Rialto Theatre

(Charles Fulkerson Of The State Journal, Nov. 27, 1975) - The old metal seats in the gloomy theater below the projection room glowed in the soft light reflecting off the screen. Seven people were watching a Monday night showing of “Walking Tall, Part II” at Edgerton’s Rialto theater. There were 401 empty seats. “This used to be a good movie town, if you can explain it. I wish you would,” Bud Horan said glumly as he peered out the tiny projection room window and watched the popular new movie that had drawn big crowds elsewhere. Horan, 51, took over the manager’s job in 1965 when a full house was common and when Esther Williams thrilled moviegoers by adding new dimensions to the one-piece swimsuit. Twenty years later, the Rialto normally is open only on weekends, and even then the big crowds are rare. The last picture show already has played at thousands of theaters like it across the country. A review recently of conditions at a dozen small town theaters left in southern Wisconsin finds the Rialto and a couple of others at one end of the spectrum, some theaters in the middle and a few reporting decent business. All small theater owners are suffering under terms from movie companies which they say make it harder and harder to compete with the big city theaters. Aided by better roads and bigger pictures, the big city theater, whether in Madison, Milwaukee or Dubuque, lowa, has lured away the rural movie goer. These film companies are awfully rough on the small theaters; sometimes you can’t even get a movie,“ said Krith Vance, owner of Viroqua’s Temple Theater. Vance said business is down and he blames it partly on "the product” from Hollywood. “It’s your darn high terms, they’re too high,” said Ed Benes, mayor of Elroy and owner of the Elroy Theater. Benes also grumbled about the Hollywood fare. Business might be decent, he said, “if they’d get off their dead duffs and make a product the public would like to see.” Practically every small theater had a horror story about Universal’s “Jaws.” Benes was no exception. “If I wanted to run "Jaws” right now they’d want $2,500 in front money and two weeks play time,“ said Benes. "For a town of 1,500 that’s ridiculous.” The theater owner generally gets his films in one of three ways. ONE. Leases them for a prearranged period of time and splits the ticket proceeds with the movie company. TWO. Pays a flat fee and takes the movie for as short a time as he wants. THREE. Rents out his theater to the movie company in the so-called “Four Wall” method. Under the leasing method, the small town theater owners complain they are subjected to the same high terms as their big city counterparts and are in no position to pay. In a box office smash like “Jaws”, the theater owners say the movie companies will settle only for an arrangement that lets them take 30 percent of proceeds from tickets. In a few days every potential movie goer in a small town has seen a new flick, and the owner can lose his shirt if he is forced to sign a lease for more to get a big picture a week. That’s whats happening right now at the Point Theater in Mineral Point, Manager Dave Bachkreski said. He paid $2,000 to Universal just to get “Jaws” and after a few big nights, attendance dropped to nearly nothing. And the Rialto wouldn’t even have been open the weeknight it got seven people, except that the owner had to the take a week’s lease to get a popular first-run movie. According to Jim Thiele of Boscobel’s Blaine Theater, the terms for the big pictures are so outrageous you can’t play them till they’re old. “But if you wait until they’re old”, he says, “your customers have already driven to a big city to see them.” The whole problem boils down to one thing, said Otto Settele, an old movie hand who broke into the business in 1932 when Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore all starred together in “Rasputin and the Empress.” “We’re fighting a seller’s market now,” Settele said. “There are more screens than there are pictures.” Settele said his Dodge Theater in Dodgeville is “one of the better small-town spots and he said the movie theater may be making a comeback. The number of screens nationally has risen from a low of 11,000 in the 1960s to 15,000 today, Settele said. But those new theaters are in the larger cities and in their shopping centers he said, not in the small towns. Settele, Thiele and many others said it’s the candy and popcorn sales from the concession stand that play a big part in keeping the lights bright at the small town theater. And to make it as a small town theater, the owner has to be dedicate according to Elmer Kramer, owner of both the Badger Theater in Reedsburg and the ailing Rialto. "The only way to survive is if it’s personally owned operation and you put in your own time and don’t get paid for it,” said Krueger, who loves movies so much he has seen “Ben Hur” 67 times.