Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1939)

Looking at Theatre Building from the Inside An interview with Charles C. Burton, architect recently become showman Mr. Burton in his studio-office in the Paramount Building in New York — and at right, a couple of Burton ideas installed in the new Paramount theatre in Miami. The screen arrangement is one. Another is the balcony soffit lighting. The latter is simply spun metal bowls with a drop panel flush with the ceiling. These are on two circuits, with four 40-watt lamps to each circuit, one for blue lamps, which are burned during the performance; the other for white light at show breaks. JUST about the first thing a person connected with the motion picture theatre business is likely to get out of Charlie Burton is a smilingly presented question to this effect: "What do you think of this scheme?" Then he'll tell you of a lighting arrangement, or a screen masking method, or an air-conditioning plan that you never heard of before. You may think, at first, that you never want to hear of it again. But you'll probably wonder later why you didn't think of that one yourself! When Charles C. Burton went to work for the Paramount Theatre Service Corporation in 1936, it was as an architect to handle design details under J. T. Knight, Jr., nationally known theatre engineer then in charge, as he had been for many years, of physical operations and maintenance for the vast Paramount organization of twelve or thirteen hundred directly owned and affiliated theatres. But since Mr. Knight's departure, early in 1938, for another field, Paramount's extensive modernization program, still in full swing, has been in Mr. Burton's hands. Going up to his office high above Times Square for a chat with him the other day, we found ideas lying all over the place, and missing few, very few, departments of the theatre. Physically, Charlie Burton is something above medium height, and sturdily built. He's almost always smiling when he talks. "Except for those architects who have been specializing in motion picture theatres for a considerable period of time, the designer not closely associated with theatre operation may not get the 'feel' of the theatre in a really practical way." This was in answer to our opening question, which referred to possible changes in his point of view as an architect now that he was "on the inside." His reply continued : "The architect must have some feeling for showmanship, must realize perfectly the underlying reason for the building he is designing and that the finished theatre should not be costly to operate. In modernizing many of our theatres, we have been able to reduce operating costs. A goodly number of the theatres built some ten or fifteen years ago must have been tough on the maintenance budget!" Modern Design Economical Then he found that modern design and materials contributed to economical operation. "Yes, definitely. But a basic factor is the detailed planning." "Incidentally," he went on, "there is a certain amount of confusion about the socalled modern style. The modernistic idea created a sort of passic>n for originality which ended only in the proliferation of a lot of absurdly complex decorative schemes. Fundamentally, beauty remains pretty much the same. A new idea, you know, may be quite as bad as an old one." This from a man to whom new ideas are as necessary as food and air ! "I'm talking about fundamentals," he explained. "Certainly we want new schemes — when they conform to basic truths and serve new purposes efficiently." Here Mr. Burton paused and his smile began to broaden. He leaned forward on the desk. "Of course, efficiency isn't always obvious. I'll tell you what I have done in some theatres to get an atmosphere of light-heartedness, which I think a theatre should invariably have. I used extremely light colors everywhere. Recently a theatre manager said to me, 'If we use that light colored material on the seats I'll never be able to keep them clean.' I replied, 'I hope you'll have to clean those seats every day, which would mean that you had people sitting in them.' The important thing to me was the cheery effect the light material gave the auditorium, and it is a small matter to have a staff man use a little bubble cleaner regularly to keep the fabric clean. Such materials are out of the question for theatres in some sections, of course, but in high-class neighborhood and suburban houses they are desirable and worth a little extra maintenance effort." We reminded him of his earlier reference to the relationship between design and operating costs. "As I pointed out, it's a matter of details, to a great extent. I'll give you an example. "I recently had a theatre in the South to remodel that was used entirely for pictures, but which had an unusually large stage. I found that the management was paying high rental for space in a building across the street for the use of an art department serving the entire circuit. I also discovered that two electricians were em 10 Better Theatres