Theatre Catalog (1946-47)

EDITORIAL FOREWORD In any consideration of plans for the design, construction, remodeling, maintaining, or equipping of a theatre, the architect, owner, or decorator has in the past been handicapped primarily by the lack of coordinated or recorded knowledge in word and picture of the newer ideas and accepted practices established by his brother workers in neighboring or distant areas. True, there were some basic principles of fire-proof construction and patron safety which were constant through most state building codes, although the codes themselves differed as widely as the ability and educational background of the men who drew and enforced them. Also the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, the Research Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the several chapters and committees of these bodies had investigated and released for use certain ideal standards and practices relating to projection, sound, acoustics, projection rooms, stages, et cetera. And an alert trade press had encouraged design specialists, sales engineers, manufacturers, and vendors to write illustrated articles on their particular specialty for their every-fourth-week physical theatre departments. But nowhere in this theatre industry was there a single coordinated reference source where all such matters could be found reliably recorded and authoritatively indexed for the widest possible use. In the meanwhile, the entire motionpicture industry, from its studios to its theatres, had passed through the growing pains of its mushroom-like growth and had accomplished its full stature among America’s leaders. With that full stature, just as the thousands of covered wagons and gilded bathroom scenes gave way to story, skilled acting, and restrained art on the screen, the domed palaces dripping with objets d’art of the middle 1920’s gave way to functional planning, patron comforts, better projection and sound, and a less blatant and awe-in spiring, but more intimate and restful plan in the theatre. During this change from the original nickelodeon, through the “pomp and circumstance” of the big deluxer, and on into the present more solid and permanent era of the American theatre’s growth, many of the nation’s 18,000 theatres have been bent, twisted, and made to conform to the changing trends to the place where they bear little resemblance either to their predecessor or to the modern theatre they are supposed to represent. Others, due to location or economic limitations approach their old age with the same outmoded characterization that attended their birth, and date them as obsolete examples of theatre design and equipment. As a result. it has been reliably estimated that out of the 18,000-odd theatres now in operation in the United States, there are only 5,000 that are either new enough or have been so thoroughly and completely remodeled as to merit the title of modern. It is for the benefit of the ownership of the other 13,000 U. S. theatres (and untold thousands in neighboring countries and abroad), of the men who will eventually be called in to modernize or replace them, and of the companies that will create and apply the materials and equipment which they will need that these annual, crossindexed volumes of THEATRE CATALOG has been established. x * * As this Fifth Annual Edition joins its predecessors on the shelves and desks of the industry’s leading theatre executives and designers it is a pleasure to announce that, effective with the 1945 Edition, THEATRE Caratoc has been placed in the reference libraries of 37 of the leading architectural schools in the United States and Canada, where their use value has been commended and their annual continuance requested. While small in number, we feel that these 37 copies will do much to interest and influence the architectural minds of the future from which will originate the continued growth and development of the theatre industry. However, there is still another group which we hope to serve. The last war effort, with its army camps, war plants, shipbuilding yards and research centers scattered over former waste lands and farm areas, has created entirely new population calls and has implanted the need for a modern motion picture theatre in many spots that formerly possessed no such need. Due to this one factor, only the scarcity of some materials, the current rules against building, and excessive costs of construction are preventing the construction of between 5,000 and 7,000 small and medium-sized additional theatres to the native scene. Such are not replacements, but a very logical and needed expansion apace with the educational and _ living standard growth of a great nation. The answer to this need may be satisfied by either the economies of pre-fabricated arch construction and 35-mm. equipment or by the non-fireproof requirements of the 16-mm. safety film equipment. But, in either case, THEATRE CATALOG is designed to serve. It is to the builders and developers of this industry, with their tremendous potential of immediate growth, that this latest of these five editions of THEATRE CarAt.oc is respectfully presented.