The Film Daily (1941)

EQUIPMENT NEWS 3fe Friday, March 14, 19' National Boom Grips The Equipment Field (Continued from Page 1) was announced this week by the company at $1,675,772, virtually $300,000 more than in '39. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., among whose products extensively used by the motion picture industry are fronts for theaters, this week reported their '40 earnings at $13,793,937, a gain of more than $3,000,000 over '39, with Clarence M. Brown, board chairman, asserting that the organization will enjoy a satisfactory volume of business this year, and that more substantial gains will be felt as result of the defense program. Large Profits Made Celetex Corp. and its subsidiaries, makers of materials essential to and widely employed by film theaters, also stated this week that for the quarter ended Jan. 31, 1941, net profit was $456,865, whereas in the corresponding quarter a year ago a loss of $194,865 resulted. Johns-Manville Corp., whose roofing and other materials are employed extensively in theater construction, reported this week a 1940 net of $5,882,071 compared with $4,127,691. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., an appreciable amount of whose structural steel goes into pic stands, reported a 1940 net of $10,277,029 as against only $3,188,944 in 1939. Western Electric and subsidiaries, among them Erpi, said this week that '40 earnings were $32,787,030, which is almost double the '39 figure. Wall St. sources assert that a definite boom is on in the air conditioning field, with theaters contributing considerably to registered gains. Manufacturers of film projectors, screens, chairs and carpet are also enjoying substantially increased business. United States Rubber Co. also reports huge upswing, and, with it, an ever-growing demand for theater seat materials. Gains Notable in '41 Compilation of current figures on new theater construction and remodeling since the present year's outset shows that several territories in the nation have now joined the boom which a few months ago was the particular province of the Florida area and the Greater Detroit sector. Now the Cincinnati territory is filled with theater projects, as is Alabama; New England, notably the New Haven and adjacent sections; Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, with the West Coast also reporting extensive operations. Reports from the MidWest go so far as to describe the theater building and remodeling activities as "a gold rush," and cite the headlong surge of circuits and individual film theater interests "to get in on the ground floor," as communities near and adjacent to Army camps are growing from the status of small and obscure villages to cities of considerable size, nearly all of whose motion picture exhibition facilities are wholly inadequate. OF mATCRIAL HITCREST • • • RICHARD N. GREENWOOD, prexy of Heywood-Wakefield Co manufacturers of pic theater chairs announced on the week-end five per cent wage increases for company's employes declaring that the blanket raise was made possible because of improved biz conditions Yeah, but what wasn't declared is something we feel free to say namely, that Mister Greenwood and his fellow execs up in Gardner, Mass have always believed that their workers should have maximum possible comforts as well as those who nestle into the chairs the workers make It's one of the many reasons why the Heywood-Wakefield outfit is so successful T T T • • • PHIL SCHWARTZ of Bridgeport was up in Boston t'other day conferring with theater supply orgs, preliminary to improving and greatly enlarging the Parkway Theater in his home town ... • There's a change of management at the lone Theater, lone, Wash., with Harry Smith taking over from G. E. Widger, who operated the stand for 25 long years, — and, we hear, house'll be closed for a spell for installating of new equipment ... • L Wagner of Wagner Sign Co. is installing new signs on the Grand Theater in Detroit's Highland Park sector for the Brown Circuit, and also on two new houses, — the Dearborn, in Dearborn, for Wisper & Wetsman, and the Mercury, Detroit, for Saul Sloan . . . • This might be called "riding on 'foam' ": Directors of U. S. Rubber Co. have declared a dividend of 50 cents on the common stock, marking resumption of payments after a lapse of 20 years, and bringing from Prexy F. B. Davis, Jr., the statement that company's plants are working at capacity on the largest backlog of orders in its 50-year history T T ▼ • • • JULIUS FRANKENBURG, chief engineer, and H. E. Eller of the Radiant Screen Corp have returned to Chicago from a threeweeks' trip to Hollywood where they made many demonstrations before interested groups of company's latest type of Radiant Screen Vender Plans are being made to bring out a streamlined machine and production'U get under way at the Chi. plant as soon as necessary tooling can be completed ... L. Reinheimer has renewed his agreements with Altec for sound and repair-replacement service and booth parts service for his Roseland, Parkway and State (South) Theaters in Chi plus the Dupage, Lombard, 111., and the. Calumet, Hammond, Ind. — and who negotiated for Altec 'cept R. C. Gray! T T T • • • THAT recently emitted cheer you heard from Rochester was the victory shout o' the Eastman Kodak Camera Works bowlers who took the five-man event and thus regained possession of the Love joy Trophy In the inter-plant competition, Camera Works rolled 2,865 Kodak Park femme bowlers won the Sulzman Trophy with Hawkey e in the second slot ... • When RKO Radio's Barret McCormick moved his ad-publicity -exploitation cohorts into their new 10th Floor quarters in the RKO Building they found themselves occupying 12,000 sq. ft. of ultra-modern space representing a major remodeling h.o. job One of the features of the new main reception room is the symbolic photographic mural T T T • • • GUS HOENSCHEIDT has arrived in New Braunfels. Tex., from Hobart, Okla., to replace Jack Pickens as mgr. of the Rialto Jack has moved over to Uvalde, Tex., where he'll take over management of his own theater ... • U. S. Air Conditioning is set to send to theatermen the latest literature on its Refrigerated Kooler-Aire "all in one package" unit Booklet is titled: "Your Best Air Defense" . . . Kodachrome to Fore As New Studio Bows fiit :ate Wl lit (Continued from Page 1) major studios via making scree! tests for new talent at a cost f{ below present expenditures, asserjx that, with Kodachrome film rea'" true color perfection, vast ao. tages to the industry will accru Production of 35 mm. is also provide for in the studio's facilities, with tr aim of having indie producers mak certain shorts there in their entirety — photography, recording, pre r< cording, transcriptions and process ing. Over 10,000 feet of the new higl density rigid Fibreglas mats ha\ been used in sound-proofing the sti dio. SMPE Shows Interest Only about a week before the oper ing, which was attended by prom: nent technicians, producers, writers directors, and film players, SMP! scientists stressed the importance c 16 mm.'s possibilities at their meet ing in the Samuel Goldwyn studios ^ Checkup of several major studio! St just prior to that meeting showel;Br that all test shots of locations an; |.< most of costume tests during produc « tion preparations for practically al .mis pictures, — regardless of whether o not they were to be later filmed ii color or black and white, — were be ing made via the 16 mm. Kodachrom method. One studio executive state* > jjj that the miniature film saved as higl™ as $8,000 per picture on pre-produc tion tests. At the SMPE's Pacific Coast Sec tion huddle, J. G. Frayne, chairmai of the section, turned the prograni over to Emery Huse. William Muel ler, head of the membership commit tee, reported 31 new members hac been added to the Section rolls sinc< Jan. 1. Among the 150 attending were: W. V. Wolfe, Barton Kreuzer Carroll Dunning, Alan Gundelfinger Sid Solow, A. Lamb, C. R. Sawyer Gordon Sawyer, Roy S. Leonard Charles Handley, H. W. Remerscheidj j Gordon Chambers, Michael Leshing ' William Mueller, K. F. Morgan, A M. Bolt and Irvin Willat. ■■is Itl ■ii? UTS Reports Sales Tampa, Fla.— United Theater Supply Co. here has installed General chairs, Da-Lite screen, and Temperate Aire ventilating equipment in Spark's Beach Theater, St. Peters burg; Da-Lite screen and Ashcraft Cyclex projection lamps in Mary Hayes Davis' Dixie, Clewiston; Gen eral chairs and Ashcraft Cyclex projection lamps in A. Dobrow's Prince, Pahokee; Bigelow Sanford carpet, General chairs, Da-Lite screen and Strong projection lamps in B. E. Gore's State, Tampa; and a Newman Ticket Chopper in the Wometco circuit's Lincoln in Miami Beach. ait Delphia Orders Screen Chittenango, N. Y. — A new Walker plastic molded screen has been installed in the Delphia Theater by the Albany office of National Theater Supply Co.