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CLAYTON THEATER 493
November, 1928, averaged 14,000. The operating costs, including fixed charges, averaged about $4,500 per week. Admission prices were 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children under 12 from 2 p. m. to 4:30 p. m. except on Sundays and holidays, when the admission for adults was increased to 35 cents. Evening prices, after 4:30 p. m., were 50 cents for orchestra seats, 40 cents for balcony seats, and 75 cents for mazzanine chairs, with no reduction for children. A continuous performance was presented from 2 p. m. to 10:30 p. m., each presentation approximating three hours in length. The total attendance during the evenings of the week, excluding Sunday, could be increased by 3,000 without overtaxing the seating capacity of the house. The manager could not assure his directors, however, that a sufficient increase in gross revenue would be obtained to meet the additional expense without increasing the price of admission.
In considering the sound reproducing equipment available in the market, the manager of the Clayton Theater confined his attention to the two most widely known sound synchronizing systems: the Western Electric system and the RCA Photophone. He was of the opinion that the synchronizing devices developed by smaller companies might be discriminated against by producers of sound pictures on the grounds of poor quality reproduction. He was not interested in the non-synchronous devices.
The Western Electric system included two types of equipment : the Vitaphone and the Movietone. The former recorded sound by the disc method. It was the oldest device in the market, and a large number of pictures had been produced by the Vitaphone method. The Movietone recorded sound by photographing it on the film. The larger motion picture producers from whom the Clayton Theater purchased the greater part of its annual program used either the Vitaphone or the Movietone system. The Western Electric Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Electrical Research Products, Incorporated, distributed to theaters sound equipment whereby films recorded by either the Vitaphone or Movietone systems were reproduced. This dual purpose equipment was commonly known as Vitaphone-Movietone.
The manager of the Clayton Theater was informed that the Western Electric Company was developing a more technically perfect device which offered better tonal qualities in sound reproduction and which would replace the existing device within