of Zhivago and remember the marquee and lobby posters were changed when the movie ended. That is how I found out about SOM starting there the next day. Since I had never heard of Zhivago until we watched the Academy Awards the night SOM won, that means that the SOM engagement at the Ritz had to have been Christmas of 1966.
That would still put it ahead of some initial engagements of some notable cities, but not as outrageous as I first thought. Maybe some day you could do an article on Doctor Zhivago. I have a whole boatload of stories about that one.
Thanks Bill and Bob for the kind words. I always enjoy reading your posts on the Ziegfeld page. I got so engrossed in that discussion once that I made a trip to NYC to see one of the first Classic Series showings.
On the subject of the 70MM staffing question, I can only speak for the practice here in Atlanta. In the 60’s theatres with IATSE contracts had a choice of paying two operators for 70MM showings or pay time and a half for one man. This also applied to 35MM runs of reserved seat engagements. The last time I recall this coming into play was in April of 1973 at the Atlanta Theatre when they ran the 70MM reissue of This Is Cinerama. That was also the only time I ever saw the time and a half for one man option used.
Michael: I have a Birmingham note to add. Your research shows that SOM played at the Eastwood Mall for 17 weeks starting in July of 1965 which would take it up to around Thanksgiving. I recall that I saw it again at the downtown Ritz Theatre during Christmas holidays. I think this was just a filler until the Christmas attraction for the Ritz started. I do not recall it being a moveover since there was a break between the engagements. I described that showing in my post on the Ritz page: /theaters/9396/
I see your list did not mention this engagement. Do you think there were any runs of this nature during Christmas of 1965 which was prior to many cities getting a booking. I am pretty sure this was 1965 since I recall it being shortly after the Eastwood run ended. Of course I am going on my memory here, and you of all people know what can happen when I start doing that.
Thanks Michael for another one of your exercises in research. I have always enjoyed your efforts to list the movies that played in certain theatres and what theatres played some notable movies.
For me, SOM was one of those watershed movies that opened up a whole new area of interest, namely musicals, just like The Longest Day did for war movies and Doctor Zhivago did for historical drama. I can remember the day I first saw SOM like it was yesterday. I still have my reserved seat ticket stub from the Eastwood Mall Theatre in Birmingham with its SOM logo printed on it. The date has faded, but it was a Friday, October 13th I think, 1965. 2 PM showing. I was 13, and even in those days we had teacher work days, just not as many as they do now. My mother offered to take me out to lunch and then all the way out to Eastwood Mall to see the movie. Going to Eastwood, which was a long way on the other side of Birmingham in those pre expressway days, was always a treat since it was one of the first enclosed malls in the southeast.
I fell in love with everything about this movie that day. The beautiful picture, impressive locations, wonderful music, and an entertaining story really made it a day to remember. On the way home we picked my dad up at work, and I could not wait to tell him about my day. He did his parental duty and listened, then told me that he was happy I enjoyed the movie, but he would pass on it. O well. He was a Georgia Tech man who five years later would be paying for me to earn a liberal arts degree, so SOM was not the only thing we did not have in common. The next day, he did take me to the local Woolworths so I could buy the record, my first movie soundtrack. It still sits on my shelf to this day. Shortly after that was another first, a return visit to see the movie again. I remember seeing the same movie twice, but usually as the co feature at the drive in. This was the first time I returned to see a movie during the same engagement.
This was a great time to be starting an interest in movies. Titles such as the three I mentioned above plus Lawrence, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Man For All Seasons, Mary Poppins, and McLintock made movies hard to resist.
Like countless others, I have seen SOM many times over the years. In the late 60’s it made a final round of neighborhood theatres in Atlanta, where I was living by then, with the tag “Going Out Of Release Until 1973.” In late 1971, about the time I started working in theatres, there was word that Fox was hurting for money and was considering bringing SOM back a year early. However, French Connection bailed them out and the big reissue took place in April 1973. By this time, the Martin Cinerama in downtown Atlanta had been sold to the Walter Reade Org. and been renamed The Atlanta. This magnificent theatre with its 70MM Cinerama projectors, deeply curved screen, and plush appointments had run SOM in its premiere release for 90 weeks. In addition it had run 3 strip Brothers Grimm, HTWWW, and 70MM IAMMMMW and 2001, as well as musicals such as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary Poppins, Camelot, Fiddler On The Roof, Man Of La Mancha, and even Goodbye Mr. Chips. But times had changed and it was now preparing for a run of the third Ginger movie, Girls Are For Loving, to be followed by Super Fly TNT. Needless to say, SOM would not be returning to its Atlanta home.
