Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1934)

20 Better Theatres Section December 15. 1934 SOUND EQOTPMENT How We Can Guarantee Satisfaction We offer you your money back if you are not satisfied because we know you won't ask for it! Not a single Syncrofilm owner has required us to refund. How have we achieved this unique record? By building Syncrofiinn sound equipnnent so finely that it rarely needs attention. By designing it so knowingly that it is still helping attract patronage when a less clever design would be obsolete. Most of all, Syncrofilm's unique features guarantee you satisfaction. These make Syncrofilm's sound absolutely true. Your audiences hear everything that is on the sound track, and nothing else. That makes them say they like your shows — say so with cash at the box office. Tell us what projectors you use. Then we can quote our astonishingly low price. Manufacturers of 16mm and 35mm Sound Projectors. WEBER MACHINE CORP. 59 Rutter Street, Rochester, N. Y. Export Office: 15 Laight Street, New York City Cable Address: Romos, New York Representatives in all principal cities The Low in Price . . . Hifjh in Efficiency Besteropticon Range 75 fe«t or le». CMlIng fir SOO-w*tt lamp. S" to 30" foeut. Prie* etmplete (leu lamp) only, at your dsaJer BEST DEVICES COMPANY $23 200 FILM BLDG. CLEVELAND they had cut out of two productions, one an M-G-M and one a Universal. Commenting upon the general condition of the film, he says, "So far as has to do with oil and dirt, these two were far worse than those you commented on and called the manager up to see when you were here a short while ago. They sent this picture after the letter of protest attached had been sent to the exchange manager. Do you think lacquer is necessary on the sound track of these splices?" Of the seven splices, every one was very stiff and more or less curled. Some of them were badly smeared with cement. Not one would go over an intermitten sprocket or over an aperture without making its presence visible to the audience. Several luloid at the back end of the stub. One had a smear of laquer fully ^-inch long, entirely obliterating the sound for that distance. Another one had the sound entirely obliterated for 1/16 inches. None of the rest had any lacquer at all. Two of them would certainly be heard from in the loudspeakers. Apparently most, if not all, of them were made in projection rooms. At least whatever their sins — and they are plenty —I could hardly imagine such perfectly punk splices being made by even the worst exchange inspector. Two questions arise : First, why in the name of all the gods I can think of, do even the rankest machine operators commit such outrages against their own profession, even though they do not deem it a profession ? Secondly, why in the name of all the other gods I can't think of, do exchanges permit their property to be thus outraged ? The damage is easy to detect if the film is in good condition when sent out, and really inspected when it returns. Right there, of course, is the colored gentleman in this particular woodpile, or one of them, anyhow. In entirely too many exchanges it is not nearly so much a matter of really inspecting the films and recording the various faults found, as it is one of how many reels can an inspector chase through in a day, merely being certain the film is mostly all in one piece. And that is no fabrication or flight of imagination ! I have myself watched farcical exchange "inspections" which could not possibly detect anything more than a pretty bad rip or a splice loose halfway across. The films I examined in Marion were a disgrace. They were literally smeared from end to end with oil and dirt. The exchange that sent them out was not delivering a show to the theatre. Rather it was delivering a "holy show." The manager of the Marion theatre, Mr. Track Barham, impressed me as an understanding, live-wire manager. I am sure he would put a stop to the outrage if he could, but he said, "What can I do? Exchanges are most all tarred with the same stick," or words to that effect. And the shame of it is, he is exactly 100% right insofar as concerns a large percentage of exchanges. If producers had the respect they should have for either their own production or the theatregoing public, they would cer tainly take some steps to compel exchanges to send their productions out in a condition of cleanliness permitting their presentation to audiences in good form. I am quite certain producers could force reform did they really make the attempt. Moreover, I am certain they should make the attempt. AS A WORKER SEES CONDITIONS EDMUND M. BURKE, projectionist of Fort Plain, N. Y., writes, "The co-worker with me in this theatre is the Bluebook, as it has always been. As others have so many times said, I too have been benefited and helped by your Comments on projection matters and by your editorials. Theatre patrons appreciate well projected pictures and excellence in sound; also, they appreciate clean pictures — believe it or not, the day of sexual filth is passing. "The projectionist is only able to put into the show those things contained in the films handed him. If those things are bad, his work must necessarily appear to be bad also, regardless of what his ability and desire to put on a good show may be. He is at the mercy of the bum actor, if any, whose acting he must perforce portray as bum. He is at the mercy of the exchange, whose dirty, scratched-up film (if it be so) he must accept. He is at the mercy of the manager (if he is that sort, mine is not) who won't supply those various things necessary to keep the equipment functioning up to the mark. "In a very large percentage of theatres during these times, projection equipment is not being kept up as it should be, which means that shows are not what they should be just at the time when they should be at their very best in order to coax the coins out of reluctant people — people who must and do count every nickel. "Sound service contracts are mostly a thing of the past. Because of inability to meet service charges on first-class equipments, many theatres have installed cheaper equipments. The two-man projection room too is gradually fading into the limbo of things that have been. No one is able to confidently predict what the final outcome of the New Deal will be, but there is just one right thing to do and that is look up and stick together. In this, as in other things, united we may stand, divided we certainly will fall — and great would be the fall of us, only we are going to stick together and stand." A good letter. It is quite true the twoman room is ebbing, except in a relatively few large theatres and in places where organization has for the present won the issue. And it is wholly, or at least very largely, the fault of the men that it is so. Times almost without number I have cited the utter foolishness of their attitude. Hundreds of times managers have entered projection rooms only to discover both men doing absolutely nothing that could by any stretch of imagination have anything to do with projection, one of them perhaps calmly reading a paper. I