Comments from brucenorton

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brucenorton
brucenorton commented about Uinta Theater on Nov 2, 2008 at 10:35 am

I typed the previous rant in the middle of the night. For which I must apologize, especially to zoobees for a few spelling errors. and a corredtion in my email address;

brucenorton
brucenorton commented about Uinta Theater on Nov 2, 2008 at 10:29 am

Surly local kids huh? SURLY! I beg your pardon. I was one of the local kids there mid to late 60s. We had few if any BYU (zoobie) students working there. Pretty much all high school kids, local, surly high school kids. And actually we were a very pleasan bunch.

The Uinta “did” have a balcony. usually closed because local fire codes demanded there be an usher up there if it were open. We were usually glad it was closed. On our breaks and after our shifts there were a lot of memories made in that balcony.

It, like the Paramount, a couple doors down, also had some dressing rooms. The stairs to which had long been boarded up. We discovered them by leaving from the projection booth and walking along the rafters, old rickety rafters, to the north end of the building. There was a hallway and two dressing rooms. There were trunks full of old musty costumes and misc. other things that really didn’t interest us kids at the time. I also remember tear shaped glass balls with liquid in them haning on the walls. We thought they were some kind of decoration, but later found out there were a form of fire extinguisher mate to explode when exposed to flame.

another find in our exploring were boxes of old silent film in the attic outside the projection booth. I remember the projectionest telling us they were silent as they didnt have a strip along the edge that contained the sound track in later movies. He would not try to project them because he said they were so old they would probably burst into flame if he tried to run them in his projector which was like a big arc welder. Welding rod, flame and all. He drank a lot, I guess night after night of sitting through “The Sound of Music” would do that. That also explained why occasionally, when he would doze off, there would be a break in the movie as he would miss the que, as it came on the screen, telling him to strike up the second projector.

Those were great days, but Surly ? Come on zoobee, you were just a typical uptight Zoobee. Should have gone to the “U”.

I have never found a picture of either the Paramount or the Uinta. Would sure like one. If anyone has one you can send it to

And if any of those surly kids in the red monkey suits are in the picture, even better.

brucenorton