Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Mar 1954)

DRIVE-IN MEN PET HEAT ON STEREOPHONIC SOCND LICHTMAN REITERATES FOX FIRM POSITION ON SOUND Meeting Refuses System; Told CinemaScope Asks Two Speakers Per Car by WILFRED P. SMITH Drive-in Editor, “ Better Theatres” CINCINNATI: Problems of picture size and light for 3-D and wide screen projection at drive-ins, along with the ordinary interests of outdoor operations, were overwhelmed by the question of stereophonic sound at the convention here this week of the National Allied Drive-in Theatres Association. The meeting, which ran from Tuesday through Thursday at the Netherland Plaza Hotel, had no more than voted refusal to accept stereophonic sound as a condition of CinemaScope booking than it heard from New York of plans for two speakers per car for such productions. Opening Tuesday, the convention, which was attended by more than 700 drive-in owners and managers, promptly carried by unanimous vote a resolution directing Abram F. Myers, general counsel of Allied States, to wire the refusal to Spyros Skouras, president of 20th Century-Fox, and to ask for an immediate reply as to policy. The response came indirectly, the convention learned, in the form of a statement Wednesday by 20th-Fox, that this company’s CinemaScope productions would be available only to drive-ins equipped to supply two speakers to each car. This followed a previous report of a test by National Theatre Supply for 20thFox executives and technical men of a three-speaker setup. This took place, it was learned, at the International Projector Corporation plant in Bloomfield, N. J., the day the convention opened, with Mr. Skouras and Earl I. Sponable, 20th-Fox technical director, present. WILFRED P. SMITH, Drive-In Editor of Better Theatres. After starting as an usher and rising to manager of indoor theatres, Mr. Smith entered the drive-in held in 1933, first as a manager, and later becoming a circuit executive in charge of planning, construction and operation. He now operates his own drive-in, the Garden Auto-Torium, at Ledgewood, N. J. Al Lichtman, director of distribution for 20th Century-Fox, issued two statements in New York late Wednesday reiterating that the policy of 20th Century-Fox "has been and is to provide CinemaScope pictures with four-track, magnetic stereophonic sound only." Referring to the drive-in problem, Mr. Lichtman said: "At demonstrations held yesterday in Bloomfield, N. J., a method of sound reproduction for drive-ins was provided by the International Projector Corporation. Our representative, Alex Harrison, is now in Cincinnati authorized to tell the Allied convention of its merits and the endorsement we have given it. . . . RCA also is working on a similar system and it appears that drive-in operators will soon be provided with the necessary equipment to show CinemaScope pictures." Answering the TOA board resolution that exhibitors have the right to decide what equipment they will install, Mr. Lichtman said: "On behalf of 20th Century-Fox, I wish to make it clear that this corporation will also continue to exercise its own prerogative to produce and market its pictures in such a News of the 20th-Fox decision to require two speakers for each car in a substitute “stereophonic” system sent the convention into a furor of resentment, with the opinion angrily voiced in corridors and from the convention floor that an attempt was beingmade “to saddle drive-ins with an expense of $25,000 or more” to no advantage to them. Calling it “an insult to their intelligence” the fighting mad delegates declared they would oppose the plan to the bitter end. Jack Farr, of Houston, Texas, got the attention of the meeting with a resolution that the wire dispatched to Mr. Skouras Tuesday was too weak and that another should be forwarded in more violent language. Unanimous approval was indicated by spontaneous applause. Mr. Farr added, “Let’s tell Mr. Skouras we are not going to tear up our pavements and rewire our ramps for such an ‘asinine’ sound system for drive-ins.” [For the Bloomfield demonstration an automobile was equipped with three in-car speakers, all adjoining the front seat, two suspended from ihe op manner as will continue to serve the best interests of the public, the industry and ourselves." Mr. Lichtman continued that his company at its own expense and possibly hardship had pioneered CinemaScope to avert "the possibility of a general disaster." He cited the tremendous grosses recorded by its first CinemaScope pictures and contended that the system would continue to gain new customers at the box office. He conceded that installation of the sound equipment might be hard for small theatre owners and he said, "We have asked the manufacturers and suppliers of stereophonic sound equipment to extend long-term credit to such exhibitors and we state further that if there are any exhibitors who have been unable to get this credit when requested, let them communicate with us and we will intercede for them in a determined effort to help them to secure this credit." Mr. Lichtman concluded with the promise that the 20th-Fox sales policy would be geared to assure a profit to those theatres which play CinemaScope pictures with the proper equipment. posite doors and one at the middle of the instrument panel. For a test of three-speaker reproduction three channels for the main CinemaScope tracks were connected in the usual way. The third speaker was found, however, to add nothing discernible to the effect sought, so the system was changed to operate only the two door speakers, with the signals split as to left and right channel tracks, but each reproducing the central speaker track. This dual system was said to have made the sound seem “more realistic.”] In a brief reference to stereophonic sound, Herbert Barnett, president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, voiced the opinion that more than one speaker in a car might be of some advantage. This came in a speech prepared for the convention, not in direct reference to the Bloomfield demonstration and the 20thFox statement. Pointing out that stereophonic sound cannot be applied to a drivein as in an indoor theatre, he added, however, that a multiple in-car system can be ( Continued on page 16. column 3) MOTION PICTURE HERALD, FEBRUARY 6, 1954 13