Over forty years ago, a movie does not need to be removed in a shopping center to attract enough supporters. Like other small, private company had done before them, surviving film festival small town - and in some cases even thrived - for several decades. You can still find occasional sanding will remove independent theaters in small towns far enough away from population centers, but is more likely to find abandoned buildings with empty Marquis, who are oftenresemble the bow of old rusted ships. Some of the old theater building used as tanks for churches and small businesses, but many of these buildings bear this tight cover that someone has crossed the city easily guess the role he once played as an experience of a local center for a community . According to the nature of the community changed after the local population began to identify with the national community, television, local exhibitors increased public entertainmentthrough promotional activities grandstanding in order to revitalize not only their role in society, but often the spirit of the local community itself. These converts tend to remember not only abandoned ships, but they are shabby circus so long after the circus left town, you can bring only a few traces of its ancient role in the rites of the community, but keep the memory of the efforts of staff local to the fair the circus to keep alive in the face of cultural change that circus, and knowledgeof cultural importance in our lives.
Before that people rely so much on cars, and before them were afraid to go even a few blocks in many cities of fewer than a thousand people their own theater, the inhabitants were often shown as the home show "or" image. "The inhabitants of the western Illinois town of Carthage, for example, saw two model homes in her neighborhood business, not long after the beginning of the 20th century, but survived only one of them for long.The Woodbine Theater, named after the grape variety of scan that was on the east side of the brick building, was not the first theater in the city over three thousand people, but makes the self of its owner to withdraw the competition of enterprises.
Woodbine, the first was transformed into a theater in 1917 by Charles Arthur Garard. CA, as it was called, had already operated a dairy center for local salon and ice cream, five-hundred-cream soda, candy, five-cent rangesouffle crushed fruit and a tobacco called Garard's Royal Blue. He was an astute businessman, but he was also a dreamer, who must be kept in check by his imagination, pragmatism and the woman, even wiser. Bertha, who was often accompanied by the silent era shown in his theater with his piano, he from the sale of the theater and to drift into other projects such as growing grapefruit in Florida. CA, when she died, she took over as proprietor until his youngest son, Justin, was large enough,to help her.
Justus recalled in June 1981, as his father had no real chance for substantial income you like the theater for ten years after his conversion. "We would be out of business if it were not for the sound film," said Just, the first to understand the "very difficult". The Woodbine was the first theater in the area to show talking pictures were sound-on-disc Vitaphone and Warner Brothers' system (in black and white TV promo for the showsIn 1955 Helen of Troy and movies) on DVD and VHS copy of the film. The first sound films were "only a part-talkie. Would have some dialog, then use [character] would go into singing." Why audio equipment was expensive to install, he and a friend Oliver Kirschner built their sound system. Cast-turntable records were in an industrial plant attached sixteen miles in Keokuk, Iowa, employment, and for the unity of the projector. Since sound projectors run in 34Frames per second, revised them to accelerate their film projectors synchronized with the audio track on the disc. From time to time, the needle would jump out of the groove, and the projectionist would pick it up and put it on the right groove, looking carefully for the sound. "He recalled having been made for two or three years, until the advent of film sound-on-. If the needle jump from one pen to another, due to an excess of modulationCustomers wait patiently until the projectionist to synchronize the record with the film.
The introduction of sound-on-film that reminds us to be here was Justus of 1933, requires that he, like other exhibitors, creating a sound expensive head in the projector. Why are some films have been released, as sound-on-disk and some have been released as a sound-on-film, such as Fox Movietone system had many exhibitors to choose between one system or another. "Consequently," Justus said, "weFox did not play all the images. Paramount has done with the records and Fox with the sound-on-film. "Once installed the sound system-on-film, which no longer uses the system to record, because he never" to overcome in a position to complete the noise wavery. The music went up and down. "
CA has worked even though he died shortly after the sound-on-disc system, has seen the company to improve in his theater. Justus seen a gradual improvement "in about 1937." This increase was of patronageexample, because many people in small town in the most recent technical improvements have been involved or enrich their lives through the visions of the imagination of a genius like Orson Welles, who wanted to go out only entertainment, they would kidnap their monotonous life - and an apology outside the home. Did not expect to be surprised by the plot, or end, and not really challenged intellectually. Were more to see their favorite romantic leads upsetlatest star vehicle with the routine, as it was about the burning of Atlanta to be seen.
