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Topic: Pictures of the Booth at the Hiway Theater - Chicago (demolished)

Edward Jurich
Master Film Handler

Posts: 305
From: Las Vegas USA
Registered: Jul 2003

posted 10-10-2007 03:38 PM

I was browsing Cinema Treasures and found a lack of pictures for the now demolished HIWAY THEATER. I had taken a couple when I worked there in the 1960's so I put them up and posted a link. I thought some might enjoy seeing these old pictures. The HIWAY was in my old stomping grounds where I grew up in Chicago.

HIWAY THEATER - CHICAGO

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Floyd Justin Newton
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 559
From: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 10-10-2007 04:29 PM

V-E-R-Y interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[beer]

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 10-10-2007 07:11 PM

I used those same pedestals, only they had RCA badges on them. REALLY heavy! It was better to back the rods apart (to kill the arc) than to use the lever/switch, or the contacts would cook a little.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 10-11-2007 01:28 AM

Ed, thanks for the time trip back to the Golden Age of the Single Screen Theatre. The pics are great. I only wish I had taken pictures of the houses and DIs that I worked when I was younger. Who would have thought that it would all just pass away. How everyone loved the movies back then.

What kills me is not so much that the technology changed (it was always changing and each change fascinated and allured me) and not so much that exhibition has evolved -- everything changes -- but that the digevangelists don't just praise the new technology, but they have to piss on everything that went before -- 100 years of film exhibition with all those millions of feet of film and the hundreds of millions of people in those darkend theatres enjoying them, and amazingly, never complaining that there was too much "jitter" for them to enjoy what are now the great classics.

I guess we were priviledged to have worked in what clearly were "classic" booths as well.

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Floyd Justin Newton
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 559
From: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 10-11-2007 08:19 AM

You said it,Frank!

[beer]

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 10-11-2007 10:47 AM

Jitter and weave were not big problems back in the day. The screen sizes were smaller relative to the audience and there were trained professionals in the booths whose job was to keep things optimized.

Lab practices were better as well.

Not nostalgia, just facts.

Not that there were not bad cinemas or bad operators, "your results may vary" as the saying goes, but on balance the experience was better as there was more emphasis on the presentation since all the income came from only one screen.

These booth pictures were a great slice of our past life.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 10-11-2007 01:52 PM

As a general rule, in the past people demanded higher quality and people tended to get the most out of whatever technology they had. Today there is a "good enough" attitude...including from customers.

Steve

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Ben Wales
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 602
From: Southampton. England
Registered: Jul 99

posted 10-11-2007 05:47 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
As a general rule, in the past people demanded higher quality and people tended to get the most out of whatever technology they had. Today there is a "good enough" attitude...including from customers

Well said Steve!, There are still the odd Classic Movie Theatre still out there and only last weekend I was at the 3 Todd-AO Film Festival in Germany's last remaining Cinerama Theatre at Karlsruhe.

The main Screen still retains it's now Todd-AO screen and Curtains and presentation to match [thumbsup]

"Cinema Done Right"

[ 10-11-2007, 11:53 PM: Message edited by: Adam Martin ]

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Edward Jurich
Master Film Handler

Posts: 305
From: Las Vegas USA
Registered: Jul 2003

posted 10-11-2007 06:15 PM

The union operators in Chicago for the most part ran an excellent show. The HIWAY and a couple other in this small chain did have RCA tech service so the equipment was maintained. You will notice the projector in the picture looks "clean". That booth was well maintained, the operator did not just sit around between reels. He kept the machines clean. There were also spare sprockets in the booth and the operator would change them when they started getting grooved.
Lots of stories to tell about the HIWAY. The door that led down the hallway to the projection booth was always left open, or there was no door, I don't remember. The ladies room was at the top of the stairway and the booth door was about 10 feet past that. During the Beetles Hard Days Night, there were a few hundred screaming girls in the auditorium. One poor teenage girl came into the booth with a splitting headache. The operator gave her some aspirin. Another time some young woman came in and proceeded to show me and the operator pictures of her having sex with some guys. [beer]

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Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 10-12-2007 03:16 PM

The Brenograph in the pic. appears to have a hood over the lamps to pick up and exhaust the heat an whatever else came out of the lamps, can't tell whether it's connected to an exhaust duct.

