I have a question for some older projectionists.

My mother told me that many years ago film sessions used to have an intermission and also generally had a cartoon short as well eg Bugs Bunny.

These days we just seem to get a lot of ads, movie trailers and then the main feature. Does anyone know why they stopped the cartoons and took away the intermission? [I'd love to see those old Bugs cartoons up on the big screen at our local drive-in.]

It seemed to me to be quite a good idea and an enhancement to the cinema experience.

Why have we gone backwards?

cheers Peter

 

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

The very best part were the serials which all of us kids would talk about all week. They kept you on the extreem edge of your seat.

The only intermissions that I can recall were on roadshows which would play two a day on a hard ticket basis.
 

IMO, The cartoons are gone partly due to the fact that they are so readily available on television/video, and until recently many of the cartoon prints were in VERY BAD condition, some virtually unprojectable, either because of aging film stock (fading/VS) or missing footage. Warner has made some new prints of many of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons and I am sure they are still available thru Warners...

As for the intermission: Excepting drive-ins and some discount vennues, the double-feature has gone the way of the dodo the distributors want the maximum amount of 'doors' they can get out of each title,and a double feature diminishes thise prespects.

>>How were cartoons distributed? Were they attached with the feature or did each theater set up their own ongoing cartoon deal with a distributor?<<

Usually the cartoons were available independently from the distributors, RKO, then later BV handled the Disney cartoons, Warners, then MGM, then Warners again handled the WB stuff, Universal handled the Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker/Chilly Willy, etc) product, Paramount handled Popeye and several others, Columbia handled the non-Tom & Jerry Hanna-Barbera cartoons, MGM/UA handled T&J and Pink Panther.

The cartoons were separate entities from the features, and back then were almost never an attachment to a print. That practice is fairly recent, usually to 'fill space' when you have the latest animated 'feature' that is only an hour long or less...

Aaron

 

At an indoor theatre, cartoons reduced the number of showtimes available or pushed the last feature too late, and unless the feature was very short the cartoon was often skipped.

Rural theatres often had set schedules that never varied. Even the early twins followed a similar format. I remember common showtimes were 7:00, 7:15, 9:15, 9:30, with no cleanup between shows. Concession sales were minimal.
 

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

The shipping was a ripoff. They wanted to charge us $40 for shipping from California to Montana, for ground UPS! When I said that was ridiculous, they lowered it to $15, which is still about 2X as much as it really costs, but not such a ripoff.

Print quality was OK to poor.

I would like to see WB or Disney attach classic cartoons to their "family" features. It would be a great promotional item. I'd much rather see a classic toon like "Knighty Knight Bugs" than some new effort that isn't nearly as funny. (Maybe they're worried that the classic toon will make the feature film look bad!)
 

For country houses usually the film exchange would put together approx. a 2 hour program, how many shorts thrown in depended somewhat on feature runtime.

The cartoon libraries were long ago sold to television but were still available to theatres. A double bill would nearly always be 2 features from the same studio, % about the same. Drive-ins needed a show & a half, but you could get a cheapie to fill in the middle, this need was often filled by AIP with awful lo-budget stuff, but prints could last a long time since it only ran once per nite. Some awful thing that ran only 80 min. would be perfect since if you had a good 1st-run movie from Paramount which was drawing, the AIP would have driven most of the people away by the 2nd reel and the ones waiting outside could start driving in. After the AIP another intermission and then the people would all be in place and settled for the 2nd show.

We also had a library of long 20-min. shorts which were useful on summer evenings when the sun set late. You'd start with one of these while it was still daylight, followed by a cartoon & some trailers & then finally it would be dark enough so the feature could be seen easily. This process prevented horns blowing from people wanting the show to start even tho could hardly see anything.

Today, Mike B. makes the excellent point that a classic WB cartoon would make today's feature look bad by comparison.

It's a lot of work, I had most of it done years ago, primarily from WTBS with about 125 VHS tapes full of shorts. I have about 90% of the Stooges shorts, 2/3 of the WB cartoons and most of the MGM's, assorted others like the chipmunks but usually I didn't record the junk. Quality varies from new prints to poor.

