Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

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10 THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS the usual adornment of peanut shells, empty candy bags, a stray handkerchief or hair pin. There was no waiting, no hesitation. The theatre was to open for a Saturday matinee, and the reels were yet to be examined, the machine overhauled, and the posters to be hung. The same temptation, which had lured away the two employees the evening before, still held them in its grasp, for neither reported at the usual time. * * * # INTO a small storeroom plunged the proprietor, and a minute later he emerged armed with a pair of overalls, a mop, pail and a plentiful supply of soap. Down on his hands and knees he went, and fairly drove that scrubbing brush into the floor by his energy. Then came the mopping, the dusting of the chairs, and an hour later, spattered with dirty water, his face dripping perspiration, he completed the task. That night two new ushers helped him greet the patrons, but the theatre was spotlessly clean, and the proprietor had lived up to his standard. Fall passed into winter, and with the passing came storms of a violence and force little known outside the prison-gray confines of the mining territory. The exchanges serving the three theatres in the little town were eight miles away by railroad. Reels were shipped out each morning on a local that brought many workers to the mines from the close-in suburbs of the bigger city, and then were sent back on a late train at night. The arrangement was satisfactory, but unreliable, although none gave thought to the latter. Railroads are far from infallible where storms compel consideration. Rothapfel's following had increased greatly after the first month. His two competitors bid for a higher priced service, and an earlier run, when the barroom itself was torn down to make way for a new front to the new theatre. The remodeling, in its completed form, presented a type of theatre new to the little mining city. Profits of the first six months were religiously hoarded, and then paid to contractors, decorators, electricians, chair manufacturers, and accessory concerns. The change brought new patrons, among them business men, their wives and children. Business opportunities had increased a hundredfold for him, but still the proprietor was not satisfied. If he had accomplished all this here, in a comparatively small period of time, why could he not accomplish still greater things as an exhibitor. Another happening that tested the qualities in him that make for success came without warning. L_T. E awoke one morning in January to greet a raging snowstorm, rushing over the valley and propelled by a sixty mile gale. No train arrived at the usual hour, and hence no reels for the day's show. The storm increased in violence as the morning wore away, and Rothapfel's two competitors cursed the elements. Then both decided to close their houses until the next day. The third exhibitor waited-until 11 o'clock, when word came feebly and uncertain over the railroad telegraph wire that no traffic would be possible for another twenty-four hours. Fifteen minutes later, with no word of information to anyone, a fur-wrapped figure plunged from the depot steps into the very face of the terrific snowstorm, and set out toward the city where his reels rested in the files of the exchange. His two competitors were safely at home, figuring an approximate week's profit after deducting the probable day's receipts, but that was not his fashion of doing things. On he plunged, stumbling, and sometimes falling, using the narrow strips of rail as his guide. For long distances these would be covered by drifted snow, and often he strayed from the tracks. Then, after what seemed hours, he reached his goal, obtained his reels from the surprised and incredible exchangemen, ate a hearty dinner, and started back. It was ten minutes before the regular time of opening the theatre when he stumbled in, half frozen and almost fainting. But at promptly 7 o'clock the arc lamps in front of the theatre burst into light, and by 8 o'clock twenty people, all of them living within two blocks of the theatre, were watching the show. His business increased with leaps and bounds after that. Everyone talked of his feat in walking eight miles to obtain entertainment for the few of sufficient courage to brave the storm for two blocks, or less, while his two competitors remained safely at home. He had proven that he could be relied upon, that disappointments were not permitted at his theatre, not so much in the matter of keeping open, but in the style and quality of show he gave. * % % ;fc Editor's Note — Owing to the unusual length of this' article and the requirements of our space, we have found it necessary to divide it into two parts, the second of which, dealing with the later artistic and commercial success of Mr. Rothapfel in the exhibitor's field, will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Motion Picture News. New Reliance Studio a Model in Every Respect THE new Mutual studio just completed for the Reliance Company on the Clara Morris estate at Yonkers, N. Y., is one of the most practical studios for making motion pictures in this country. It is of skeleton steel construction and white ground glass with surprisingly slender trusses that span the whole width of the studio, fifty feet, without supporting posts of any kind. The entire roof and three sides are of ground glass, the sides being of portable glass, which may be removed in the Summer. The roof of the studio floor is thirty-one feet at its apex, with regulating ventilators, which operate from the floor level on each side of the middle ridge. The height of the sides of the stu dio is seventeen feet to the eaves, with another row of regulating ventilators underneath the eaves. The base of the side walls, two feet above the floor level, is concrete and carries the pipe coils for steam heating. The building is one hundred feet by fifty, providing an uninterrupted area of five thousand square feet, equipped with necessary traps, etc. The studio itself is elevated fifteen feet above ground level to admit the necessary lateral light. The basement will be used for factory purposes. Against the north wall of the studio are located the scene dock and painter's frame. It is pierced in the middle by a large door intended for entrance into an adjoining building, to be built later for the reception and storage of properties and additional dressingrooms on the second floor. Extending along the entire length of the studio floor are suspended three parallel overhead trolleys for trans porting the artificial light to any desired point. When the day is dark a few extra quartz lights, combined with the daylight, will produce perfect pictures, giving the same degree of light underneath the brim of a person's hat as above it. For combining artificial and laylight in taking pictures the studio is a model of economy. Two months more of the sun's rays will further bleach the. arsenical ground-glass to an absolutely dead white. Perman ganese glass bleaches pinkish, which is bad for the light rays.