The rewind in another picture is one with a door to contain a nitrate film fire if it started during rewind. Some of this type of machine started when the door was latched shut and stopped automatically when rewind was complete.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-12-2007 06:19 PM

Ed,
Having grown up in Glen Ellyn I do remember the Hiway ads in the Tribune when I was a kid.... but where was it?

quote: Steve Guttag
As a general rule, in the past people demanded higher quality and people tended to get the most out of whatever technology they had. Today there is a "good enough"
attitude...including from customers.

Ok, I give in... What on earth would make you think that people in general back then were more fussy about picture and sound? I say just the opposite.... in fact today there is a whole new generation of more technically oriented population that is in reality far more fussy then ever. Names like Dolby 5.1 surround sound and THX are dinner table names.... Back then all they had was Technicolor and B&W with mono sound... Somehow I can't see folks sitting in theater seats saying to each other "now why on earth didn't they use the RCA sound system instead of the Western Electric sound system?" or... My dear that low intensity lamp at the Rialto sure is dim compared to that new fangled H-I job over at the Bijou.

Now I 100% agree that some people but not all did more with less! That all happened during both World Wars.

Mark

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 10-12-2007 09:23 PM

Presentation quality that was the best the equipment and the technology of the day would allow was the rule, not the exception.

First run houses did not as a rule scratch a print or miss a changeover. There were the grind houses in the skid row areas that did look pretty bad but they charged much less and it was more or less known what you were going to get, smoke, stale beer smell...

(I did have one grind house operator in my local who would purposely block the fire valve rollers so they would not make a clicking noise as the crooked reel turned; it disturbed his reading).

The audience awareness of technical names is not the same as real knowledge of quality issues. I and my son once sat behind a couple after completing the installation of some Dolby upgrades in an old downtown SF first run theatre. There were all sorts of challenges, acoustical and otherwise.

The man was expounding about the THX system in this theatre and "super 70mm THX" in the house around the corner. It was all I could do to keep from tapping him on the shoulder and telling how truly full of crap he really was. Sort of like that scene in Annie Hall. Needless to say, there was no THX, and there were some really awful Frazier surrounds etc.

For me like Steve, it comes down to doing the very best you can to give the audience a great show with what you have.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-12-2007 11:04 PM

quote: Sam D. Chavez
For me like Steve, it comes down to doing the very best you can to give the audience a great show with what you have.

For any professional that goes without saying, but that also has more to do with self esteem. There were also people with out any nself esteem back then as well. I just don't agree that people demanded any higher quality in the old days nor did they know what that higher quality might even be as Steve suggests. When in fact they had lesser quality of everything or shall we say old technology. A good example of us having more today technically speaking are DVD's, CD's and high end audio not to mention a myrad of other things technology has provided us in all aspects of our lives. I look at it that advances in technology have made folks in general more aware of technical issues.... if they get it right or wrong is another story. I fear sometimes they read things that are biased or incorrectly explained and they think they understand.

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 10-14-2007 06:56 PM

Great pix, Edward! Wonderful.

I remember working like hell to get my first paying job as a projectionist. I was one month from my 16th birthday (although, I'd made my first changeover at 12, and had been running shows almost weekly since then, thanks to several projectionists I'd befriended). The standards WERE higher in those days, it was still a craft. Someone off the street could not just waltz in and be the projectionist.

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Edward Jurich
Master Film Handler

Posts: 305
From: Las Vegas USA
Registered: Jul 2003

posted 10-14-2007 07:26 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Ed,
Having grown up in Glen Ellyn I do remember the Hiway ads in the Tribune when I was a kid.... but where was it?

63rd and south Western Avenue, about 200 feet south of the intersection on the east side of Western Avenue.

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