Today many of the MGM and WB shorts are seen on Turner Classic Movies channel, the Stooges are on AMC. Would like someday to have all of the Harvey singing cartoons, this is a missing hole in the library.

The way to do it today is get a tivo machine and program to catch the cartoon network when they are showing WB cartoons, for example, record to HDD at maximum quality, then transfer this to a final master on Hi-8, perhaps, with the commersh garbage perfectly snipped out.

Maybe someday I'll redo parts of it. Since the stooges on amc were all from 35mm prints I did about 25 additional tapes when they started.

From my own perspective, I find that animated cartoons do not look as good on tv as up on the big screen. Most of today's theatre patrons would probably not have seen a bugs bunny or loonie tunes cartoon projected up on the big screen.

In my humble opinion seeing these classic cartoons in their full glory (with a good print) is an experience in itself. I have not seen much animated stuff on the big screen but that which I have seen has impressed me. The larger screen gives the cartoon that much more impact.

I note that cinemas are today looking for new and innovative ways to bring in more cinema patrons. I hope that they can find a way to include these classic cartoons in their product mixes.

cheers Peter
 

In response to cartoons looking better on the big screen, that is certainly no joke. Anyone who has seen an original IB tech print of one that is 50 years old will certainly agree they are something amazing to look at!

If you could get a print of one of these cartoons does this mean you effectively get to run it in your theatre for free?
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/9659/publicdomain.html

Are prints available of these public domain cartoons?

cheers Peter

"I was looking around at old cartoons on the web and noticed an interesting fact. Quite a few of those old cartoons' copyright has expired."

Not sure how they did their research for that list of alleged "public domain", but Time-Warner (Turner) has been pretty rigorous in maintaining the copyrights on their entire film library (MGM and Warner Bros.), likewise, Disney. Universal and Paramount also know and protect the value of their collections. One group that is very involved in this area is the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I found these cartoons in 16mm (some public domain).
http://www.aarchive.co.uk/moviemem/16mm.html

Could 16mm be projected at a film theatre? Would patrons notice the difference?

cheers Peter

I have come across a lot of sites that talk about certain cartoons being in the public domain. This could be a cheap way to get some extra content for patrons (if you can get a print that is)

cheers Peter
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Highrise/3310/looneypublic.html

 

As noted in another posting, a good 16mm print can easily fill a 4 x 3 metre screen, and probably up to a 6 x 4.5 metre screen. It would be difficult to fill a really large screen with a 16mm print, as the lamp power required would be an issue with the smaller frame size.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Still. Those 'public domain' cartoons would be good for home showings. Thanks John for the wise advice.

cheers Peter

 

I did some relief work at a cinema where the manager gave you an allocation of carbons for the day, I often wondered if there would be any deduction in wages for any broken or dropped carbons. The worst billing one week was a Woody Woodpecker cartoon on with Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (absolutely true). Most split weeks were late run Fox CinemaScope pictures, 4-track magnetic/optical prints, which could only be run at that cinema in mono optical with a much higher fader setting. The only time us Brits received copies on transit spools due to magnetic stock, but that was not to last for long. With the exception of 2 projector 3D prints that were always on 5,000’ reels.

Hope that gives you some idea Peter how things were in the old days, in the UK anyway. And on top of all that you got a stage show and an organ concert in a cine-variety theatre during the 1930/40s. Programmes would often run for 4 hours. Cine-variety was revived in 1952 at the old 3,000 seater Empire Theatre Leicester Square, in London’s West End. Advertised as ‘The Showplace Of The Nation’, with continuous shows daily from 10am. 3 Super Simplex projectors, RCA Perspecta optical stereo sound (1954). Stelmar spotlights. The last film was “Ben Hur” in Ultra Super Panavision 70mm - from a new projection box constructed in the middle of the stalls, Philips DP 70 projectors. 18 months later a new Empire was built within the shell and opened in 1962.

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A certain Toronto theatre manager of one of our (now closed) downtown major houses, in the 50's was quite a showman. He insisted on playing the theatre organ himself during intermissions, dressed in suitable attire, including a cape. Naturally, no one else was permitted to touch the organ as this was his pride and joy.

