Boxoffice (Jan-Mar 1945)

first time is inspected by hand. This way I am able to tell if the machines are scratching the film or damaging it. There have been many first, second, and thirdrun films shown here and I have found many prints that would never pass my inspection. “After having made a number of mistakes and cutting up about seventy-five feet of film during some of the exciting moments that I have worked there, I wanted to know why things like this happened. I was told several times that the film exchanges were short of help, etc., and when a film would break in the machine I tried to determine the cause, and you would be surprised to know some of the things I have found that caused film to pile up in the machine. “Once I found a piece of fine thread caught among the sprocket holes after the film had piled up in the machine. How the thread got there I don’t know. Another time, I received a Universal cartoon with at least a hundred splices in it. I began to run it one night and got as far as the title when it piled up in the machine. Before it could be stopped the heat burned a hole in the film. The cause of it was that every sprocket hole in the entire film had a small nick in it, and the edges were torn, and at this particular spot there were no sprocket holes. I patched it up and tried to run it through again only to get about 50 feet further when damaged sprocket holes again appeared. After examining it at the work bench, and making about fifteen splices in the film it still broke. It was in such a bad condition I could not run it, but tried it out again after the main show. That was one film the exchange certainly did not inspect, and it was shipped back the next day with a note in the can. “Last September my employer took me to Salt Lake City for a week’s vacation and to show me the film exchanges so I could actually see who was inspecting and handling the film, etc. I talked with a number of the employes there, asking them in what condition the film I had run was being returned in and discussed many other things with them. At one time I had received a two-reel Warners’ Featurette and had to take a hammer to get the lock open. It took three persons to open the container and I finally had to put it in a vice so my helper and I could pull the reel out with a pair of pliers. And it was no fun putting it back in the container either. “I decided to ask the fellow, who was in charge of Warner’s shipping department, why this was so. He told me that the film container was in good condition when it left there and it must have been damaged while being shipped to its destination. He told me that the film cans are just thrown in on the concrete floor like paper boxes, and after seeing a few flying in the door, banging against others, I had nothing else to say. When a large five-reel can is banged against a little one-reel can, how can a person expect them to last very long? If a shipping can is in good condition so that the reel will easily slide out. and if the reel would. have the new plastic bands on them that have recently been mentioned, then I can see no reason for the film edges being damaged during shipping except for rough handling. “I believe the exchanges should get some (Continued on following page) Lamp Capacity up to 1000 Watts For Longer Projection Distances j 3 \:ptj Another GoldE advancement in stereopticon design! 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