American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1946)

ACES of the CAMERA Paul Eagler, A. S. C. By W. C. C. BOSCO KISMET, as the sage said, or should have said even if he didn’t, is a wonderful thing. Who would have thought f’rinstance, that because tailors once used a rubberized adhesive tape to hold up the cuffs on men’s trousers, that it would have an influence either directly or indirectly on the future of the film industry. And yet, so intricately are the skeins of fortune woven, that such was the case. You see, the subject of our little biog¬ raphy this month, Paul Eagler, A.S.C., had a father who was a tailor; and in the year 1900 he not only gave Paul a magnificent magic lantern, he also brought him home the paper strips in which the above mentioned rubberized tape came wrapped. Now the paper from this tape was, oddly enough, about 35mm. in width and came wound on spools in lengths of ap¬ proximately 100 feet. And young Paul, who tired very quickly of the static quality of his magic lantern pictures, found out that he could simulate move¬ ment by cutting progressive pictures on this paper tape and jerking it through his magic lantern. The results, alas, were not what you might call completely satis¬ factory, but Paul was very young at the time, easily pleased, and so ecstatically happy over the results that it provided an avenue for his youthful inventiveness and subsequently influenced his choice of a career. And so we feel that we have proven, even though laboriously, the proposition set forth in the first para¬ graph; because while there may be some who would be loathe to admit that the special effects men are the backbone of the industry, there must be few who will deny that they form a most important vertebra. Particularly is this true of men like Paul Eagler, who, in growing up with the industry, have contributed so much to its spectacular technical achieve¬ ments. Soon after Paul’s original attempt at movie-making a traveling show came to the small town of Newman, Illinois, where he was born and living at the time. It was typical of the shows that played to hinterland audiences at the turn of the century. There were vaude¬ ville acts, song-slides, and during the in¬ termission, real, genuine two-minute movies. To Paul the movies were inspirational, and in his youthful eyes merited all the superlatives claimed for them in the lurid advertising. He made up his mind to find out what was in that portable asbestos booth. All he could get was a look, but he decided that the projector was a magic-lantern with some sort of hand-cranked clockwork. That was when the good people of Newman began to hide their clocks, and Paul’s original magiclantern underwent numerous drastic re¬ modellings. When the traveling show came back to the Newman Opera House the managerticket taker-projectionist couldn’t get rid of Paul. So he bowed to the inevitable and let the young enthusiast crank the projector. Thus, at the age of eleven, he made his debut as a projectionist. He was told that when he came to the finale, 25 feet of hand-tinted American flag floating proudly in the breeze, he must crank through, then crank it back, and then crank it back again; making seventyfive feet of film in all, and assuring a thunderous applause for the finish. That this feat could be accomplished seemed impossible to Paul. But the projectionist quickly reassured him. “A flag floating in the breeze,” he said, “is a flag floating in the breeze. No matter which way you crank it.” And sure enough, Paul found that the man was right. It was his first intimation of what could be perpetrated on a gullible public with the aid of a camera and a projector. By 1905 Paul was a showman in his own right, with what was perhaps one of the first store-shows in the State of Illinois. The occasion was a lusty, 4th of July celebration which the citizens of Newman made to last three days; and the vehicle our youthful impressario used to gather in the nickels from his fellow (Continued on Page 104) 86 March, 1946 • American Cinematographer