Martins suburban Cinerama house, the Georgia Cinerama got the honor. Not as big or plush as the downtown theatre, it did have the 70MM projectors and curved Cinerama screen. They had a 12 week run of packed houses before the picture was pulled in July and sent on a wider “intermediate” break. By this time the thrill of The Atlanta had faded and I was working at the Sandy Springs Theatre which got one of the intermediate bookings. For five weeks I had the pleasure of seeing this show as much as I liked, and on slow nights would prop the auditorium doors open so I could listen along as I worked. I was sure sorry when it had to go to make room for that next big Fox hit, Neptune Factor.
Within five years the video revolution had begun, and one of the first movies I bought to play in my $1200 RCA Selectavision VCR was a pan and scan copy of SOM from that producer of incredibly fuzzy, grainy, movies, the Magnetic Video Corp. I swear the thing looked like it was filmed in 8MM aimed at a screen showing a 16MM print. However, thinking that this was the ultimate in technology, I was happy to have it.
In the early 80’s a 70MM print of SOM showed up at the Rhodes Theatre which in better days had premiered such hits as West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, and Sand Pebbles, to say nothing of Darling Lilly. As a payback for that great afternoon 16 years earlier, I took my mother to see it, and then again a couple of months later when the same print showed up as part of the Fox Theatre summer film series.
In 1984, I passed through Saltzburg Austria, and spent a day seeing all of the SOM sites. I was impressed with how compact the city is and how many of the buildings and landmarks from the movie can be seen from one spot. The magic of film angles and editing made the place look much bigger. Even more so, the church where the wedding scene was filmed was amazingly small. I have photographed many places where movies scenes have been filmed over the years, but the one that hangs on my wall is a picture of my mother standing in front of the fountain where Julie Andrews and the children were dancing, with the castle in the background.
In the 90’s I started working in the projection booth of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, and twice have had the pleasure of running SOM. In fact, that is the only time I have run this picture as a projectionist. The last time, I had finished inspecting the film for the next day, and had the chance to relax and watch the last hour or so. Sitting on the window sill of the spotlight booth, looking out over a packed house of over 4000 people, it was impossible for me not to think back to that day about 30 years earlier when I first saw SOM and started a life long love affair with movies and theatres.
Dmorg: Thanks for that nice write up of your memories of the South Dekalb. Maybe I saw you on your first visit since on my first day as manager we were running Herbie and Crazy Mary Dirty Larry. This was a very enjoyable theatre to work in and even when busy was easy to run since you could stand in front of the box office and see almost the entire operation. The only time things got hectic was when you had to line people up in the mall for #1 or outside for #2.
Your memories of what type of movies played on which side may be correct, but content had nothing to do with it. During cold weather, we usually tried to put the busy movie in #1 so we could line people up inside the mall. This was always a problem as the line would get confused with the people in the mall and it was too easy for people to hang around the mall entrance and break in line once we started to let the people in. Whenever the weather permitted, the busy movie would be in #2 so we could run the line up the hall and outside.
Of course this all changed when they split the two houses. Then, things got too hectic with different showtimes and exit times so you just had to do the best you could and when possible stretch out the intermissions. On some movies like Jaws 2 and The Muppet Movie, and the Bo Derek Tarzan of all things, the crowds were so large you would have an entire sellout lined up while the previous movie was still on. No amount of intermission could solve that.
I have always thought that the original twin theatre was the nicest theatre combined with the best presentation of any theatre I ever worked in. Glad to see someone else noticed.