The fact that there was GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) became a hit in Carthage may or may not be the result of Justus own the site of a barn, where he and his friends found a display 24 sheets touting the popular classics were included. Many of the films that we had today as classics of the time, little more than run-of-the-mill programmers. CASABLANCA (1942), for example, was only a small and romanticThriller starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, stand-ins for our exotic fantasies, has attracted the attention of the saints, the patron saint of small-town personal problems, during the Nazi evil caricature planned targets for their anger. It was in many cases, what playing in local theaters was irrelevant business if a film like "The Wizard of Oz (1939), which was initially disappointing, but then noticed was a classic, or films with appropriate titles such as" Small -- TownGIRL (1936). It 'been a community activities, as important to the city, like the bands on the air on Saturday, when the white-painted wooden kiosk was moved to the center of Main Street.
Improving support an activity that Justus in his small town theater, the sponsorship of the Bank was night. Bank night was a trick, it works as follows: The cartridge may register in a great book, and every question was accompanied by a numbered tag that Justus or an employee in a large drum.The drum was taken in front of a theater after the first night of Tuesday to move as a local distributor or other third-and first floor would be a series is announced to the public. If the person that this figure SA in theater at that time, he or she would have asked for the money. "Otherwise," Justus added: "The money was in what is used as a bank and the night has been postponed until next week. We would add fifty dollars a week." Fifty dollars a night, pay little for theshows and the theater did not start making money until the jackpot around $ 200 or $ 300 reached. "Then we would have filled the theater," he said, and has "all the people who came down and played in the afternoon." Of course, it would have been swept away the weekly winners are the companies so that Justus, like other independent exhibitors, took a risk with this found.
Another lame gimmick to boost sales of tickets involved the distribution of amounts of silver in one piece at a timeuntil the owner had collected a whole series. These sets - knives, forks, spoons and ladles - were easier to manage than the courts, the meals were delivered in barrels and often arrived broken. Unlike today, the largest exhibitor, in fact, a portion of their profits from the sale of tickets. The limited offer of concession is located in small theaters - long before the day of the heaters hot dogs and cheese-covered tortilla chips - provided only a small percentage of revenue. The best year for selling ticketsJustus was during the Second World War.
While Justus was a naval officer in 1943, started a fire in the stove and ate the entire theater. His uncle, Edgar Payne important architect, drew up plans for a larger, single theater plan, and construction began immediately under the supervision Kirschner. The new building had a balcony, but contains a soundproof cry room on the second floor. The capacity of the theater with 500 seats, and which was subsequently350.
At the end of 1930, Justus renovated an older building into a theater in Dallas City, Illinois, sixteen miles north of Carthage. The theater, he recalled, "a beautiful lobby with a Walk-Up-Front Steps", which later was "illegal because it is a fire hazard." Teatro Dallas profit during the Second World War, but he added, was the first of her three small theaters to dry. "Quonset hut A theater was built in the river town of Warsaw after the Second World War . Itsurvived the great theaters of the city of Dallas, but never after Justus, money earned. A major theater circuit made him a substantial offer in early 1950 by its three theaters, but despite the gradual shift of population away from small communities, he declined. He said that he is not simply a way to exit the theater business.
Television has contributed to changes in rural communities, especially when near Quincy acquired television stations inIn early 1950, but a departure from the common experience of small town life but also to blame. Festival Justus' do not lose customers faster than many other local companies, such as furniture dealers and dried goods shops. Despite the efforts of theater exhibitors and other dealers to keep up their part and parcel of a community in decline, the transportation facilitates the migration of residents to urban areas where they are established suburban communities complete with shopping ubiquitousMalls and shopping centers. New theater in this mall appeared, had twins and then multiplexes, but usually do not offer customers a sense of participation in communal rites. Watching movies screened by automated systems, while in a foreign country was in a shoebox size space) Shopping Center Theater (in some urban areas, little in the experience of a movie with neighbors and relatives at the local level "model home.
Patrons in small communities havenot weeks to wait sixteen, or go around in town for a new film, because the small theaters have been several changes over the week. Justus recalled that his own party "run Monday-Sunday, a film, a bench at night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday and Saturday. We have to where we were open three days. First of all, one at week, was on Thursday would be Friday-Saturday-Sunday, then it was Friday, Saturday and Sunday. "Carthage The community supports the theater during the nights of the weekEarly 1950s and 1960, but the theater of Warsaw reduced to Saturday and Sunday shows, sometimes with a different movie every night. Students from local four-year liberal arts college in Carthage held Friday evening, strong participation in the Woodbine, but the high school football games seriously limited Friday visit to Warsaw.
Another factor that "it was so difficult for small towns," said Justin, that independent exhibitors, not the product before he could getplay all bigger places like Quincy, which is about forty miles south of Carthage, and Keokuk, located just across the Mississippi River on the southeastern tip of Iowa. Why an independent state, had to wait six weeks to play in, a film that was the first to be booked in Quincy, Keokuk, or in other theaters in the distance near. "If we can play the movie in the next week," Justus said: "Why do people still go home to do it to see. But we knew that did not, there arefor a while '. Thus they became the Keokuk. "
Late gimmicks used to have aroused the interest of the local community through midnight Halloween show, and four functions to perform every New Year's Eve, but the biggest event of the season at Carthage, the annual series of Ships films funded by Christmas. Before every Christmas season Filmack Justus a trailer for the merchant and a merchant of St. Louis purchased the dealer has sold a place on the trailer for $ 37.50. The dealers were awarded for tickets orThe entry shown in the theater, which was good, every time, but the Christmas film - usually the children of parents who were encouraged to Christmas shopping in town is not selected - were free to the community. The popcorn, of course, was not free. I remember filling bags full of popcorn and handed the glass against invading patrons who had paid. . . Not $ 3.00. . . but ten cents.
Clock presents Halloween horror double features were the ones whoI found that very amusing. Justus often ran double bills like the fly, and THE RETURN OF THE FLY and AIP I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) with UA THE RETURN OF DRACULA (1958). For the second, in Warsaw, Ia form of white box into a castle, which covered the exit on the left. Before departure, in accordance with enough for Halloween, a watch that was advertised a local funeral home. (I often wondered why clocks undertakers were screened in small theaters in those days. Benefactors GoodsIt is recalled that her life was ticking away and the movies were flickering on the screen?) I stretched a wire from the state to leave the projection that is immediately on the left side of the screen and put a white sheet on a rack. As a highlight of the film, I was standing on the exit door with my girlfriend and the string attached to pull the hook broke the intention of my mind to exit above the heads of the audience. The spirit islead small box, if the signal, but the hook was hung on the line and refused to stay because I had expected. I pulled the rope, and broke, so that the projectionist has a lot of hooks. When the public has come to the end of the function, I found my suspended determined deus ex machina in normal view in the middle of the auditorium. Perhaps this was the reason for the failure is limited Justus all future efforts to promote the hall and outside the theater, perhaps decided that I wouldoverly influenced by gimmicks such a master showman William Castle (for films like The House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, MR. sardonicus, murderous and thirteen ghosts). Of all the movies that can be played Castle Right, I remember only the colored glasses of the original Thirteen Ghosts as particularly effective. [For more details on promotions in the horror film can be found in companion article Black-and-White Halloween Horror Hits: I was a Teenage Witch undead, which isavailable online.]
These are just some examples of campaign machinations that were necessary to prove the sale of tickets for the second run films to enhance the independence, displays small town. Many of the older devices, such as bank-sponsored Christmas shows and night-dealer, brought in a couple of dollars extra, but it is doubtful that the later and more extravagant are affected ticket sales. BoxOffice Magazine and the evidence offered for the various film exploitationTips to combat many of which required the appointment of expensive supplies, but independent left mainly to their imagination to create a makeshift, low-cost actions.
Justus Garard * is invoked, to withdraw one of the last independent exhibitors in the field of business. The Woodbine Theater in Carthage, was sold to the nearby car dealership in 1969 and eventually turned into a showroom for new cars. The inside of his theater, as my brother and I saw that shortly afterFor this purpose, pitted, like the inside of the theater-movie small town in the beautiful and moving Italian film Cinema Paradiso (1989). The Dallas Theater and in Warsaw, although it closed long ago, yet the look of cinema, which the latter used as a warehouse for antiques, including his period of a pavilion that rises above the sidewalk . Not much has changed in the river town of Warsaw, but on Saturday evening, without playing the stage with local citizensInstruments while the children around him to jump, and without the shimmering curtain of the old cinema, Main Street is much darker, and it seems a lonely lot. Perhaps only a few independent exhibitors, as in small Midwestern towns like Carthage and Warsaw, have resorted to gimmicks to the above, and perhaps the death knell for mom-and-theater company has performed long before the enactment many promotion later, but like the sailors on ships, which of the manyTheater remaining fronts are similar, the tough independent, refused to fight.
[Note: * Justus Garard statements come from an interview with Sam Garard in June 1981 resulted in a Daytona, Florida, taken by Sam Cinema Draft house currently owned. I also thank my father, who died in May 1988 and his younger brother for the information that supports my personal memories. Some of these memories were used as background for my novels Waterfieldand closed for the season.]
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