Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1922)

648 Motion Picture News These two views offer an interesting study of theatre design as practiced in British West Indies. The Empire is equipped with all the modern projection equipment and presents Paramount Artcraft pictures Some of the patrons are very well satisfied when given the comfort of hardwood benches which is contrasted to the demands of our most indiscriminating public. A spacious cool atmosphere which prevails throughout the theatre is in keeping with the climate. The Empire is located in Trinidad Orlando’s Fine New Theatre The Beacham, Opens to Public Tribune Bureau, San Juan Hotel, Orlando, Dec. 10— (Special).— When the first patron at the opening of the new Beecham Theatre, Orlando, Fla., walked up to the box-office and bought his ticket the Beechams Investment Company had spent $175,000 to give Orlando and middle Florida its most beautiful theatrical structure embodying the approved achievements of human ingenuity along modern lines of building and equipping this class of enterprises. The Beacham Theatre will follow a policy of offering high-class feature photoplays and will only vary from it in so far as local insistence indicates such a doctrine. Its acoustic properties make it especially desirable for concert entertainments and the program for the ensuing season calls for a quota of these, but not sufficient in number to obscure the prevailing idea of public and management alike that it is a home for picture plays. Other equipment of stage and its appurtenances in the way of loft, fly galleries, dressing rooms, illumination provision, scenic investiture, properties, etc., make it available for the adequate accommodation and presentation of touring attractions of the highest order, and a sufficient number of this class will be offered that there may be no singleness of policy conducive to staleness but rather a variety sufficient to appeal to all amusement appetites. The stage is the largest in Orlando, the dimensions being about 50x25 feet, and 60 feet in height, with a proscenium opening of 27x29 feet. The interior of the auditorium is finished in white and ivory, the theatre itself being a modern concrete structure, with exterior stucco trim of rainbow shell, fronting on Orange avenue and occupying 77j4 feet by 141 feet. It is located just opposite the new eleven-story Ange Hotel now in process of construction and just north of the San Juan Hotel, the construction of the new ten-story wing of which began simultaneously with the opening of the theatre, when the first excavations were started for the hotel foundations. The seating capacity of the house is 1,100, of which 266 seats are in the balcony, and the provision of ample and large exits arranged on all sides of the structure insure that a capacity audience may be deposited on the streets in less than three minutes in the event of any un toward accident. The seats come from Grand Rapids, Mich., and are said to be the most comfortable and best procurable. They are in a veneered birch, finished in a French gray, blending harmoniously with the floor coverings and general interior scheme of decoration. In the construction of this theatre the Beachams Investment Company has endeavored to give to the Orlando public a building commensurate with the wonderful advancement and growth of the city and a theatre of beautiful architecture and breadth of plan, something to which Orlando may call its visitors’ attention with pardonable pride. The pipe organ is not only a feature of construction, but an idea of harmonies that is unusual in a theatre of the size. It was built and installed by the Austin Company, of Hartford, Conn., and is what is known as a divided organ of three manuals and pedals. The pipes are contained in two specially built swell chambers, one on either side of the stage, which have direct openings into the auditorium. There are twenty-four speaking stops in the organ. There is a set of twenty cathedral chimes and more than 1,000 pipes, all controlled from forty-seven stop tablets. A wide range of orchestral instruments and effects is simulated and the tones of the oboe, flute, various horns, trap effects and the strings and brass are pleasingly discernible. Orlando residents may well take pride in this organ, for it is not only the largest organ in Orlando, but it is the largest theatre organ in Florida. Prof, Herman F. Siewert, of the Criterion Theatre, on Broadway, in New York City, has been engaged as organist, and one of the popular features of the winter season will be a series of recitals by this distinguished artist on Sunday afternoons, no picture or amusement program being rendered. In addition, his solo playing will mark each weekday performance. The projection is in charge of J. W. Russell, who came from Los Angeles for special engagement with the Beacham Theatre. The projecting machines are in multiple units, and of a type and pattern embodying recent patents, some of them under letters patent issued as late as September of this year. The Beacham Theatre projecting machines are equipped with a speed control device, under this patent, which has been said by the experts in such matters to supply the only thing heretofore lacking to make the projection of pictures perfect. A development of marked aid in the perfection of picture producing is found in the picture curtain or projection screen, which is of the kind technically known as gold fibre minusa, which means in every-day language that the screen is so tinted with gold color that the color tints of the pictures thrown upon it are absorbed. The management of the Beacham Theatre is in the hands of B. Beacham, Jr. Reopened Christmas Renovated throughout, the Princess Theatre at Hartford, Conn., was re-opened Christmas night under new control. Lessees of the house, one of the best motion-picture theatres in Connecticut’s capital city and that part of New England, are I. J. Hoffman, of Ansonia, Conn., who is interested in five theatres about the state, and Martin A. Kelleher, of Middletown, Conn., part owner in two theatres. Henry Needles, for a number of years manager of the Strand Theatre at Bayonne, N. J., is to be manager of the new house. He intends making a feature of the “ noon-hour ” program, intended especially for business men and office employes. Because of the many employed in Hartford’s insurance offices, it is expected that the “ noon-hour ” program will be especially popular and well patronized. Improvements at the Princess have been many, including changes from top to bottom. New seats have been placed, the stage repaired, a new super-light screen installed and the latest type projecting equipment added. The house has also been repainted outside and in. The screen, which has been erected in the most improved manner in order to cause the least eye strain, is set near the back of the stage with blue silk draperies on each side. The exit doors have been equipped with panic latches, while 12 hand extinguishers have been placed throughout the building, two of them in the operator’s booth. An asbestos curtain, set in metal fire channels, has been placed. The house is arranged for a seating capacity of 850. — AGARD. I Projectionists: The News will solve any technical prob | 1 lems, gratis. rinniiiiiiinnniuiiiiniininnunnimmimniimnmniniiminiitwiin— mitmmt— — ■nwwwn—