Mike, This is an odd page to bring up the Weis chain since this theatre was never operated by Weis and has spent the vast majority of its life as a porno house. However, since you asked, all of the Weis theatres in Atlanta have pages and comments on this site. They are:
Capri: /theaters/11420/
Fine Art: /theaters/11485/
Broadview: /theaters/12132/
Weis Cinema: /theaters/11690/
Peachtree Battle: /theaters/12131/
Atlanta: /theaters/4784/
Sandy Springs: /theaters/12161/
Doraville: /theaters/11795/
Candler Road: /theaters/16454/
Franklin Road: /theaters/12863/
Arrowhead: /theaters/12974/
Only the last two were actually built by Weis. All of the others were already operating, sometimes under different names, when purchased by Weis. You will have to read down into the comments section to get to the Weis information on these.
Russell,
Dave Poland was gone from Atlanta by the time I went to work for GCC, and his place was taken by Larry Pittman. I first met Larry Anderson when he replaced Webb Brainerd, who was the opening manager for the Perimeter Mall Triple. I think Webb went to Columbia SC, but he eventually ended up in Dallas in the booking department.
Larry stayed at Perimeter until 1978 when he went to open the new Akers Mill. I think that he was replaced by Stu Hoffman. If not, Stu came in shortly afterwards. I never met Larry or Stu at the time, but before our GCC days we were all managers for Loews. I think that they were both in Miami then.
Larry stayed at Akers until he was made DM. I think that at one time he was a DM in another area, but most of the time he was in Atlanta. In the early 80’s he left GCC to become the head of operations for Septum Cinemas, an Atlanta based regional. He must have left with a return option, because in less than a year he was back, not starting over as a manager, but in his old DM job. In the late 80’s he left GCC to work for Storey, another Atlanta based local chain. Within months, Storey was bought out by Regal and last I heard he was in NC.
Stu left GCC and went to work for NCN, the intermission slide show advertising company. I last saw him in 1988 when he came by a theatre I was running to check the slide set up. That job was a natural for him. When he and Larry were managers for Larry Pittman, they would travel all over the Pittman district selling screen ads for the Christmas season. Each manager was supposed to do that, but many did not have the knack or interest, so Larry and Stu would earn a lot of comissions and the results for Pittman’s district would be near the top.
That is too bad about Craig Zacker. I only met him at the Northlake. From my recollection of him I would say the he was a prime candidate for a heart attack. I think that Larry Anderson used him as a helper because Craig enjoyed the work and did not mind the extra duties. Some of the managers thought that Craig was just trying to get in good with the DM and that his own theatre could never measure up to the standard he held them to when doing his inspections.
Managing for GCC was no picnic, at least in Atlanta, and I think that most of the managers were just trying to get through the week without anything bad happening. Some of them hoped to move up in the company, like Anderson, but I do not recall any who did. Some of them did leave GCC for much better jobs.
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Link to the Drive In ladder ad in the Atlanta paper on August 5, 1964. The blogger has also written up some of his memories of working at these places. Worth a look if you are interested in the drive in culture from 1970 – 1990.
View link
Newspaper ad from August 1964 and a write up on the feature opening that day:
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Newspaper ad from 1964 with a nice write up of “A Hard Days Night.”
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A past, present, and probably future projectionist at the Fox offers these comments on the recent Gone With The Wind screenings:
http://www.mikedurrett.com/
Scan down to the entries for May 7, May 1, and April 25, 2009.
In 1998, and again in 1999 I made the trek to Dayton to experience Cinerama at the Neon. In 1998, the Saturday feature was This Is Cinerama, and in 1999 it was Cinerama Holiday, in glorious Eastman pink. Both times the Sunday feature was How The West Was Won. Given the friendly and informal atmosphere of the New Neon Movies, we were invited to look the place over on Friday night.
Since the Cinerama projectors must be mounted at screen level to avoid the vertical keystone effect, we were able to get an up close look at the whole operation. The side projectors were located in the back corners of the auditorium while the center projector was located in the lobby itself with the beam shooting through a hole cut in the back wall of the auditorium. The 7 track sound projector/processor was located next to the center projector. The entire presentation was run by John Harvey who alone did the work of the four to seven man crew used in the Cinerama days.