The organ rose from the stage on pneumatic control from the projection room, and the projectionist had to work at getting the stage-light levels just the right colour and level for each piece the manager played, or catch proper hell, later.

The story has it that, at the conclusion of one of his performances, having returned to his office to change to managerial attire, he was notified via intercom from the booth that the pneumatic controls to lower the organ were not working.

Quite the excitable chap, he was seen running down the aisle, cape still on, and in underwear, shouting,

"My organ won't go down, my organ won't go down!".

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Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV
 

Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn were given free reign to rework any and all Warner-controlled music, and they did, and Warner paid the royalties. A typical WB cartoon might have identifiable bits from 10-15 different songs, with the copyrights all owned by WB.

So the answer is that even if a particular cartoon itself has entered the public domain, there are still most likely underlying copyrights in the musical scores that require clearance, so for all practical purposes, the cartoon might as well still be under copyright.

If the cartoon was released prior to 1922 though, then it is unambiguously in the public domain.

It's specifically about the Vogue Theatre in Louisville, but reminiscences about any theatre would be welcome--as well as pictures if anyone has any taken from about 1945-1980 or so. I'm interviewing people in Louisville who went to the Vogue and it's amazing what they remember. On lady was sitting in the theatre on Dec. 7th, 1941 when they stopped the movie to ask all newsboys to report to their stations for immediate distribution of an "Extra"--something else that's gone the way of the double feature.

Wish list of things I'd like to see talked about (and feel free to contact me privately if you'd rather):

1. Changes in theatre furnishings and appointments (the Vogue used to have plain, white acoustic tile walls and neon surrounding the square screen--they renovated at some point with gold cloth over the tile)

2. Changes in concession food (one friend of mine from Kansas swears by a candy called "Cherry Mash.")

3. Changes in equipment (we know that the Vogue changed to wide-screen in November of 1953, but can't figure out if the Simplex X/L's were installed at the same time. What about changes from mono to stereo or optical to digital formats? Was there fanfare and promotion?)

4. Unusual experiences (see "Pearl Harbor" above; we know a woman who was at the theatre opening night, Dec. 22, 1939, and, by sheer coincidence since no one knew the theatre was closing until after the show, on closing night in 1998; I spoke with a gentleman this morning who said he sat in the same seat for almost 60 years--halfway down, aisle on the left)

5. Whatever you think I need to know to write a history of going to single-screen neighborhood theatres 1945-present. Personal experiences are good. Just to prime the pump, I will tell you that I'm the only employee besides the manager who never had sex somewhere in the theatre. Pardon the self-revelation if I have shared too much.

Thanks a lot!
 

Dennis

The WB logos at the beginning & ends of Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies are under copyright.

There used to be lots of cheap videocassettes of those WB cartoons which hadn't had their copyrights renewed. The beginning & end "Looney Tunes" & "Merrie Melodies" titles were chopped off. You don't see them much anymore, as they are bootlegs. I believe Warner Brothers started to pursue folks putting them out. Even though the cartoons were no longer under copyright, there were underlying copyrights on the music, which was mentioned here.

The underlying music copyrights are also what caused the sudden disappearance of all those nasty dupey "It's A Wonderful Life" prints & transfers which used to be everywhere.

 

Copyright, trademark, and patent laws are some of the most inequitable and unfair laws in existence. The original intent has been distorted and warped to serve special interests with no thought to reasonableness or fair play. Often the true inventor of a device has to sell his rights to a major corporation just so he can get any income and not lose all profits from fighting legal challenges.

Here is another example of the patent unfairness of today's laws: If you donate blood, and a company uses that blood and extracts a particular factor, they can patent the factor as an "invention." You, as the donor, not only have no rights to the invention, but technically the company could then sue you for having the factor in your blood.

The long term intention of the biotech industry is to make all food patented and shut off access to alternatives, thus insuring a continuing income based on one of the staples of life. The move isn't unprecidented. We already pay for water in developed countries, and personal wells are outlawed in most municipalities served by any sort of water system. In some ways, I'm very glad I don't live in the future.

 

Now I feal very old.

I can remember my local Odeon showing two feature films. I think it was because the main film was so bad, (watched a lot of films when I was younger). They would put some turkey on before it so the main feture was not so bad.

Reverse psychology