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662 MOTION PICTURE HANDBOOK
careless man as manager, merely because he may be had cheaply.
The operator has in his hands the making or marring of the performances, and upon his skill and careful, painstaking attention to details depends, in very large degree, the excellence of the picture on the screen. It therefore follows that, since the revenue at the box office is largely dependent upon the result upon the screen, the operator should not only be a man who thoroughly understands the technical details of his profession, but he must also be possessed of sufficient energy to apply that knowledge, and place and maintain on the screen a perfect projection, or projection as nearly perfect as the apparatus at his disposal will produce.
It seems to me that, as in the case of the manager, it is foolish to argue for the employment of a careless, or incompetent operator merely because he is cheap.
The appearance of the theatre lobby very frequently is the deciding factor in inducing the passer-by to enter, or the reverse. The doorman should be a man, and not a more or less irresponsible boy. He should by all means be neatly uniformed and of prepossessing appearance. If the prospective patron sees an ununiformed, unshaved doorman, perhaps slumped down in a chair, or leaning against a convenient wall, he is likely .to conclude that the performance is apt to be equally sloppy. I know the term "sloppy" is not elegant, but somehow it fits remarkably well.
The ticket seller should be a bright and attractive young lady, neatly dressed and wideawake. Many a theatre loses patronage it might otherwise get simply because of an untidy looking ticket office presided over by an unprepossessing, gum-chewing girl. Particularly at the front of the house neatness in dress and a wideawake appearance counts for much, and courtesy is above all things highly important.
Within the ushers should be courteous and obliging, continually watching for vacant seats, and seeking at all times for opportunity to do the patron some service. Numberless are the cases where theatres have obtained a steady patron simply through some little act of courtesy on the part of an employe, which in itself amounted to but little, but conveyed to the recipient the idea that the management was looking after his interest and comfort. The wideawake usher will, when the house is well filled, keep in his mind the location of all vacant seats in the section he serves, so that when a party or a single individual enters, he will know just where they can be seated to best advantage. These things