Despite the somewhat slap dash nature of the set up, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the presentation. Although the New Neon was small, with about 220 seats, from the fifth row of seats we were treated to an experience equal to that at the Seattle Cinerama and superior to the one at the Dome. Great sound, incredible picture, and a great time was had by all.
An article recently appeared in Slate magazine on the subject of Cinerama. This is the paragraph that mentioned the Neon:
Cinerama faded before I was born, but my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, became the unlikely site of a Cinerama revival in the ‘90s, thanks to the efforts of Dayton projectionist John Harvey. Harvey had previously set up a Cinerama screening room in his ranch homeâ€"eliminating two bedrooms in the processâ€"and helped the National Media Museum in Bradford, England, set up Cinerama projection in 1993. In 1996, Harvey moved his home equipment to the Neon Movies, a downtown theater that had served as a pilgrimage site for Daytonians seeking art house fare since the mid-'80s. Harvey’s Cinerama setup was supposed to have a one-month stay. Instead, it stuck around for more than three years, attracting widescreen enthusiasts like Quentin Tarantino and Joe Dante.
Keith Phipps writes about movies for The A.V. Club, the entertainment section of the Onion.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2204189/
Three screen Cinerama was long gone by the time I arrived in Atlanta. My only experiences with that format were at the Ritz in Birmingham, and the New Neon in Dayton. However, I do have some knowledge of the theatres mentioned in this article, so I will confine myself to that subject.
The Roxy (CT: /theaters/10331/ ) was the first Cinerama theatre in Atlanta, and like the Ritz was a conversion of a 30 year old movie palace. Some of the comments on the CT page are in error and some contradict each other, but one in particular is useful in describing the effects of the conversion. It had been reconverted to a traditional layout by the time I first attended a movie there in 1968, so there is not much I can add.
Martin Cinerama (CT: /theaters/4784/ ) started out life as the Erlanger before being renamed the Tower, or maybe it was vice versa, resembled the old Loews Grand in size and shape, and was a fine venue for live shows and movies for close to 30 years before being purchased by the Martin chain and converted to Cinerama. The conversion turned the theatre into a luxury showcase and was my favorite of all of the theatres that I have worked in during my 40 or so years in this business. By the time I showed up all of the Cinerama projection equipment was long gone, and the A and C projection booths were used for store rooms. The ribbon screen was still there, but it was removed in 1971.
After Circus World, Martin moved their Cinerama efforts to the new Georgia, which was in the northern suburbs and had acres of free parking. The Martin continued to do business as it became the home of the big musicals of the 60’s. Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Camelot all had roadshow engagements here. Sound of Music played for 18 months. 2001 was the only other Cinerama to play here during the late 60’s. The only addition I have to make to Michael’s list is to state that both Custer of the West and Krakatoa East of Java did play here. Eventually. After Martin sold the location to Walter Reade Org. those two titles played as a double feature sometime in 1971, or perhaps 1970.
The removal of the Cinerama ribbon screen took place because of yet another big budget musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This was at the insistence of United Artists Pictures. Reade would not pay the extra bill for a 70MM print and UA would not allow it to be run in 35MM on the huge, curved Cinerama screen because of the light and focus problems. For the 70MM reissue of This Is Cinerama a solid 95 foot screen was installed.
The Georgia Cinerama was built in the mid 60’s strictly as a single strip 70MM Cinerama house. There was never any 3 screen plan for this site. (CT: /theaters/11568/ ) As Michael’s list shows, it ran most of the 70MM releases, and if my memory is correct all were big reserved seat, roadshow type presentations, usually far in excess of the quality of the film itself. The Cinerama screen, which was solid not ribbon, was removed in 1971 and a smaller screen with a more shallow curve installed.
The Georgia was later twinned and is now a church. Both the Martin and Roxy are in the landfill.
