International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1946)

SIGNO-MARKER The accurate, neat method of placing changeover signals on film is available at your dealer, or write direct to CLINT PHARE PRODUCTS 282 E. 214 ST. . EUCLID 19, OHIO Presenting: Joe Moran pORTY-THREE years ago an I. A. charter was issued to London, Ont., Canada, Local 105, and one of the names on that aging document is Joseph Maiorana. That fact in itself is sufficient justification, if any be needed, for spotlighting in this section one of that hardy band of pioneers who, ministering to the animate characters of show business, made it possible for thousands of others to earn their daily bread in a dream world of light and shadow. Yes (and we need not whisper it) this little yarn concerns a stagehand. The Joseph Maiorana of 1903 has now undergone a metamorphosis, as a bit of typical show business alchemy, into Joe Moran, and it is as such that he is known to troupers and technicians from coast to coast. Joe entered "the theatre" when he was 14 years old — surreptitiously, we suppose, in the manner of that time — and in the intervening 48 years he has stayed true to the "legit" and the I. A. except for one teeny, weeny AWOL period. The nature of this heresy? You'll never guess, so we'll tell you: he was Guy Lombardo's first trap drummer when that stellar band was in the making back in London, Ont.i Wilton Lackey, Bessie Abbott, the Grand Opera Co.. Comstock & Guest's Big Musical Show, Leave It to Jane, and Annie Russell are just so many names to today's theatregoers, but to Joe Moran they were very much alive, they were show business. These and many more engaged Joe's attention down through the years when he worked for Keith, Bennett, and Loew — with the latter being his employer for 26 years right down to today. Address: Loew's Theatre, London, Ont., Canada. The "road" is no picnic at anytime, even in the present day of streamliners and what have you. In Joe's day it was what might be inadequately termed "rugged." True, trains did have wheels and did run on tracks, but they constituted just about the only mechanical motive power extant. And those hauls from station to theatre, and back, plus the absence of the many aids to modern stagecraft, made a propertyman's life an awesome career. Joe recalls as his most difficult trek the shows that took him to the West Coast, via New York, three times within two seasons — a circuit that is a bit harder than hay even today. But it was all in the game, says Joe, and the rigors of the times were amply compensated for by a "bunch of grand people" on and off the stage. "Show people were somehow a different breed of cat back in the days when vaudeville was flourishing," reminisces Joe as he contemplates the barren stretch of stage now occupied only by a white sheet backed up by a series a mechanical gadgets called "horns." "Somehow or other show business was a career for show people in those days, and they went to it with a vigor that was spontaneous and infectious. Today it shapes up strictly as a business, with performers doing their stint 3,000 miles away before no audience save the technicians and the cold eye of the camera. Sure, the movies provide swell entertainment for millions of people, and they've contributed a lot to the common good outside that natural function; but I just can't become wholly reconciled to the substitution of a piece of celluloid for the 'real' thing. "It all comes under the heading of progress, I guess; and maybe the spread of television will induce the same nostalgia in the present film technicians. I suppose trouping is trouping whatever the medium employed." Yeah, Joe, we guess it is, and however you feel about it today, nobody can pry apart from you today, at 62, the treasure chest of glorious memories that were laid away during 48 years of service to the greatest business of them all — ■ show business. FOREST MANUFACTURING CORP. 207 RAILROAD AVE. HARRISON, N. J. C1 P.S. : Stricken from Joe's AWOL record was reference to an interlude during which he was a picture songster for silent films — admission 5c. The "film" angle is what saved him. — Ed.). NEW WESTINGHOUSE BOOKLET ON PROJECTION LAMPS Westinghouse Electric Corporation has brought out a new booklet which describes a complete line of photographic and projection lamps. The booklet is illustrated and gives practical application information concerning photoflash, photoflood, color photography motion picture production, spotlight, fluorescent, photographic enlarger, projection and sound reproducer lamps. Specification tables are shown for quick selection covering rating, bulb shape and diameter, burning position, temperature, lumens and other data, as well as list prices and ordering numbers. Copies of the booklet (A-4754). may be secured from the company's lamp division, Bloomfield, N. J. 30 INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST