The house itself is best described as an old downtown vaudeville house built during the 1920’s. It had a HUGE stage, with a grid 75’ high. Far up at the top of the balcony was a crackerbox projection booth built in the nitrate film era. The projection angle was a steep 45 degrees and the screen had to be tilted back slightly to minimize keystoning as is often the case in such situations.

Getting up to the booth was a long hike usually requiring two rest stops along the way. It was a good idea to carry extra oxygen, as you would be wheezing in a manner similar to the Coyote after an encounter with the Road Runner. Most of the seats in the balcony had not been sat in for decades and thus had a heavy coating of black dust, except for a few in the front row of the balcony, which could be used by special privileged guests occasionally. These were kept covered by some large sheets to keep off the dust. A few seats near the booth door also were kept up in good condition. This was the nicest part of the theatre, very clean and carpeted, with an immaculate rest room and a refrigerator.

Downstairs, there was no carpeting. The seats were all set in cement, and there was a large drain down in front. The octogenarian janitor’s cleaning technique was to wash the place down with a hose under the seats and then collect all the “stuff” from around the drain and place it in garbage cans.

Backstage was a dark, gloomy and dismal place, illuminated only by a 10-watt bulb in a rickety brass gooseneck fixture above the ancient light board, an affair with many resistance rheostats, switches and fuses. This light board was so old it dated back before Edison had invented electricity. Several signs were posted: HANDS OFF! DANGER!!!! DO NOT TOUCH! KEEP AWAY!! The stage lighting was just footlights and those old-fashioned square flood things hanging from long pipes suspended from the grid far above. The screen frame was suspended by steel cables and counterweighted, so in theory it could be flown if necessary. Behind the screen, on a platform with wheels, was the A2 speaker.

If one peered up into the dismal black gloom, many old ropes with frayed ends could be seen hanging. The stage was reputed to be haunted, even since the time a janitor had hanged himself from one of the many ropes wafting down from the grid and conveniently available. The concession lady had walked back to the stage to start the antediluvian air-conditioning system, and carrying her flashlight, to help light the way... and there was the old janitor, hanging from the rope, swinging baaaaaaack and forth, baaaaaaaack and forth, like a pendulum. Terrified, she ran screaming out to the lobby, the police were called. The body had to be cut down and the first show was late in getting started that day.

Ever since then, the elderly box-office lady and the elderly concession lady were very nervous about the stage, and hated to have to go back and start the air-conditioning system, which was almost an adventure in itself. Neither of them ever went back there alone again, but always together, if they went at all. As much as possible they wanted the projectionist to go back there and start it.

Pushing the buttons brought forth the most incredible screeching and shuddering of ancient gasping machinery being brought to life that anyone could conceive of. Imagine the howls of agony by a very old elephant that has just been bitten by an octopus and you might get the general idea. I’ve always regretted not stopping by there sometime with my Walkman Pro and a microphone to make a tape, this would have been a sound effect to end them all.

Very few people knew of the secret switch on the light board that could turn on a few of the stage lights without having sparks fall down out of them. The entire stage was covered with the Dust Of Centuries save for a pathway that had been worn into the dust along the trek to the theatre’s climate-control machine room. About all the stage was used for was storage, there were crates scattered about with mysterious things in them, some resembling coffins, and there was a legend that one of the crates contained a mummy, but no one knew for sure, and no one wanted to investigate. As everyone here on film-tech knows, “Never Disturb A Sleeping Mummy In A Haunted Stage!”

The Altec A2 was driven by a Century Deluxe sound system, the top of the line tube system made for them by Altec. Installed about 1952. There were two power amps with 807 tubes which could be run separately or switched in together for more power. Combined with the A2, this system could deliver stupendous sound from a film with a good sound recording, but all there was in porno films was mostly moaning and groaning. Occasionally there might be a bit of good music in a porno film, but not often. We did have an excellent record player with a Shure cartridge for intermission music and the only time the poor speaker got to show its stuff was with a good record playing. It had deep and powerful bass response and the whole place would jump.

But all the rest of the time... just gasping, moaning and groaning.
What a terrible waste, I always thought.

Years passed, and 1977 rolled around with Star Wars and the first installations of Dolby Stereo for other films. We needed speakers for other houses, and I had the thought that the A2 could be cannibalized, broken down into chunks, carried off and used to much better advantage elsewhere. “You Can’t Do That!” people said. “What are we going to use for sound in the Big House?” I proposed, “If I can come up with a suitable substitute, and if nobody can tell the difference, can we make the swap, which will save a lot of money too?” The big boss said OK.

So I trotted over to the electronic supply place and bought a 12” utility speaker and one of those wall baffles with a slanted front to mount it in, just to make things look good, although actually I didn’t think the baffle was necessary. With some help, rolled the A2 back from the screen on its platform, slid over a couple of crates, brought a rickety stool over from the light board, put it on top of the crates and set the 12” speaker on top. This stool was so old it probably would have collapsed had anyone tried to sit on it, but it was perfect to hold the speaker. I disconnected the line from the A2 and hooked it up.

The quality of the moaning and groaning was undiminished and crystal clear. None of the clientele attending the performances ever seemed to notice any difference, and no one complained. Of course a central component of my speaker theory was the people didn’t come to listen to the sound anyway, but for something else.

So everybody won. And the A2 went happily on to better things.

Fin

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It's very strange to be in an old theater like that. I can't help but think of the contrast: literally thousands of people gathering here everyday.... then decades later, hardly anyone at all. Yet the 'proof of the past' remains with worn floors and handrails from countless people passing through.

In a sort of reverse of Joe's story, a friend of mine managed an RKO theater in New Jersey in 1976. It was a real run-down 1400 seat 2ed run house. When Star Wars came out, they needed a bigger place to fit all the people comming out to see it, so they booked it into this theater. They fixed up the seats, installed 70mm, cleaned up the bathrooms. My friend said he almost had heart failure when RKO actually started fixing things he'd requested.

Bob, your retirement home idea for film-techers is most intriguing. Are you suggesting that we could all be hung from the many available ropes on the old stage?