That was during my college years so I was the theatre gofer. I would change the marquee, pick up film, change light bulbs, and fill in whenever there was a need on the floor crew. Jack was one of that unfortunate group of EFC managers and projectionists who were carted off to jail for the crime of managing a theatre that was booked with “Oh Calcutta” all in the name of getting some free publicity for the Fulton County solicitor. Jack was the relief manager for the Atlanta area theatres at that time, but the manager of the Ben Hill quit rather than take the chance of going to jail so Jack got sent out to take the fall. For a short while after that he ran the Belvedere.
That was in 1972. By 1973 he was at the Toco Hill and he stayed there until at least 1975. The only notable thing that I can remember about his tenure at Toco was that “Deliverance” was booked on the intermediate break the day after it left its first run engagement at the 12 Oaks. The 12 Oaks was only about 5 or 6 miles away, but “Deliverance” ran at Toco for 14 weeks in the days that 4 to 6 weeks was considered a long run. It left for two weeks then came back for two more.
I ran into Jack again in 1977. By then he was managing a theatre for Georgia Theatre Company, the Village, I think. Later he was relief manager at Village, Suburban Plaza, South DeKalb, Westgate, but not Greenbriar for some reason. I always thought Jack a nice guy and pleasant enough to work for. He had one remarkable habit that I would never have had the nerve to try to get away with. In all of the times I worked for or with him I never knew him to have a home telephone in those pre cell phone days. Or, if he did he never told the company the number. This eliminated the aggravation of the company calling you on your day off and telling you to get to work, or switching you assignment for the day to some hell hole on the far side of town.
REndres:
First let me say that I have enjoyed your posts on the Ziegfeld and RCMH pages of this site. I need to say that the technical side of this business is not really my field. Having started out my theatre days downstairs, and later in management, this site, especially the Ziegfeld page which has turned into something of a blog on showmanship in general, is more in line with my interests.
Your Ben-Hur write up reminded me of something that I had known about but did not think to consider when this subject came up. As I remember the story, Ben-Hur was filmed in 2.76 to 1 but the action was centered within the frame in something like 2.55 to 1 so that the theatres of the day could show it without cropping out anything important. Sort of an early version of what I understand Super Panavision to be. If my understanding of that is correct then I guess I owe Mr. Wade an apology since it is possible that he did indeed see an earlier screening of Ben-Hur in the wider 2.55 version. There are a couple of reasons that this is possible.
First is the way the curtain and masking operate. Instead of the local megaplex method of having someone in the booth hitting a button to move the masking back and forth (or up and down as the case may be) to one of two preset positions, the masking at the Fox is set by stagehands pulling the ropes. This allows the masking to be set to accommodate even the smallest variables in the size of the image. Second is the fact that the head projectionist at the Fox, who has been there since that first showing 30 years ago, is a true perfectionist. Before each show, he makes sure that the side and top masking is set to expose every possible inch of screen surface. So, if the image on the print was greater than 2.35 to 1, I am sure that the masking marks were set at the points needed to show every bit of it. Also, the Fox has had several screens over the past 30 years, the first of which, like the projectors, was the refugee from the Loew’s Grand. It might have had different dimensions and been slightly wider than the ones that followed which were measured to fit the layout of the Fox.
As for your visit to the Fox booth, that must have been in the fall of 1974. The Fox was still a grind movie house in those days but would occasionally cancel an evening for live shows in an effort to keep the doors open. Those projectors are long gone. If you want to wade through my post from last year, that story is in there, somewhere. That was during my theatre managing days and was long before my days of working in the Fox booth.
Your comment on the Turner letterboxing story reminds me that there was a VHS release during the 80’s that was pan and scan except for the race which was letterboxed. I never actually saw it but have heard several people mention it so it is probably true.
Your mention of the Martin Cinerama brings back good memories as it was my favorite of all the theatres I worked in, even if I was only an usher working my way through college. It was located only a couple of blocks from the Fox, operated under several names over the years, and is listed on this site as the Atlanta Theatre. When Martin renovated it for Cinerama they put in the 146 degree ribbon screen. I never saw three screen Cinerama there, but did see numerous 70MM presentations using the projectors that were installed starting with Mad Mad World. I regret to say that the theatre now resides in the landfill and the site now serves as a parking lot.